Favorites January 22nd 2022

Mara “Get Rid of the Nazis” Wilson @MaraWilson

Anytime I see someone with a mask and unfogged glasses I bow to them, because I have clearly just met a fucking powerful wizard

I used to wear sunglasses sometimes, but no longer.

MinorIncursionHat @Popehat

The woke left won’t rest until there are NO candies that a red-blooded man would want to fuck

Acyn @Acyn

Tucker: M&M’s will not be satisfied until every last cartoon character is deeply unappealing and totally androgynous. Until the moment you wouldn’t want to have a drink with any one of them. That’s the goal. When you’re totally turned off, we’ve achieved equity… https://t.co/rz7VtVCHWu

I don't usually include stuff making fun of Fox news, but this is particularly funny. The quote from @Acyn is 100% accurate. Responses were also amusing.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Crush the car dealers https://t.co/IGVT9gim1P

The Atlantic @TheAtlantic

A group of new electric-car start-ups have promised a renaissance of American automaking. Yet in more than half of the country, a patchwork of laws forbid them from selling their cars to the public—or offering them for test drives, @yayitsrob reports: https://t.co/7PUom8wVHD

Buying out the lease on my Leaf was so annoying that it makes me want to avoid ever buying a car through a dealership again. The absolute worst kind of regulatory capture, get rid of them.

Robin Wigglesworth @RobinWigg

This is a phenomenal column by @RoryStewartUK. Just the introduction is incendiary. on.ft.com/3InoSvd

Parliamentary systems are definitely better than what we've got, but you can't pretend they solve everything.

Alex Ward @alexbward

Fiona Hill’s argument here about “Why now?” for Putin is fascinating. Trump didn’t care about Ukraine, so he might let Russia take it without giving Moscow something. Biden et al care, so they’re willing to negotiate, and Moscow might get something.

puck.newsTrump’s Former Russia Guru Explains His Putin ComplexA conversation with Fiona Hill about the Russia-Ukraine crisis, Putin’s next move, and where the White House goes from here.

More regarding Ukraine situation. Strategy is weird and difficult. With unexpected spillovers.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

So in Afghanistan we tried to fight a war without cooperating with Russia or Iran or China because in all three cases we had bigger priorities, so we tried to wage war on the Taliban with Pakistan as our main ally, even though they were helping the Taliban.

We're just bad at prioritizing.

Ramez Naam @ramez

Boom. Internal combustion engine cars are in decline. (Likely since 2018.) All automotive vehicle sales growth is now electric. Is this fast enough? Nope. We need to turn over >1B gas guzzlers that typically live for 25+ years. But this gives us hope, and the tools to do so.

Diego Diaz Pilas @ddiazpilas

Nearly 5 million #ElectricVehicles sold worldwide in 2021. Growth YoY well above 100% vs flat for gas powered ones. Is the tipping point already here? h/t @skorusARK https://t.co/94AhDYoi9e

I've mentioned it previously, but hopefully the increase in popularity of electric cars will start a spiral of infrastructure for gas cars shutting down.

Noah Smith 🌐+🧦=🐇 @Noahpinion

TikTok creators keep only 5% of their revenue? Insane

John Coogan @johncoogan

So insane that TikTok takes 95% of revenue. For reference, YouTube takes 45% and Substack takes 10%. And the size of the creator fund is growing slower than overall ad revenue… so that effective take rate is actually increasing. They should call it TakeTok.

And there's no monetization at all in most countries, from this analysis by Hank Green.

August 2016, Vienna