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xkcd #2948: Electric vs Gas (xkcd.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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An idling gas engine may be annoyingly loud, but that's the price you pay for having WAY less torque available at a standstill.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

I think people (not me, I agree with glitchdx, overall) are probably down voting because it's a classic example of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, with a healthy dose of smug mixed in. Smugness is a great dialectical tactic if you hope to entrench people deeper into their views, rather than convince them to consider alternatives through reasoned discussion.

Do I agree that ideally we'd have robust public transit and increased usage of smaller, greener personal transport solutions? Of course I do.

But, incrementalism is progress. Valuable progress. We could argue whether it's more likely to get us to the aforementioned vision of robust public transit or not, but history has proven time and time again that progress takes time and is resisted tooth and nail by monied interests. I don't like it either. I want to wave a wand and have everything change. OP is right. Electric cars are not the solution. But treating symptoms while you work on curing the disease is best practice.