NickM

This is very demonstrably false, both theoretically and in the real world. Ranked choice voting only solves the spoiler effect in cases where the spoiler candidate has a small enough amount of support as to be rendered non-competitive, but if you have more than two candidates who are competitive then the spoiler effect comes back in full force. This is not just theoretical; it happened in the Burlington 2009 mayoral election, and fallout from that election led to ranked choice being repealed shortly afterward.

So, not only does ranked choice still incentive strategic voting sometimes, but it does it in a way that is harder to see and understand. There are other non-ranked voting systems like approval voting and score voting that are much simpler and better in this respect.

Ranked choice also has other drawbacks - like violating the monotonicity criterion - as well as more practical issues like making it impossible to distribute the counting process across precincts.

No there are no real valid arguments against ranked choice voting.

This is also quite incorrect. Our current system of first-past-the-post is bad, yeah, but there are plenty of valid arguments against ranked choice and - in my opinion - there are much better systems we could choose instead.

Back in the old days when I lived far away from a service center, they once drove hundreds of miles with a flatbed to come pick up my car, and dropped off a free loaner at my house while my car was in the shop, then came back and returned my car and picked up the loaner a few days later. (The loaner was also a nicer Tesla than the one I owned.) They really do go above and beyond to resolve issues as pleasantly and conveniently as possible.

Oh yeah this part is for sure true. I remember years ago a Model S got in an accident and had a small battery fire, and it was all over the news. Meanwhile Ford had a major recall going on for cars literally spontaneously catching on fire while driving, and nobody paid any attention.

But the thing is, I've never had any issues that rendered the car undriveable or unsafe, and service has always been a joy to work with. Every problem I've encountered has been addressed quickly and effectively with no hassle or charge. So, I'm willing to forgive some of the rough edges, and I suspect this is why they get such good customer satisfaction ratings despite the relatively high number of issues.

That seems like a pretty radical thing to say. Sure, some people go into debt for degrees with questionable job prospects, but you really believe that the world would be better off if nobody went to college?

I fail to see how that is a conspiracy theory at all, much less one on par with believing the earth is flat.

Whoa, wait a second...is this saying that roads which look straight on a map are actually not straight, in the sense that they're not actually following the shortest path between two points?

It's slightly appalling to me to think that people all over the world are building crooked roads so that they appear straight on a Mercator map, and then using Mercator maps so that existing roads continue to look straight.

I guess it probably doesn't make much difference on a local level, where the distances are relatively short, but there's still something a little bit horrifying about it, if I'm understanding all of this correctly.

Well, not to nitpick, but people with high muscle mass can easily end up with an "obese" BMI even if they have very low body fat. And it also doesn't take very many hours of working out per week to get jacked if you're doing heavy weightlifting and supplementing.

No idea if such people are common enough to skew the results of this study significantly, but it still makes me wonder a bit.

Or maybe because there's no inherent reason why the internet couldn't be made more energy efficient, also unlike Bitcoin.

I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, but it really feels like you're just being deliberately obtuse. This is a discussion about the practical real-world economics of the situation, not a treatise on the nature of physical reality.

I did originally hope that my leaving FB might inspire others to leave too and have some kind of ripple effect, but over a year has passed and nobody else I know has followed my lead, and it’s really hard to imagine that the tiny difference in ad revenue from my absence affects the decision making at a company like that in any way whatsoever.

Voting with your wallet is another possible approach, but that only works if the lost revenue from all the people who care enough to leave can offset the extra profits FB is making by being evil.

FWIW I deactivated my account over a year ago and never looked back, but I did that more out of concern for my own mental health than anything else, and I'm under no illusions that my solitary gesture will make much difference in the grand scheme of things.

I don't have an easy answer, and I can certainly imagine how difficult it would be to get up and go to work for an employer every day that you see as evil, so I don't judge the author of this post for leaving...but I think it is still a question worth contemplating. I'd love to hear what other peoples' thoughts are on this.

The Ioniq has substantially less range than the Model 3, and is a much smaller car. If the Model 3 still gets slightly better MPGe despite those differences, I'd say Tesla still has a pretty significant efficiency advantage in this comparison.

I suspect Tesla knew this would probably happen, but IIRC there was a rule for a while with the California ZEV credit program where manufacturers qualified for extra credits if a vehicle could be "refueled" in under five minutes. Tesla set up a single swapping station to prove it could be done and therefore qualify for the extra credits, but it was always kind of inconvenient and expensive and very few people actually used it.

In the long term, I would assume these will not give you anywhere near as good returns as other higher-risk investment options, but they might work for you depending on what you're looking for.

Not that making a direct profit was even the goal of the bailouts, but it sure is nice that we made money off of them on top of saving the economy.

https://money.usnews.com/investing/articles/2017-01-19/finan...