“If we want more growth, we need to allow creative destruction so new companies can deliver the productivity we need.”

Octopus energy ceo greg jackson

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[–] 71 points 1 day ago (79 children)

I really do not like people boasting about how foreign dictatorships are doing everything better while bashing our local democracies. If this guy wants to see an electric truck, he can simply walk onto European streets. They are there. And they are available from those "incubent manufacturers" that he bashes in the article.

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  • [–] 5 points 23 hours ago (6 children)

    There are 50 ton e-trucks available and rolling in Europe? Please, tell me more. That is very interesting.

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  • [–] 11 points 22 hours ago (5 children)

    Electric Trucks are limited to 42 tons in the EU and there are good reasons for that. That really doesn't change much in this argument - we also do no have those australian road trains and that is also fine

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  • [–] 2 points 22 hours ago (4 children)

    Regardless, which manufacturers are putting these machines on the market?

    Just recently I was talking with a professional trucker, who owns a small fleet, and when mentioned reading on projects to develop such vehicles, he denied even the notion itself. And this is a man being hard pressed to keep his business afloat.

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  • [–] 9 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 child)

    Well, then this guy is not good at his job. You can buy the eActros from Mercedes Benz for example. And most manufacturers have an electric truck on the market. You can see this on the map above: If 18% of new trucks in the netherlands or 7% in Germany are electric, somebody has to produce those vehicles and put them onto the market. If a professional trucker can't see that, he is really incompetent at buying trucks.

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  • [–] 2 points 21 hours ago

    I'll put that towards local market fighting to keep the status quo and people resisting change; most small truckers buy second hand trucks and are extremely wary of change. I'm in Portugal.

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  • [–] 6 points 21 hours ago* (1 child)

    Mercedes-Benz eActros, Iveco S-eWay, MAN eTGX, Volvo FH electric, ...

    Watch the Elektrotrucker on Youtube if you want to know more about it. Channel is in German, he is at the moment on a round-the-world trip with an eActros. https://www.youtube.com/@elektrotrucker

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  • [–] 30 points 1 day ago (31 children)

    I really do not like people boasting about how foreign dictatorships are doing everything better while bashing our local democracies.

    I mean, electrification is one area where China is significantly and undoubtedly outdoing every single democracy out there. How democratic China is has no bearing on that fact.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 day ago (10 children)

    How democratic China is has no bearing on that fact.

    It does matter because this is totally what chinese state propaganda is broadcasting to the world. The old playbook the soviets have been doing

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  • [–] 8 points 16 hours ago*

    If your neighbor is putting up two solar panels, and you're just putting up one, someone might say that your neighbor is doing more than you to electrify.

    If your response is, "But they're bragging about it! It's propaganda! They're a bad person!" then it kind of sounds like you're just salty about the electrification thing.

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  • [+] -7 points 17 hours ago (7 children)

    You have more freedom and choice here than in Europe. Get educated and visit China. And stop regurgitating the western propaganda about dictatorship.

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  • [–] 6 points 13 hours ago

    Your president is a dictator who has been in power since 2012 after removing term limits. This dictator has declared himself in office for life, as all dictators do. You may be happy with the result, but you do not have the right to choose your highest leader, and are by definition ruled by a dictator.

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  • [–] 3 points 16 hours ago (5 children)

    Shall we talk about what China is doing to the Uigurs, what happened on tiananmen square in 1989 and how many people Mao killed? Or about the corruption in the higher levels of the KPCh? Let's have a free discussion between free citizens here without our governments intervening!

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  • [–] -5 points 14 hours ago (4 children)

    Shall we talk about what China is doing to the Uigurs

    Sure. According to the UN, UK, and every single independent investigatory body not currently operated by the CIA, China imprisoned more Uyghurs than necessary in the 1990s and held them in prisons below EU standards but above US standards. At this time there is no evidence of genocide, nor is there evidence of continued discrimination.

    what happened on tiananmen square in 1989

    Sure, let's talk about 'Peaceful' "college" "students" stealing rifles from a military base and shooting unarmed police, resulting in a militarized response to minimize casualties.

    how many people Mao killed?

    Lots of people die in a revolutionary war, that is the purpose of them.

    Or about the corruption in the higher levels of the KPCh

    You are only aware of that because of the anti-corruption policies of the modern CPC; which has resulted in dozens of arrests and executions. Your press calls it "Xi killing non-loyalists."

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  • [–] 5 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

    For anyone else reading this who isn't a communist dictatorship lickspittle, read about the Great Leap Forward and the 100 Flowers Campaign for examples of how Mao's bloodthirst and incompetence killed so many Chinese.

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  • [–] -1 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

    Communist dictatorship is an oxymoron, and China's governance system tends to rank highest among international poling for satisfaction of democratic representation.

    That being said the Great Leap Forward did have mistakes. That's what happens when you try to modernize a SLAVE AGRARIAN SOCIETY RUN BY MONARCHISTS to a modern country. It also ended the famine cycle that had been common in China for several hundred years. Given modern estimates show 6-10 million deaths during the recovery of one of the largest revolutions and most drastic socioeconomic evolution in world history, that's a pretty good ratio.

    As far as the 100 Flowers Campaign, yeah. That was a good thing and showed why education was more important before freedom of the press could be established. Mao et al naively thought China was immune to propaganda campaigns at that point in the revolution and believed that criticism would come from people that genuinely believed in freedom and progress. And they were right, for a large amount of the criticisms posted, all of which have since been addressed surprisingly enough. But the 'let's let the US own us, let's return to a puppet state, let's sow racial division instead of national unity,' propaganda campaigns threatened to split China, which would have resulted in additional western-owned colonial puppet states like Japan.

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  • [–] 5 points 12 hours ago (1 child)

    You're seriously defending the Great Leap Forward where peasants were made to live in communes and melt down their metal tools in backyard furnaces to make worthless pig iron while the nation starved due to inept and incompetent agricultural practices being enforced on them by the dictatorship? It's almost laughable if it wasn't so tragic - yes, farmers, just plant all your seed in a giant pit and it will grow thick enough to stand on!

    My older Chinese born coworker who grew up in one of these communes didn't know who his parents were, didn't know his birthday, all because of that tyrannical shit. And it certainly wasn't necessary to "mature the economy" or whatever your joke of an explanation is.

    You're entitled to your opinion, but to anyone else reading, everything he has said is easily disproven drivel. I won't be replying again.

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  • [–] -2 points 11 hours ago

    You’re entitled to your opinion, but to anyone else reading, everything he has said is easily disproven drivel. I won’t be replying again.

    Good, better luck next time spreading your propaganda.

    You’re seriously defending the Great Leap Forward where peasants were made to live in communes

    While this is true, this isn't inherently a bad thing. The problem was creating an environment where 'Dirt Emperor's' could form without any infrastructure for oversight; as well as the overall lack of education, as mentioned previously. This has been shown and China admits this was a mistake, and communes were used as a part of Deng's argument for capitalist reform, showing that agrarian society cannot jump to socialism or communism.

    However this laid infrastructure that wouldn't otherwise have been laid, allowing for the reforms and later top-down management from the government to be effective in modernization of regions at a pace that has never been rivaled in human history. Source 1

    melt down their metal tools in backyard furnaces to make worthless pig iron

    You act like this was a plan from the government, it wasn't. Again this is down to local corruption, and the reason China now has a strong centralized government. The Steel production quota was based on Soviet successes, but was incorrectly included in all regions as an expectation Cadres could be rewarded for; leading to severe local corruption without oversight. The expectation from the central government was that mines that were shut down due to the war and invasion would be reopened, and newer mines would be prospected.

    Instead these regional bosses wanted to cook the numbers to look good, primarily believing they would be rewarded heavily, secondarily believing the new government was 'just another dynasty,' and thus would punish them if they failed to meet quotas or had issues or concerns. This was a false belief that lead to tragedy, but was not a consequence of the great leap forward as much as expecting corruption to not be so deeply entrenched in those that had management experience. Source 2

    As a fun fact, this is why the current Chinese government system is set up the way that it is, with literally dozen of competing people reviewing any accomplishment of their peers.

    incompetent agricultural practices being enforced on them by the dictatorship

    This was more of a problem of individuals with the knowledge being essentially too worthless to keep in government. And that sounds odd given the results, but you fail to understand just how corrupt the previous government was. Any possible criticism you have of the Mao-led party, you can say was 10,000 times worse before the revolution, hence the revolution. There is a reason the KMT was a fascist dictatorship until the 1980s when they held their first ever elections for any office.

    farmers, just plant all your seed in a giant pit and it will grow thick enough to stand on!

    This wasn't a policy, but what was a policy, and what the tragedy actually was, was eliminating sparrows without understanding their greater effect on keeping pests under control. With more limited seed stock the solution they came to was to eliminate pests that would eat seeds, without any concern or understanding as to what other things those pests might eat that would cause more damage. Otherwise most planting was allowed to continue as it had been.

    My older Chinese born coworker who grew up in one of these communes didn’t know who his parents were, didn’t know his birthday, all because of that tyrannical shit. And it certainly wasn’t necessary to “mature the economy” or whatever your joke of an explanation is.

    This would be a lie that he told you. The communes existed for exactly 3 years. The broader organization (sectioning the population into 26,500 sections for management) continued until the 1980s, but local communes were dissolved during and post famine. Additionally to this, there is no confidently documented cases of separating children from their parents or eliminating birthdays. There are some anecdotes on far-right websites, but there is no actual documentation of this happening or ever being ordered.

    To your broader point with this third-party anecdote, no, it wasn't tyrannical to try to eliminate local lords and return control to the people. It wasn't tyrannical to try to implement a communal environment that was largely successful in its wider goal of national unity. It was too much, too soon, based on idealism over the hard reality of what living in a feudal agrarian society does to the human psyche.

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