I’m glad he’s taking it seriously. It looks like the next few events he does are going to be really important in determining his next steps. If they go badly, I think he drops. If they go well, he’ll probably stay in.

I also 100% believe that Biden is fully aware of this article and likely encouraged the NYT’s source to approach the media. Part of evaluating this whole thing is going to be gauging public opinion and testing the waters.

People will call this sort of thing performative since the legislation will be dead in the water, but you’re spot on. An important part of politics is virtue signaling. You’re telling your supporters what you stand for and that you’re at least trying.

Whether it’s progressive or moderates doing so, it’s an important political tool, and sometimes the only tool at their disposal. Showing people you’re willing to fight, even if you know you’re going to lose, is a big deal.

This is something I think about a lot. The best way to defeat fascism is within the process with democracy – because if we start playing by their rules to stop fascism, we prove them right in a sense. It’s preferable to actually letting fascism happen, but it would severely weaken our democracy.

If voting is not enough, then the next best option would be for Biden to pull his own Jan 6 and refuse to certify the results and call in Seal Team 6. And then after doing so, order his own arrest for violating our laws and norms. The only way to preserve democracy after taking steps outside of democracy is to fall on your own sword.

It’s like an alternate universe within the DC universe – the Joker goes too far and Batman snaps his neck. When he arrives at the police, he carries the Joker’s body and tells them to arrest him. Batman knew it was necessary to kill Joker, but he also knew he had to be held accountable for doing that. Any group which uses violence to end the fascist threat needs to turn themselves in afterwards to preserve peaceful democracy. It would be incredibly unfair to them, but it’s necessary to prevent a new normal of violent anarchy.

This isn’t a bad 4D chess move. Trick Republicans in Congress to heavily limit the power of the president to neuter this decision.

Biden isn’t going to say “yeah I’m thinking of dropping out”, nor will his campaign, even if they’re strongly considering it. It he does decide to step aside, it will be a sudden announcement with no forewarning.

I agree with your premise though. It isn’t impossible. We just need to collect data and do polling for like a week to understand how much the debate hurt Biden, and if there’s any good alternative options who have a better shot.

I think debates and townhalls are Biden’s best bet right now. He needs to show that it was just a bad night for him.

And if it wasn’t just a bad night, it’ll spur action to find a viable replacement.

It happens! The important part is review and learning from the mistakes.

Oh definitely. I just think their primary influence was on the size of the margin, not the actual outcome of the election. And it still benefits them, since they can say it was a 17% margin instead of like 3-5%.

It’s a 17% difference now. I’m honestly skeptical that AIPAC money is the big cause here. It seems like he had a lot of other issues that contributed to his loss. I was reading earlier that he didn’t really communicate or interface with his constituents much, while Latimer was a much bigger community presence.

This is a trend I’ve noticed actually. A lot of people who do take morally correct positions like to let their positions speak for themselves and not do as much communication or outside engagement. They want to let their moral high ground do the talking. And while their positions are laudable, their core job is to represent their constituents. If they ignore that, a loss isn’t surprising.

We all make mistakes. I once forgot to include gravity in a pressure drop calculation for a 100 ft vertical pipe as part of a steam drum system. I had to send an awkward email revising the design pressure I previously communicated out.

But hey, if we were perfect, we wouldn’t need peer review.

I have a little bit of experience with limit switches, but that’s really interesting. It certainly seems like an unusual system. I’m a lot more familiar with safety relays.

It really says something when even oil companies will design for these considerations but Tesla won’t.

I’ve unfortunately been working on process control strategies for almost a year now on new and novel applications for my company, so I’ve been intimately familiar with this. If it isn’t obvious, this isn’t my favorite professional area of interest hahaha.

Designating fail open and fail closed valves is so intrinsic to what I’ve been doing that I can’t imagine someone designing a car control system and not thinking about that at all.

It’s basic safety for industrial plants to designate powered equipment as “fail open” or “fail closed” or on/off. It’s shocking that this wasn’t applied to Tesla cars.

We really need an industry that performs industrial grade HAZOPs on consumer products and publishes a report for everyone to see.

Might be the doors are fail shut if anything happens… But that seems like the worst design ever.

Come to think of it, it’s basic design to designate features as fail closed/fail open on loss of power in an emergency, and you go with what’s inherently safe. It appears Tesla did not consider basic safety design. To no one’s surprise.

I think what’s most surprising to me is that Florida’s legislature was in favor of the art grants.

We should really change that. Things would be so much safer if we applied this level of scrutiny for anything considering the public.

Making fun of them for their contradictions does nothing to stop them.

It certainly won’t stop them, but it’s also one of the greatest weapons against them. Ridicule of fascists is one thing they absolutely cannot stand, and its something the voting public pays attention to – especially if the ridicule causes them to act out.

Ridicule should not be the only tool, but it’s still a valuable one.

Sorry, what the fuck. This is a complete failure on engineering controls and safety. A safety analysis on an industrial plant would find something like this to be a major safety vulnerability that needs several redundant safeguards.

Jesus fucking Christ.

This is how I felt about Roe being overturned several years ago. It would unleash hell on Republicans and make them incredibly unpopular, but it would not be worth the cost of women suffering.

And unfortunately, I was right. It has proved utterly disastrous to Republicans, but a lot of women have suffered. People have had to go through pain and experiences that no one should ever have to – except perhaps the conservative SCOTUS justices, Trump, and Republican senators.

Insulation can only do so much. It’s sufficient in some countries and areas of the US, but in others it’s just way too fucking hot. When it gets to 100+ degrees F during the day for multiple days in a row, insulation isn’t going to keep your house cold for long.