You've got to be kidding. China has a huge and growing middle class. Yeah, a lot of people still have pretty crappy conditions, but it's no worse, and usually better, than it was a few decades ago. I'm sorry, but there's no way to take a country the size of China from the way it was around 1970 and magically turn it into a first-world nation overnight.
Most things inside the body are toxic; we have immune systems to handle foreign bodies, and these systems will attack just about anything artificial. However, titanium is an exception, which is why so many surgical implants are made out of it. It's completely biocompatible, and bone will even grow into it.
So if you want an artificial endoskeleton, just use titanium. It's not as indestructible as adamantium of course, but it's a lot stronger than your normal bones.
Concrete is not fireproof. It's pretty resistant to the heat of a typical house fire, but I imagine magnesium burns at a higher temperature, and at high temperatures, concrete does disintegrate. But even at lower burning temperatures, it spalls and crumbles. It handles fires a lot better than wood, but if you think it's so great, I encourage you to start a big magnesium bonfire in your house, right next to a structural wall, and see how it works out for you.
BTW, there's more and more houses here in the US being made out of steel, just like our commercial construction. Concrete is a crap material if you have to worry about earthquakes (though when combined with steel it works really well, but all you third-worlders are too cheap to do that, so you end up with complete disasters every time a small earthquake hits).
I can't imagine why anyone would make a grill out of magnesium. Same goes for car parts. Aluminum alloy is much cheaper, not flammable, and nearly as lightweight. Maybe mag wheels made sense in the past before they figured out how to make really good aluminum wheels, but these days forged aluminum wheels are pretty hard to beat and don't cost *that* much (and cast ones are pretty decent and downright cheap). And everyone makes engine blocks out of aluminum these days.
It's an alloy. I don't know about this particular alloy, but alloyed metals can have radically different properties from their base components. Take a look at stainless steel for instance: it's made of iron, carbon, and chromium. Iron is of course the largest constituent (I'm guessing around 80%). Iron is ductile, and also ferromagnetic: you can stick magnets to it. It also has a tendency to rust really, really easily. Now you add a bunch of chromium (the grades with more chromium are more "stainless" or corrosion-resistant), and not only does it no longer rust easily at all, but it also isn't magnetic any more! That's why you can't stick magnets to your fancy stainless steel refrigerator door (if you can, it's either fake stainless steel, or a cheaper grade that isn't very corrosion-resistant). On top of that, high-chromium stainless is somewhat brittle, not like iron or mild steel at all.
Anyway, the point is, just because pure magnesium is flammable and really hard to extinguish, an alloy of magnesium may not be like this at all.
First, a constitutional republic IS a representative democracy. They're two names for the same thing, though the former is more accurate because it describes how the government is set up better (like having a constitution for one); "representative democracy" is more general but distinguishes it from direct democracies.
Secondly, the bit about the founders makes no sense. There haven't been any true direct democracies running nations since the Ancient Greeks. Britain didn't even have a constitutional republic, it had a monarchy with a parliament bolted on to deal with some of the more mundane stuff the King didn't want to waste time on. These days, it's no different except the Queen doesn't really do anything as far as governing and Parliament does it all along with the Prime Minister et al.
As for states voting on same-sex marriage, how's that any different from the federal government voting on same-sex marriage? The whole "states' rights" argument is an argument over how much power different levels of government should be allowed to have, but they're all basically the same, since they're all representative democracies, whether it's the federal government, the state government, or your town council or board of aldermen or whatever. It's just the the higher up you go, the less power your vote has, and the more you're subject to laws passed by people voted in by a larger number of people from farther away. Sometimes it works out well (from your perspective), other times it doesn't, and it entirely depends on the issue and your opinion.
So while I do agree that same-sex marriage should be legal, as a counterexample look at marijuana: the only reason it's legal (either fully or medical) in many states is because those states thumbed their nose at the federal government and legalized it themselves, and refused to enforce federal drug laws. One of those states is Washington State, which fully legalized it a while back, and that's not exactly known as a conservative state or one involved in the Civil War. More recently, their neighbors Alaska and Oregon joined them. Alaska's pretty conservative (but not like the South), but Oregon's a seriously liberal place; you can't even pump your own gas there!
So, are you opposed to legal pot because the federal government hasn't legalized it yet? With all the Republicans in Congress (especially the ones from the South), it probably would never have happened if those states hadn't pushed the issue themselves. It's looking like the Federal government is going to stop the ban really soon and just let states decide, though with the election coming up it's impossible to say what'll happen.
Also with same-sex marriage, that was done first in a bunch of states because the SCOTUS finally ruled on it. It probably would never have been legalized at the federal level if it weren't for the Court; there's no way all those Republicans would vote for it. So yes, that is an example of tyranny of the majority, but that's the problem with large governments and making decisions at the top level: you can only pass stuff that everyone agrees with. If you're a social liberal/libertarian and you're sharing a nation with a bunch of backwards religious conservatives, then you're not going to have much luck getting socially-liberal legislation passed, since you're forever going to be fighting against a bunch of morons who want to mandate that science classes teach your kids that the Earth is 6000 years old.
Notice that the nations which have much more effective democracies (excuse me, "constitutional republics", since some dipshit will probably jump in here to say these aren't "democracies"; it happens every single fucking time I use the term here) are small European nations which have small populations (like the size of one of our small-to-medium size states) and are culturally and ethnically mostly homogeneous. There's a reason for this: they don't have radically different blocs of voters constantly fighting each other on every l
How is the Chinese government "awful"? They've drastically increased the standard of living in that country over the past few decades, and turned it into a major world economic power. Do you think the country could have done that under a democratic government, with most of the nation uneducated back then?
Makes me wonder how you feel about the "Choose Life" plates then.
Whatever states issued that were in the wrong. It's a political and also religious topic and has no business on government-issued property, and makes it appear that those states are endorsing that position. How'd you like it if your state started issuing plates that said "Convert to Islam" (and there's no alternative plates advocating other religions)? Or how about special Scientology plates?
To be clear, the exact content was not a material question for the Supreme Court, just the ability of the state to determine its position.
Sounds like the SCOTUS make exactly the right position: the state has every right to refuse to endorse (or appear to endorse, by issuing special plates) any particular position. Smart states will refuse to issue plates for any kind of controversial topic.
Don't be ridiculous. License plates are government property and therefore an example of government speech, so the government has every right to decide what it will and will not endorse. Texas would be absolutely right to ban a license plate saying "keep abortion illegal", just like it would be absolutely right to ban a license plate saying "ban abortion now". The government has no place sponsoring or endorsing any kind of political speech like that, and is right to stay out of it. And due to the political nature of the Confederate flag, the SCOTUS was also right to side with the state on that case too.
If you like the Confederate flag (and by extension, slavery) so much, there's no shortage of places selling bumper stickers with that flag. You can even paint your ugly car with that flag if you want. It may or may not affect whether a cop decides to give you a warning or a ticket, but it's your right to spout your idiotic views and adorn your vehicle however you want.
Darwin fish are pretty offensive to a small, yet fervent, minority of Christians, but so far we have no good evidence of vehicular accidents caused by them.
If we did have good evidence of accidents caused by Darwin fish, that would mean we should enact tests to determine who's offended by them, and deny them drivers' licenses as they're a hazard on the road. The Darwin fish are an example of free speech, and it would be wrong to deny the fish-lover his right to adorn his car the way he wants because some other people are so upset by it that they cause an accident. Otherwise, by that logic, we could have laws requiring women to wear burqas some small, yet fervent, minority of men are "compelled" to rape women without them.
The Gerald Ford isn't a commercial ship and doesn't help the US economy any, it's a drain on the economy like all defense spending. It has its uses of course, and defense spending is necessary for any normal country, but much like the police, it's a cost center, not something that's generating revenue. It does help serve as a jobs program I guess.
As far as the US exporting ships, I'm not aware of the US building any ships of real size outside of military ships. It's the Europeans and Koreans who are building all the big ships these days (which you mention).
Yeah, they just violated environmental laws with a willful and deliberate scheme, I guess that's ok!
Show me where I said it was OK. I'm just pointing out that GM directly murdered their own customers (much like Ford with the Pinto, but at least that was a long time ago); VW didn't quite go that far.
You must have missed all the discussion about faulty acceleration regarding Toyota.
I don't recall any actual cases of that being 1) real and 2) killing anyone. I remember a bunch of problems with floor mats, and also one guy faking it so he could try to sue Toyota.
There are advantages to both models with the current model being better from a socioeconomic standpoint and the Apple model being better from a customer's standpoint.
How on earth is the current model better "from a socioeconomic standpoint" unless you're one of the shysters who runs a dealership? Or do you subscribe to the broken-window-theory notion that more jobs == better even if those jobs entail ripping people off and costing society overall?
I don't believe pharmaceuticals aren't made with union labor. Planes are made in Washington state, and the west coast isn't known for being a big union stronghold like the Rust Belt. The US has net imports because its citizens are not nearly as productive as Germany's in producing high-end manufactured goods. Sorry, but coal and corn are not a high-value goods. And France and Germany make at least as many planes as Boeing with Airbus. Finally, where are the US-made multi-billion-dollar cruise ships? Oh yeah, there aren't any; they're all made in northern Europe and France.
As for VW, at least they didn't murder their customers by refusing to fix defective ignition switches, and then get off mostly scot-free. Though personally I'll avoid both American and European cars and stick with Japanese. I've never heard of them either intentionally covering up safety problems or cheating emissions tests, though they seem to have airbag problems now and then resulting in recalls, but no one's perfect.
It's not young people that are ruining this place: the young people don't hang out here, and instead spend their time elsewhere besides a washed-up tech site. This place is mostly populated by angry old farts who just sit around in their Depends and complain about new technologies and changing society. The above is probably one of them.
They have? Last I heard, they were still using them, but only at smaller airports. I'm with the GP: the terahertz ones are OK with me, but not the X-ray scanners which were never tested by the FDA for safety or radiation levels.
X-rays are known to cause cancer in sufficient quantity. How do you know the TSA machines aren't blasting you with huge amounts of X-ray radiation? Have they been checked by the FDA? No, they haven't, because they're supposedly not "medical devices".
Hear, hear. Mod up. I'm really sick of the Luddites and technophobes on this site; I thought this was supposed to be a site for smart, nerdy people, not a bunch of angry old men in their rocking chairs complaining about how they had to walk uphill 40 miles both ways to school every day.
I can't seem to find any official numbers for those years; the EPA's website only goes back to 1984, and the '84 Cavalier has some pretty lousy numbers compared to what you allege. I found some other site alleging some 40+ numbers for a bunch of cars, but then a bunch of comments after claiming those numbers were bogus. It seems strange that the Cavalier would suddenly drop 10+mpg in 2 years; I'm pretty sure the basic design was the same between 82 and 84. It did about 30mpg on the highway though, and low 20s in the city.
"chloral floral carbon scares"? If you mean CFCs, those are real and were proven to be ozone-harming. They're also irrelevant to fuel economy, though you could complain that the first-generation HFC-based air conditioners kinda sucked. Still, A/C doesn't affect fuel economy until 2008 I believe, which is when EPA changed their testing methodology to include it IIRC. Before that, fuel economy tests kept the A/C off. And even with it on, the refrigerant probably won't make a difference; I kinda doubt the test demands a certain vent outlet temperature.
Obviously, though, fuel economy has taken a back seat to other factors, namely crashworthiness, weight, and performance. Those old Cavaliers were horribly underpowered; now you can get a car with 40mpg fuel economy, more than twice as much horsepower, a 0-60 time more than twice as fast, insanely better handling, insanely fewer emissions (hence less smog: do you want to live in a place like Beijing?), insanely better crash protection, and 50% more weight (a penalty partially of the crash protection, but also cars have gotten somewhat larger since then for the same class), while not having to do nearly as much maintenance (usually nothing but oil changes and tire rotations until 100k, and oil changes can go 10-15k), nor having to retune carbs for different altitudes and weather.
Well badge engineering is a slightly different thing really than parts-sharing. Badge-engineering is where you take a whole, complete car from one automaker, and they build it on their assembly line but with different badges and then ship it to the other automakers' dealers to be sold. Mazda is doing that now with Scion: they're dumping the Mazda2, and instead what the rest of the world calls the "Mazda2" is now the Scion iA. Now looking at the price of that car, compared to the low-end Mazda3 models, I have no idea why anyone would bother with it, but regardless...
There's been lots of that. Back around 1992 Chevy did that with their "Geo" sub-brand, selling Corollas among other cars.
Parts-sharing involves a lot more working together than that.
They've been working on automation for Amtrak for quite a while, but dragging their feet. As a result, some moron operator killed a bunch of people less than a year ago near Philly when he went around a turn way too fast.
Unions in Germany seem to manage to pump out some of the world's best industrial products and help make that country a powerhouse of high-tech exports.
Unions in America.... not so much.
There's obviously something very different about them, judging by the results.
Oh please, the JD Powers survey is for "initial quality", it has nothing to do with long-term reliability. They basically just ask people how they like their new car after having it for a short time. So cars which do badly are ones which have warranty defects, and high-end cars tend to do worse because their buyers are pickier about things like squeaks and rattles.
As for DIY maintenance, that affects any low-end brand. I've met far more people who tinkered on their Hondas than probably any other brand; it's only really old farts who tinkered on Chryslers, and no one does any more.
As for service, I would think that would be something pretty variable, and completely up to each independent stealership. They're run entirely different from each other, since they're all franchised. Honestly, the stealership model is the worst thing about car buying and ownership, and should just be eliminated. Just as we (USA) are backwards and third-worldish on so many other things, we're the only country in the whole world that has this antiquated and idiotic independent dealership model for buying and servicing cars. It adds a huge amount to the purchase price of every car, and is of *negative* benefit. We should just do what every other country does, and allow carmakers to sell directly to consumers through manufacturer-owned dealerships. It would allow carmakers to exercise a LOT more control over the car-buying and servicing experience, so if some people got lousy service at GM dealerships in Texas and California and complained online about it, it'd be entirely valid to assume that GM service is lousy nationwide because they're all run by the same company. It's just like Apple stores: if one Apple store treats customers terribly and they complain, Apple's corporate HQ will jump right in to salvage their reputation, but with independent auto dealerships we don't have that, we just have thousands upon thousands of independent, franchised businesses run by charlatans and con artists scamming us any way they can.
That's what I was wondering. However, to be fair I will say that it least they didn't team up with GM. At least Ford hasn't intentionally murdered people (that we know of yet) since the 1970s with the Pinto fiasco. GM intentionally murdered people as late as the mid-late 2000s with their ignition switch fiasco.
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You've got to be kidding. China has a huge and growing middle class. Yeah, a lot of people still have pretty crappy conditions, but it's no worse, and usually better, than it was a few decades ago. I'm sorry, but there's no way to take a country the size of China from the way it was around 1970 and magically turn it into a first-world nation overnight.
Most things inside the body are toxic; we have immune systems to handle foreign bodies, and these systems will attack just about anything artificial. However, titanium is an exception, which is why so many surgical implants are made out of it. It's completely biocompatible, and bone will even grow into it.
So if you want an artificial endoskeleton, just use titanium. It's not as indestructible as adamantium of course, but it's a lot stronger than your normal bones.
Concrete is not fireproof. It's pretty resistant to the heat of a typical house fire, but I imagine magnesium burns at a higher temperature, and at high temperatures, concrete does disintegrate. But even at lower burning temperatures, it spalls and crumbles. It handles fires a lot better than wood, but if you think it's so great, I encourage you to start a big magnesium bonfire in your house, right next to a structural wall, and see how it works out for you.
BTW, there's more and more houses here in the US being made out of steel, just like our commercial construction. Concrete is a crap material if you have to worry about earthquakes (though when combined with steel it works really well, but all you third-worlders are too cheap to do that, so you end up with complete disasters every time a small earthquake hits).
I can't imagine why anyone would make a grill out of magnesium. Same goes for car parts. Aluminum alloy is much cheaper, not flammable, and nearly as lightweight. Maybe mag wheels made sense in the past before they figured out how to make really good aluminum wheels, but these days forged aluminum wheels are pretty hard to beat and don't cost *that* much (and cast ones are pretty decent and downright cheap). And everyone makes engine blocks out of aluminum these days.
It's an alloy. I don't know about this particular alloy, but alloyed metals can have radically different properties from their base components. Take a look at stainless steel for instance: it's made of iron, carbon, and chromium. Iron is of course the largest constituent (I'm guessing around 80%). Iron is ductile, and also ferromagnetic: you can stick magnets to it. It also has a tendency to rust really, really easily. Now you add a bunch of chromium (the grades with more chromium are more "stainless" or corrosion-resistant), and not only does it no longer rust easily at all, but it also isn't magnetic any more! That's why you can't stick magnets to your fancy stainless steel refrigerator door (if you can, it's either fake stainless steel, or a cheaper grade that isn't very corrosion-resistant). On top of that, high-chromium stainless is somewhat brittle, not like iron or mild steel at all.
Anyway, the point is, just because pure magnesium is flammable and really hard to extinguish, an alloy of magnesium may not be like this at all.
-1 Dumb.
First, a constitutional republic IS a representative democracy. They're two names for the same thing, though the former is more accurate because it describes how the government is set up better (like having a constitution for one); "representative democracy" is more general but distinguishes it from direct democracies.
Secondly, the bit about the founders makes no sense. There haven't been any true direct democracies running nations since the Ancient Greeks. Britain didn't even have a constitutional republic, it had a monarchy with a parliament bolted on to deal with some of the more mundane stuff the King didn't want to waste time on. These days, it's no different except the Queen doesn't really do anything as far as governing and Parliament does it all along with the Prime Minister et al.
As for states voting on same-sex marriage, how's that any different from the federal government voting on same-sex marriage? The whole "states' rights" argument is an argument over how much power different levels of government should be allowed to have, but they're all basically the same, since they're all representative democracies, whether it's the federal government, the state government, or your town council or board of aldermen or whatever. It's just the the higher up you go, the less power your vote has, and the more you're subject to laws passed by people voted in by a larger number of people from farther away. Sometimes it works out well (from your perspective), other times it doesn't, and it entirely depends on the issue and your opinion.
So while I do agree that same-sex marriage should be legal, as a counterexample look at marijuana: the only reason it's legal (either fully or medical) in many states is because those states thumbed their nose at the federal government and legalized it themselves, and refused to enforce federal drug laws. One of those states is Washington State, which fully legalized it a while back, and that's not exactly known as a conservative state or one involved in the Civil War. More recently, their neighbors Alaska and Oregon joined them. Alaska's pretty conservative (but not like the South), but Oregon's a seriously liberal place; you can't even pump your own gas there!
So, are you opposed to legal pot because the federal government hasn't legalized it yet? With all the Republicans in Congress (especially the ones from the South), it probably would never have happened if those states hadn't pushed the issue themselves. It's looking like the Federal government is going to stop the ban really soon and just let states decide, though with the election coming up it's impossible to say what'll happen.
Also with same-sex marriage, that was done first in a bunch of states because the SCOTUS finally ruled on it. It probably would never have been legalized at the federal level if it weren't for the Court; there's no way all those Republicans would vote for it. So yes, that is an example of tyranny of the majority, but that's the problem with large governments and making decisions at the top level: you can only pass stuff that everyone agrees with. If you're a social liberal/libertarian and you're sharing a nation with a bunch of backwards religious conservatives, then you're not going to have much luck getting socially-liberal legislation passed, since you're forever going to be fighting against a bunch of morons who want to mandate that science classes teach your kids that the Earth is 6000 years old.
Notice that the nations which have much more effective democracies (excuse me, "constitutional republics", since some dipshit will probably jump in here to say these aren't "democracies"; it happens every single fucking time I use the term here) are small European nations which have small populations (like the size of one of our small-to-medium size states) and are culturally and ethnically mostly homogeneous. There's a reason for this: they don't have radically different blocs of voters constantly fighting each other on every l
How is the Chinese government "awful"? They've drastically increased the standard of living in that country over the past few decades, and turned it into a major world economic power. Do you think the country could have done that under a democratic government, with most of the nation uneducated back then?
Makes me wonder how you feel about the "Choose Life" plates then.
Whatever states issued that were in the wrong. It's a political and also religious topic and has no business on government-issued property, and makes it appear that those states are endorsing that position. How'd you like it if your state started issuing plates that said "Convert to Islam" (and there's no alternative plates advocating other religions)? Or how about special Scientology plates?
To be clear, the exact content was not a material question for the Supreme Court, just the ability of the state to determine its position.
Sounds like the SCOTUS make exactly the right position: the state has every right to refuse to endorse (or appear to endorse, by issuing special plates) any particular position. Smart states will refuse to issue plates for any kind of controversial topic.
Don't be ridiculous. License plates are government property and therefore an example of government speech, so the government has every right to decide what it will and will not endorse. Texas would be absolutely right to ban a license plate saying "keep abortion illegal", just like it would be absolutely right to ban a license plate saying "ban abortion now". The government has no place sponsoring or endorsing any kind of political speech like that, and is right to stay out of it. And due to the political nature of the Confederate flag, the SCOTUS was also right to side with the state on that case too.
If you like the Confederate flag (and by extension, slavery) so much, there's no shortage of places selling bumper stickers with that flag. You can even paint your ugly car with that flag if you want. It may or may not affect whether a cop decides to give you a warning or a ticket, but it's your right to spout your idiotic views and adorn your vehicle however you want.
Darwin fish are pretty offensive to a small, yet fervent, minority of Christians, but so far we have no good evidence of vehicular accidents caused by them.
If we did have good evidence of accidents caused by Darwin fish, that would mean we should enact tests to determine who's offended by them, and deny them drivers' licenses as they're a hazard on the road. The Darwin fish are an example of free speech, and it would be wrong to deny the fish-lover his right to adorn his car the way he wants because some other people are so upset by it that they cause an accident. Otherwise, by that logic, we could have laws requiring women to wear burqas some small, yet fervent, minority of men are "compelled" to rape women without them.
There aren't that many late-model diesel VWs driving around here in America to have an effect like that. That's plainly ridiculous.
The Gerald Ford isn't a commercial ship and doesn't help the US economy any, it's a drain on the economy like all defense spending. It has its uses of course, and defense spending is necessary for any normal country, but much like the police, it's a cost center, not something that's generating revenue. It does help serve as a jobs program I guess.
As far as the US exporting ships, I'm not aware of the US building any ships of real size outside of military ships. It's the Europeans and Koreans who are building all the big ships these days (which you mention).
Yeah, they just violated environmental laws with a willful and deliberate scheme, I guess that's ok!
Show me where I said it was OK. I'm just pointing out that GM directly murdered their own customers (much like Ford with the Pinto, but at least that was a long time ago); VW didn't quite go that far.
You must have missed all the discussion about faulty acceleration regarding Toyota.
I don't recall any actual cases of that being 1) real and 2) killing anyone. I remember a bunch of problems with floor mats, and also one guy faking it so he could try to sue Toyota.
There are advantages to both models with the current model being better from a socioeconomic standpoint and the Apple model being better from a customer's standpoint.
How on earth is the current model better "from a socioeconomic standpoint" unless you're one of the shysters who runs a dealership? Or do you subscribe to the broken-window-theory notion that more jobs == better even if those jobs entail ripping people off and costing society overall?
I don't believe pharmaceuticals aren't made with union labor. Planes are made in Washington state, and the west coast isn't known for being a big union stronghold like the Rust Belt. The US has net imports because its citizens are not nearly as productive as Germany's in producing high-end manufactured goods. Sorry, but coal and corn are not a high-value goods. And France and Germany make at least as many planes as Boeing with Airbus. Finally, where are the US-made multi-billion-dollar cruise ships? Oh yeah, there aren't any; they're all made in northern Europe and France.
As for VW, at least they didn't murder their customers by refusing to fix defective ignition switches, and then get off mostly scot-free. Though personally I'll avoid both American and European cars and stick with Japanese. I've never heard of them either intentionally covering up safety problems or cheating emissions tests, though they seem to have airbag problems now and then resulting in recalls, but no one's perfect.
It's not young people that are ruining this place: the young people don't hang out here, and instead spend their time elsewhere besides a washed-up tech site. This place is mostly populated by angry old farts who just sit around in their Depends and complain about new technologies and changing society. The above is probably one of them.
They have? Last I heard, they were still using them, but only at smaller airports. I'm with the GP: the terahertz ones are OK with me, but not the X-ray scanners which were never tested by the FDA for safety or radiation levels.
X-rays are known to cause cancer in sufficient quantity. How do you know the TSA machines aren't blasting you with huge amounts of X-ray radiation? Have they been checked by the FDA? No, they haven't, because they're supposedly not "medical devices".
Hear, hear. Mod up. I'm really sick of the Luddites and technophobes on this site; I thought this was supposed to be a site for smart, nerdy people, not a bunch of angry old men in their rocking chairs complaining about how they had to walk uphill 40 miles both ways to school every day.
I can't seem to find any official numbers for those years; the EPA's website only goes back to 1984, and the '84 Cavalier has some pretty lousy numbers compared to what you allege. I found some other site alleging some 40+ numbers for a bunch of cars, but then a bunch of comments after claiming those numbers were bogus. It seems strange that the Cavalier would suddenly drop 10+mpg in 2 years; I'm pretty sure the basic design was the same between 82 and 84. It did about 30mpg on the highway though, and low 20s in the city.
"chloral floral carbon scares"? If you mean CFCs, those are real and were proven to be ozone-harming. They're also irrelevant to fuel economy, though you could complain that the first-generation HFC-based air conditioners kinda sucked. Still, A/C doesn't affect fuel economy until 2008 I believe, which is when EPA changed their testing methodology to include it IIRC. Before that, fuel economy tests kept the A/C off. And even with it on, the refrigerant probably won't make a difference; I kinda doubt the test demands a certain vent outlet temperature.
Obviously, though, fuel economy has taken a back seat to other factors, namely crashworthiness, weight, and performance. Those old Cavaliers were horribly underpowered; now you can get a car with 40mpg fuel economy, more than twice as much horsepower, a 0-60 time more than twice as fast, insanely better handling, insanely fewer emissions (hence less smog: do you want to live in a place like Beijing?), insanely better crash protection, and 50% more weight (a penalty partially of the crash protection, but also cars have gotten somewhat larger since then for the same class), while not having to do nearly as much maintenance (usually nothing but oil changes and tire rotations until 100k, and oil changes can go 10-15k), nor having to retune carbs for different altitudes and weather.
Well badge engineering is a slightly different thing really than parts-sharing. Badge-engineering is where you take a whole, complete car from one automaker, and they build it on their assembly line but with different badges and then ship it to the other automakers' dealers to be sold. Mazda is doing that now with Scion: they're dumping the Mazda2, and instead what the rest of the world calls the "Mazda2" is now the Scion iA. Now looking at the price of that car, compared to the low-end Mazda3 models, I have no idea why anyone would bother with it, but regardless...
There's been lots of that. Back around 1992 Chevy did that with their "Geo" sub-brand, selling Corollas among other cars.
Parts-sharing involves a lot more working together than that.
All the people who won't ride the newfangled horseless carriage is not really my concern.
It is when they pass a law that you can only drive it when there's another person walking in front of it, waving a red flag.
They've been working on automation for Amtrak for quite a while, but dragging their feet. As a result, some moron operator killed a bunch of people less than a year ago near Philly when he went around a turn way too fast.
Unions in Germany seem to manage to pump out some of the world's best industrial products and help make that country a powerhouse of high-tech exports.
Unions in America.... not so much.
There's obviously something very different about them, judging by the results.
Oh please, the JD Powers survey is for "initial quality", it has nothing to do with long-term reliability. They basically just ask people how they like their new car after having it for a short time. So cars which do badly are ones which have warranty defects, and high-end cars tend to do worse because their buyers are pickier about things like squeaks and rattles.
As for DIY maintenance, that affects any low-end brand. I've met far more people who tinkered on their Hondas than probably any other brand; it's only really old farts who tinkered on Chryslers, and no one does any more.
As for service, I would think that would be something pretty variable, and completely up to each independent stealership. They're run entirely different from each other, since they're all franchised. Honestly, the stealership model is the worst thing about car buying and ownership, and should just be eliminated. Just as we (USA) are backwards and third-worldish on so many other things, we're the only country in the whole world that has this antiquated and idiotic independent dealership model for buying and servicing cars. It adds a huge amount to the purchase price of every car, and is of *negative* benefit. We should just do what every other country does, and allow carmakers to sell directly to consumers through manufacturer-owned dealerships. It would allow carmakers to exercise a LOT more control over the car-buying and servicing experience, so if some people got lousy service at GM dealerships in Texas and California and complained online about it, it'd be entirely valid to assume that GM service is lousy nationwide because they're all run by the same company. It's just like Apple stores: if one Apple store treats customers terribly and they complain, Apple's corporate HQ will jump right in to salvage their reputation, but with independent auto dealerships we don't have that, we just have thousands upon thousands of independent, franchised businesses run by charlatans and con artists scamming us any way they can.
That's what I was wondering. However, to be fair I will say that it least they didn't team up with GM. At least Ford hasn't intentionally murdered people (that we know of yet) since the 1970s with the Pinto fiasco. GM intentionally murdered people as late as the mid-late 2000s with their ignition switch fiasco.