The Ersatz Thing

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Remember when Coke used to style itself the Real Thing? One wonders how Toyota will market the ersatz “clutch” and “shifting” it is apparently considering simulating in some of its pending EVs.

These don’t even have transmissions – the intermediary between the engine and the drive wheels, in non-electric vehicles. So there’s no shifting – because there are no gears to shift through. The electric motors turn the wheels, directly. Faster or slower. One speed – so to speak – fits all. And the motor stops running when the car is not moving – so there’s no mechanical need for a clutch to disengage it from the transmission that isn’t there, in order to keep it from “stalling.”

Maybe they’ll figure out a way to simulate that as well.

But it’s all a simulation. Not the Real Thing.

Does it not beg an interesting question?

If operating a clutch and shifting a transmission is something buyers want enough for Toyota to fake them, why not just give them the Real Thing? Well, for the same reason that – in almost every member state of that which used to be America – one can only legally buy fireworks that neither fly nor explode but only fizzle, pathetically. But the wrappers they’re packaged in give the impression they are fireworks. There are screened-on images of starburst explosions and such that create a false impression about what’s inside the wrapper.

Not unlike pushing a “clutch” that doesn’t connect (or disconnect) anything. Accompanied by artificially generated sounds of that which is not happening. It is the Matrix. The ultimate expression of the Not Real Thing. The movie – which came out way back in the ’90s, when the early 2020s were still far away and the stuff of science fiction – was about a future in which people lived ersatz lives – unaware they were really plugged into a Matrix of AI-generated unreality. One of the characters – who escapes the Matrix – asks the AI to return him to his ersatz life and the convincing but entirely unreal juicy steak he would rather pretend to eat than live in the real world.

Of course, Toyota is not to blame for this shifting into unreality. It is trying to do what it can about reality. The reality of a matrix that is very real, controlled – not by AI that regards human beings as an invasive species analogous to Cane Toads or Japanese Stink Beetles – but human beings who regard themselves as the masters of humanity, the great bulk of which they regard as an invasive species. Read what some of them have said about us.

Prince Phillip, for instance.

The father of the current British King – and what office better conveys the true expression of their regard for us? – said: “In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, to contribute something to solving overpopulation.” The prince is dead now. Bu his death wish – directed toward us – lives on in the higher strata of what is styled “the elite,” by which is meant those who are rich almost beyond imagining and also contemptuous of everyone else, who isn’t. These “elites,” as they are styled, regard us as in the way, cluttering up their planet.

Which they want to “save” – for themselves.

Ingeniously, they have made great strides getting us to help them do just that. By convincing so many that the planet is in need of “saving” – without questioning for whom? Even when the answer to that question is as obvious as the contrails of John Kerry’s private jet. Or Barry Obama’s Martha’s Vineyard estate, mere feet above the supposedly, imminently rising sea. Where thousands of gallons of liquid hydrocarbon fuels are stored – presumably, to be burned.

But they insist the “climate” is “changing” – and that if we do not change into a more “sustainable” mode of existence, dire consequences will ensue. Italicized “we” to make a point about who gets to “change.”

It won’t be them.

We, on the other hand, are to console ourselves with saccharine memories of what reality used to be like, for us. Of juicy steaks – and real cars, with engines connected to transmissions that we shifted for ourselves.

. . .

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75 COMMENTS

  1. Electric vehicles can be considered auxiliary inputs for transportation.

    Auxiliary inputs in agriculture are pesticides, herbicides, all fuels, chemical fertilizers, anhydrous, all chemical treatment of seed stocks, can’t have cutworms eating corn seed before it emerges as a corn plant.

    Even organically derived pesticides are to be considered auxiliary inputs.

    Hell’s bells, electricity has to be considered an auxiliary input. Go without for a week, you’ll be back in 1932 CE.

    Native Americans grew corn, potatoes, sunflowers, and foraged for everything. Chicago is the Native American word for ‘home of the onions’, nobody has a monopoly on plants.

    Agriculture existed long before auxiliary inputs became the norm.

    No hydrocarbons, no machinery, urban dwellers will begin to die off in droves.

    Agriculture is the foundation of every civilization.

    Sort of important knowledge even in the post-techno age.

    Your stomach rules, your brain is useless with no food in your sto-match.

    • “Agriculture is the foundation of every civilization.”
      And no civilization ever outlived its top soil. We are mining ours, for ethanol.

  2. The English monarchy under Queen Elizabeth went from a major world power to a tiny foreigner filled nation that has lost its culture along with its power. It’s hard to imagine a “Queen” doing more to wreck the inheritance of her ancestors than that silly ditz. That she berthed even more useless offspring to continue the demise of her culture is fitting.

    In a decade or two a Shah will ascend the throne level the empty churches and put up temples. They may run the wretched place better when it’s all said and done.

    • Indeed, Cashy –

      Westminster will be razed as the Caliphate rises. Britain is – and has not been – the nation of “Longshanks” for a very long time, indeed.

    • >level the empty churches and put up temples

      London…the new Jerusalem. (?)
      Solomon’s Temple on the Thames!
      Hard by, the Dome of the Rock of Gibraltar (Jabel-al-Tariq, “Tariq’s mountain”).
      Let the games begin. Morituri te salutant.

  3. Why, Mr. Peters?, Why, why? Why do you do it? Why, why get up? Why keep fighting?. Do you believe you’re fighting…for something?! For more than your survival?. Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know?! Is it freedom? Or truth? Perhaps peace? Could it be for love?

    Illusions, Mr. Peters. Vagaries of perception.

    Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose.

    And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself, although… Only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love.

    You must be able to see it, Mr. Peters. You must know it by now; you can’t win. It’s pointless to keep fighting.

    Why, Mr. Peters? Why? Why do you persist?!

      • Why do we persist? Because there are fates worse than death. Been there, done that, not going there again. And being subjected and dehumanized, and being forced to exist as slaves under this system, and these evil people is far worse. Better to go out fighting tooth-and-nail for freedom and the right to be left alone. Even if the worst happens, and we end up in chains, we can proudly tell our children & grandchildren we fought to the end. And if we fight to the death, so be it. Well, that is my stance, because I have nothing left to lose.

        • Many more have died under tyranny than have resisting it.
          “Give me liberty or give me death” is not just a political slogan. It’s instruction for survival.

          • Speaking of the proper attitude:
            “London man removes ‘carbon surveillance’ cameras”

            https://tinyurl.com/2p7u8ptf

            “In his video, the man who removed dozens of cameras explained how to do so using a simple technique, saying that while it takes the city half a day to install one camera, it takes him less than a minute to remove it.”
            So not only are there way more of us than them, but some of the atrocities that take them a long time to plan and implement can be undone in minutes when people have had enough.

            • Roland,

              Wow. Of course, my immediate question is “WTF is a ‘carbon surveillance camera’?!”, but I guess I’ll find out.

              Oh, what atrocities have we in this modern feudalism…

              • Pretty epic work.

                “Are you watching globalist scum? The fight back is starting!! Up your’s”

                Up your’s, indeed. I’m so glad I fled the city when I did. How long until Phx follows suit with this sort of thing? What a horrorshow.

              • It appears they are to enforce the Ultra Low Emission Zones where drivers of ICE vehicles are not allowed without paying a fee. I watch anti-EV videos by the MacMaster occasionally, and he mentions them often.

    • Hi Gwyneth,

      I think this is very much the idea. To end the emotional attachment that made a car something more than an appliance. So as to make them easier to just throw away. To make them easier to not give a damn about.

  4. A fake pope
    A fake president
    Fake beer
    Fake women
    Fake videos
    Fake holidays
    Fake racial incidents while ignoring real ones that don’t fit the “narrative.”
    And now, a fake manual transmission. EVs don’t even need TRANSMISSIONS.
    Par for the course of degeneracy in our late-stage empire.

  5. Okay, so Toyota created one stupid design. Give them a break. They build reliable, inexpensive cars (I’m on my second Toyota Camry, and I was a Ford employee for 27 years, but got tired of my Ford’s breaking down). The Toyota hybrids are good values.

    And don’t count Toyota out in the race for longer range solid state batteries. I know better batteries are always coming in “ten years”, but I think they are only five years away at Toyota.

    https://www.zerohedge.Com/markets/toyota-claims-solid-state-battery-breakthrough-will-give-evs-932-mile-range

    • Richard,

      “Give them a break.” i.e., ignore something ridiculous or pernicious. Why? The more ridiculous/pernicious things are ignored, the more they propagate.

      Like wearing a Face Diaper, for instance.

        • Good morning, Mister!

          Indeed he is. Like the original, Richard has a peculiarly annoying habit of wheedling around facts, accompanied by a cloying superciliousness that makes my teethe ache!

      • This is a proposed option not for sale. You have not tested it, because it is not yet available. Maybe people would buy it. I don’t know why they would but it must have been market tested before the engineers started work.

        But just the idea of a silly option is enough for you to attack Toyota, which makes America’s best selling car, the Camry, and many reliable hybrids. Nothing good to say about Toyota? But they propose a stupid option, which may never be for sale, and that’s enough for an entire attack article? Fair and balanced this article was not.

        • There is no such thing as fair and balanced. Sorry, that is a foolish concept to keep people who do not think critically under control. If one is in the center of an artificial construct such as the Hagelian Dielectric it does not mean that they aren’t biased. We are all biased of course. When we try to be ‘fair’
          to concepts such as anthropogenic CO2 induced climate change we are not being fair and balanced but being foolish. The only way to discuss the subject would commonly be labeled as biased. If one side of the argument is a provably false set of cult beliefs base on alleged consensus or ‘the science’ then being completely opposed to the concept does not suggest bias or being unfair and unbalanced but that one is aware of reality and the ever changing star not far from our planet which we call the Sun. Those who love to be fair and balanced on that subject give too much credibility to the false concept.

          Secondly I am generally fan of Toyota vehicles and have owned a few which I loved. That doesn’t meant that I won’t criticize a fake clutch in an electric car. it doesn’t mean I won’t mock them for rusty frame issues or broken leaf springs. Leaf springs were essentially perfected by the time of horse and buggies, yet Toyota produced faulty ones only a few years ago. Let’s not forget the 3.0 V6 in the Pickups and 4 Runners which got the mpg of a v8 and had the power of a 4 cylinder.

          I like Mercedes Benz but I hate that they ran a commercial on tv claiming to have invented the automobile. Lexus makes a good product but its advertising is pretentious and irritating. I have no brand loyalty, but I do have loyalty to certain designs and features. I am sure that you do too.

    • Eric & Richard,
      What is your assessment of Toyota’s continued production of reliable, affordable ICE and hybrid vehicles going forward now that the old chief is gone? I haven’t followed it closely, but the chatter about stupendous new batteries and new BEV models is worrisome.

      • Hi Roland,

        I can tell you – knowing people within Toyota – that they are doing all they can to avoid full-on “electrification,” for reasons that are obvious to any thinking person. They know battery-powered cars are not something most people want and are something most people can’t afford. They also know they want to stay in business – and have jobs. Akio Toyoda also genuinely likes cars and has a strong sense of familial duty to the company his grandfather founded. But they are under tremendous pressure to go along to get along.

        I know people at GM who are of the same mind, by the way. The problem is someone in a high position has to step up and say NO to this. And explain why. These ESG/DIE-pushers are like child molesters in that they depend for their success upon the silent complicity of their victims.

    • Richard, are you a simple heckler, or are you meant to be taken seriously? Most of your comments are trite gainsaying of our host’s point of view.

    • “They build reliable, inexpensive cars”
      Which does not include any EV.
      And with all the regulation, probably not many ICVs for long.

  6. There’s no reason an electric motor can’t have a real clutch and a transmission. Although it would cost money where faking it costs very little.
    There may even be some gains by using a transmission to keep the electric motors in a narrower RPM band.

    • Hi Brent,

      Right – but why bother? What would be the reason for it, I mean? The motor doesn’t need to be decoupled, so there’s no need for a clutch (or a fluid coupling; i.e., a torque converter). Thus, it would be a gimmick rather than something functionally necessary.

    • Electric cars provide a consistent amount of power (torque) even at low RPM, so they don’t need a clutch.

      However when EP is finally forced to buy an EV, maybe at gunpoint, they ought to have an optional Hurst shifter and fake clutch option, both attached to stiff springs and nothing else, so the driver can pretend to change gears just like in the old days.

      • Richard,

        First of all, I won’t be forced to buy an EV. Just as I was not forced to wear a Face Diaper (as you chose to do). The government has the power to take things away, certainly. But we have the power to say No. The tragedy is not enough people are willing to exercise this power. Whether for reasons of cowardice, convenience or complicity.

      • You really are a sadistic little bastard, aren’t you? You really get off on the idea of Eric being forced to bend the knee to tyranny at gunpoint. I bet the very thought of Eric being humiliated by gun toting bureaucrats and forced to submit to their will really brings a sick little smile to your face.

        • Great point. This kind of vicarious retributive thrill is characteristic of statists of all stripes. At this point in my life, I’d swear it’s the main attraction to such beliefs.

          • Hi Funk,

            I agree. I would bet Richard was – is – one of those people who took sadistic delight in “mask” mandates. He wore one, so you should be forced to wear one. He likes to pretend he’s “just kidding” when he posts an obnoxious little jibe. But we know he isn’t.

        • As a libertarian since 1973, I do not want anyone forced to do anything. My blog recommends articles every day that are critical of electric vehicles, climate change hysteria and Covid vaccines. I even recommended an anti-mask article from the UK this morning that EP would love.

          https://expose-news.com/2023/06/20/only-idiots-are-still-wearing-face-masks/

          Since masks do nothing except fill one’s lungs with microparticles of polyester, I only wore one when it was demanded for the few minutes of close contact with a doctor, for my needed medical care.

          That was required in Michigan until April 3, 2023. After which I never wear a mask at all because wearing one makes people look stupid, as in the article above.

          The medical care I needed will add many years to my life, more years to give EP a hard time. Wearing a mask for 15 minutes once a month in prior years was a small price to pay for that needed medical care.

          While EP worries about masks, I worry about our nation morphing towards fascism.

          The Covid lockdowns and Covid vaccines were much worse than the masks. No one I know got a Covid vaccine to stop wearing masks. They got the mandatory shots to keep their jobs, or for travel. Information critical of lockdowns, Covid shots and masks was censored and hard to find. Mandatory lockdowns, shots, masks, and censorship of contrary information, is fascism.

          If everyone immediately stopped wearing masks — and most people already have — we will still have the much more serious problem of our government turning fascist.

          • Dick writes (again):

            “The Covid lockdowns and Covid vaccines were much worse than the masks.” And the “masks” is what gave steam to the lockdowns and the “vaccines” were used to release that steam. You seem congenitally unable to grasp this simple, self-evident relationship.

            The nation is not “morphing toward fascism.” It is “morphing” – as you put it – toward communism.

      • The only thing anyone can be FORCED to do is live until they die. I made that argument many years ago against a proponent of conscription. In response to my statement I would NOT be conscripted, he said “we will force you”.
        No, you won’t.

    • Last Thursday, Doug Casey commented at Lew Rockwell’s site that “Our holidays, until recently, were still about shared values and shared traditions.”

      Juneteemf was never a national tradition. As a kid, I saw it celebrated with firecrackers in the black part of town, a hundred miles north of Galveston. That’s where the fake news of slave liberation arrived, announced by fedgov troops who thought they were enforcing Ape Lincoln’s Biden-style Emancipation Proclamation of 1863.

      But as best I know, Juneteemf was only ever a local East Texas tradition, till “Biden” unaccountably decided to blow it up, retroactively, into an epic event.

      No doubt folks in the Big Thicket were taken aback by their sudden fame. But anything is possible now, my brothers. National Loggers Day on October 12th could easily replace Columbus Day … though one wonders how diverse loggers really are. :-0

      Actually, the Stonewall riot in Greenwich Village — June 28, 1969 — is a likelier candidate for our next ersatz holiday. “This is a historic administration. I’m a historic figure and I certainly walk in history every day. But this is also a historic making administration because of this president.” — Karine Jean-Pierre, White House spokesdyke

      Yes, Karine. I happen to be the living reincarnation of Napoleon — but much taller and better looking than he was. 🙂

    • The whole point is to make virtue signally whites look ridiculous. Humiliate them by speaking gibberish. Very commie struggle session. On a website for my local area they had a piece about doofy-doof-teenth with Tshombe Magushu or something singing some “black national anthem” among other racist drivel. There was a picture. Other than the “performers” there were NO blacks. 50-75 while guilt cultists drooling over every mispronounced syllable. Blacks know this shit is as fugazy as Kwaanzaa. Known as not being able to even spell dates or words correctly. How fucking condescending.

      BTW, watched a vid of Houston rapper “Big Pokey” die “suddenly” onstage at 45 yo at a celebration of the date, from the “safe and effective”, I’m sure. I’ll bet Brandon chuckled. To quote Neil Young from back in the day, “they give you this but you pay for that.”

  7. The other problem with trying to control population growth is that you never know who’s going to give birth to the next Einstein. For that matter, who might be the next Einstein. But the child doesn’t even need to be a genius, just someone who is willing to put in the effort. Steve Jobs comes to mind, an adopted Armenian college dropout who was able to compete and often beat Bill Gates, the whitest white kid in Seattle. Because he was born instead of aborted we have attractive and interesting gadgets, instead of green screens and cryptic error codes. Both were born during relative peaceful and plentiful times in history, when there was a baby boom.

    I believe this is why the eugenicists at the top of society don’t want blacks and other minorities to reproduce. The people in control of society see clearly that their children aren’t anything to write home about (see King Charles, Hunter Biden and Chelsa Clinton) and left to their own devices will probably end up trading away the familiy fortune for magic beans peddled by some low-class shyster. The rest of it is just classic divide and conquer strategy, along with a healthy dose of misdirection.

    The end goal is to somehow create a super race through the science dujour, genetic manipulation and AI. The AI crunches the numbers (it’s already been used to figure out protein folding in celluar structures), the elites get to clone themselves without all the pesky random breeding stuff and alimony payments. When the Nazis did it, they were monsters. When Bill Gates does it, he’s trying to save the world, or at least save Rory from having to compete with the next Steve Jobs -Or the north African equivalent.

    • The eugenicists have also engineered society to ‘prove’ their ideas. The schooling system is designed to intellectually damage the middle and lower classes. Welfare is designed to hurt the lower classes. Then there are cultural aspects that should have died out but are subsidized and encouraged to remain harmful.

      Teachers like John Taylor Gatto who figure things out often face serious institutional problems. He taught the poorest kids in NYC and got wealthy private school results for pennies.

      Also Nazi eugenics was their version of american eugenics. Hitler borrowed extensively from US history. We’re not supposed to realize this. Otherwise we see where it all leads.

      • The anexation to the east was to give Germans “breathing room,” basically to take away productive farmland from the Slav and Polish people because Germans would better manage the resource, at least that was the excuse.

  8. “The Ersatz Thing” — eric

    Just wait for ersatz prosperity, already afflciting Americans who blew through their stimmy checks in 2021 and now — the horror! — must start paying down their student loans again at summer’s end.

    Ersatz prosperity is way of life in Buenos Aires, where inflation that’s been permanently entrenched for a century made Argentina the only country ever to have backslid from ‘developed’ to ‘developing.’

    Saving is impossible when inflation is running at 114%. So as in Weimar a century ago, porteños take their fistfuls and mochilas of worthless paper pesos and party the night away:

    ‘The boom, in a way, is a facade. Everyone appears to be out having a good time. Yet, in much of the country, Argentines are scraping by and hunger is on the rise.

    ‘In wealthier circles, the rush to go out is a symptom of a shrinking middle class that, no longer able to afford bigger purchases or travel, is choosing to live in the here and now because people do not know what tomorrow will bring — or if their money will be worth anything.

    “The consumption that you have is consumption for satisfaction — happiness in the moment,” restaurateur Jorge Ferrari said. — NYT

    https://archive.ph/Yc7A0#selection-573.0-589.108

    One of the swish eateries profiled in the article is Águila Pabellón, located in an historic building which overlooked the now-vanished Buenos Aires zoo. A bathroom with 14-foot ceilings now has … a giraffe painted on its towering plastered wall — substituting for the real animal which once dwelled just across the fence.

    Seems like G. Giraffa had a Soylent Green experience, trading its earthly existence for one last munch of verdant foliage, as Klaus would have us do, too.

  9. Prince Phillip was King Charles father but your quote is well taken. Its pretty disgusting how we the people or rather they the subjects have supported and praised their monarchy. Prince Phillip was able to freely express his contempt for humanity his entire life, which was longer than most probably facilitated by being waited on literally hand and foot. Now they have Charles, a mini me consumed by even more fanaticism than his father, who reportedly held contempt even for his own son. When I was young my mother was fascinated by the British royal family and read many books about the generations going back to the Magna Carta and beginnings of Parliament. And this is what “great” Britain is left with: a ceremonial monarchy headed by an old coddled leftist with spoiled, over dressed, gawked at and fawned over children. A fitting end to the story of the emperor who had no clothes as the people hopefully begin to awake up from their stupor in time to escape the slavery wished upon them by their new King.

    • Hi RS,
      I never got the fascination people have for the so-called “Royals” either, best explanation I’ve heard is that they are a boon to tourism. Best thing would be to put them all in a zoo so people can pay to gawk at them, make money for the country rather than sucking it out of the taxpayers.

      • Mike, I was surprised the first time I read Lew Rockwell’s assessment of the British monarchy and the people’s affection for it. He saw the old-fashioned royalty as a source of stability and national cohesion – the good (non-militaristic) kind. When Elizabeth died, he published this on his blog from a reader who was dreading the coming of the ersatz monarch:

        “Being a monarchist, I think I can say, with sadness, Our Queen has died. She was mortal, as we are. In the end, she was just Elizabeth. May she rest in peace and be granted eternal life.
        “Queen Elizabeth II was surely one of the greatest rulers in history. Self-disciplined, poised, and unwavering in her duties, she was also warm, self-educated, and extremely intuitive. Reticent, as a monarch must be, but not without studied opinion. She can be especially appreciated for being just the antidote we needed recently against woke, blathering tools like her goofy grandson Harry’s American boorish wife (whose whole brand is crashing and burning all over American social media as we speak!).
        “Her Majesty is the only Queen and ruling monarch of Great Britain I have ever known. Something has shifted beneath our feet. And the world is not the same today.
        “Now we will suffer King Charles III, a previously underwhelming man in total service to the WEF and New World Order cultists. He is part of that cult that longs to destroy the old world and force us into their New World. He has told us so.
        “How unfortunate for us that Charles ascends just at the right time, when the globalist cult is franticly racing to take over governments (and citizenries) from Sri Lanka to the United States to Ukraine. Not to worry, the new British Prime Minister Liz Truss emerged from the pocket of Klaus Schwab, and the NWO bosses groomed her well. The global cult is almost there, in complete control of every leader, every citizen, of every country.
        “Our concern should be that Charles is already such a mouthpiece for the global cult, and we have ample sound bites to prove it. Now we must wait and see what he becomes as King Charles III.
        “May God save us from all evil.”

  10. Will Toyota fake the pull-up emergency brake as well?

    Don’t forget Barry’s purchase and razing of the estate in Hawaii used as the filming location of “Magnum PI” in the 80s. That old house just wouldn’t do.

    Here’s an image you can’t unimagine — Barry and Big Mike out in the tidal pool every morning, re-creating that scene from the title credits.

  11. If you’re curious about the future,,, look at Chicago. 12,000 cops and it’s still corrupted and uncivilized.
    Happy Juneteenth where revelers shoot each other to celebrate.

    • According to data from DataReportal, the average American spends 6 hours and 59 minutes looking at a screen every day.

      https://www.comparitech.com/tv-streaming/screen-time-statistics/

      No need for elaborate simulations, we’re already there. Remember this is the average, that means half of America (guilty) spends more than 7 hours. Half your waking hours, every day. No wonder it is so easy to manipulate people, and no wonder the streets are empty unless there’s a special event.

      When I started working in tech most of the equipment I used had adjustments that required a small nonmetalic screwdriver, known as a “diddle stick.” Over time as the equipment was updated and replaced the diddle stick was replaced with a GUI. First proprietary software, then a web page. The upside is that most of the stuff was easy to monitor and troubleshoot remotely so that you knew what you were getting into (or could kick it back with “looks good on my end”) before driving for an hour. The downside is that it was pretty easy to select the wrong equipment (sometimes even the wrong location!) and break something else. And loss of that hands-on feel for what you’re actually doing. Ultimately I don’t think my job was as fulfilling after the change. Just numbers on a screen.

      I’ve become somewhat addicted to watching travel explorer videos on YouTube. Some of them feature places I could easily drive to and explore myself, yet I don’t. There’s always an excuse, but really, not really. I just don’t do it. That’s a problem for sure, and I think prior to 2020 I was much more interested in exploring but work prevented it. Now that work isn’t an issue I hesitate. Something I need to work on for sure.

      • That’s an interesting point about the travel videos, RK. I set up a desktop flight simulator a few years ago. I’ll never have the opportunity to fly a real Boeing 737-800, but having made a fair investment in peripherals (yoke, rudder pedals, throttle quadrant, homemade tiller), the simulator is pretty darned realistic, even replicating the “dead band” that the 737 has right after you leave the ground and start to climb.
        I suppose I could do the equivalent of your exploring nearby locations by continuing the real flying lessons that I started when I was young, but at 70 I don’t think I would be comfortable with it.

        • If you’re in an area that has fairly stable weather consider a sport rating. It’s somewhat easy to get but comes with a lot of restrictions. Around these parts it would be a bad idea to stop at sport unless you just want the bragging rights and won’t fly, just because there are already enough instrument rated pilots lost due to random weather without adding the sport guys.

          Or do what I do and fly drones. Fixed wing FPV is a ton of fun and with goggles gets a little closer to reality too.

          • Thanks RK, I have had a DJI Mavic Pro Platinum for quite some time but haven’t been flying it recently. I need to get back to that. I have a lot of trouble seeing the screen of a phone or iPad out in bright light. I got some Epson Moverio augmented reality glasses, but they’re very cumbersome to use. Never tried goggles. It’s not legal to fly with those unless you use a spotter, correct? Not that anybody’s ever going to catch me out here in the sticks.

  12. Serves no purpose. It matters not how well Toyota fakes an EV “transmission”, few will be able to afford one, and fewer still will want one or be able to live with one.
    The pitiful part is that the current crop of elitist psychopaths aren’t nearly as smart as the Matrix AI. They intend to have their (human) robots cram it down our throats, like Skynet. Nuclear Armageddon included.
    I only pray that our families survive the apoplexy they and many others go through when their fantasy world collapses around them. They may just decide to burn it all rather than give up their private jet, mansion, chauffeured limousine (ICV), under age sex slaves, and armed goons.

    • “fewer still will want one (EV) or be able to live with one.” John Kable

      Not to worry. From ZeroHedge
      “Through a series of carbon regulations and inflation in prices. Carbon taxes will be used to make purchasing and maintaining a gas vehicle untenable, and inflation in prices of electric vehicles will mean only the wealthy class will be able to buy them. In this way, the establishment can argue that they “never banned cars,” they just created the economic conditions that forced most of the population to abandon personal ownership.

      https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/climate-authoritarianism-wef-wants-75-less-private-car-owners-2050
      ——————————
      Of course by then who knows how many died off from the safe and effective clot shots. The young are being trained as trannies and homo’s and many will be sterilized by the safe and effective clot shot meaning very abbreviated next generations and huge reduction in populations.

      We’re not looking deep enough to see how they are playing this out.

      We keep saying there isn’t enough power for the EV transition… Sure there is if one considers 1/3 or less population then today.

      These psychopaths need caged as you would any dangerous creature.

    • That’s not the point. Having it exist in the real world means it will be an easier sell as an “in-game purchase” for Gran Turismo 2025 on the Apple ski goggles. Porting the fake shifting code over to the game (or vice versa) will make it into a feature for the bloggers to include in the review.

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