Time for another “quick takes” since half my readers are likely still recovering from Thanksgiving food comas.
One of the more extraordinary videos I’ve seen. Do take the time to watch it, it’s not that long
The Largest Car Producers in the World
At the 34' of the video, a new player joins the game…
pic.twitter.com/FMlTsZNF3m
— ShanghaiPanda (@thinking_panda) November 22, 2023
Two things beyond the obvious really stuck out for me: one is how Britain lost its car industry, which was actually pretty large. The second is Japan dipping back below the US, though I wonder how much of that is offshored production: Canada is listed as a big producer for much of the timeline, but it’s all foreign companies: American, Korean and Japanese.
The main thing, though, is the huge size of the Chinese lead. It’s very reminiscent of the US lead after WWII.
All of this is ludicrous, though, in the sense that even electric cars are massively environmentally stupid (too many resources, used up too quickly given how fast we replace cars.) We need to move off cars to a large extent, and those that remain needs to last for decades, not years.
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The Electronic Intifada, admittedly a site with a pro-Palestinian POV has a roundup of evidence that Israel killed a fair number of Israeli civilians and military during the Hamas attack. I find this largely credible, Israeli troops are largely incompetent; Israel was taken entirely by surprise and Israel has the “Hannibal Doctrine” which instructs its own troops to kill Israelis rather than let them be kidnapped.
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A reminder that it’s my annual fundraiser. This is a reader supported outlet and the work is impossible without your help. If you like the content and can afford to give or subscribe, please do. (A couple new rewards will be announced on Monday.)
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This chart shows the age breakdown of reported deaths in Gaza. The median age is 5. Granted this is fairly close to the population pyramid, it shows that Israeli bombing is indiscriminate: they’re trying to kill as many civilians as possible, not to hit Hamas soldiers specifically.
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Rishi Sunak is the current Prime Minister of Britain and was Chancellor of the Exchequer during the Covid pandemic. We now have some evidence, admittedly alleged, that he just wanted to let Britains die of Covid. Not a surprise, but the confirmation is needed by some.
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For what is years now I have been saying that each Covid infection makes the next one more likely to be worse, and increases the odds of Long Covid. Another study comes in saying that.
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While China has the most patents these days, in terms of scientific citations it lags behind. (This isn’t my favorite metric and never has been, but it’s not completely meaningless.) They still lag. The US in 2022 had 37.5%, down from 43.3% five years ago, and China had 17.9%, up from 7.9% five years ago. Britain comes in third. Even taken seriously (gaming of citations is an academic disease and English speaking nations have a structural advantage due to how the journal industry is set up), China is coming on strong.
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And for our last piece, a study reports that UK forests are facing systematic collapse within 50 years. Bank on it being sooner, and probably much sooner.
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That’s it for quick takes 7.