In Between Times 5-18-2023
Red states will soon enjoy "layer cake" of green tax breaks, How to buy a Chevy Bolt for under $15K, Should we regulate AI?, Do we have to do a 2020 election rematch?
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Red states stand to benefit from a ‘layer cake’ of tax breaks from federal climate law
It’s a darn expensive cake, but cake nonetheless. And it may help some communities that are hurting transition away from fossil fuels.
(From Inside Climate News)
Imagine a 1-megawatt solar array on about eight acres of land in West Virginia. To make the math simple, let’s say it costs $1 million.
Under the Inflation Reduction Act, the landmark federal climate and clean energy law, this project would qualify for the “investment tax credit,” which is worth 30 percent of the project’s cost.
But that’s just the beginning of a series of stackable credits, like a layer cake, that can add up to huge benefits.
Click here for the article.
LA County cops go electric
This shouldn’t be surprising. Where there is EV infrastructure EVs make sense. LA has much of the infrastructure. EVs are cleaner on the road. They are faster than gas powered cars (on average). They may require less maintenance over time
The only issue we could see, and it is a big one, is if LA has another power shortage this summer. What do the police do if the grid goes down? We assume there will be generators and batteries ready to go in the event of such a situation. At least we hope that these contingencies will be in place.
(From Just The News)
South Pasadena Police Chief Brian Solinsky said in a statement the decision to go electric was the product of "five to six years" of investigating the best vehicles for the department. In the end, they felt the Teslas would be the best cars "operationally."
"They are the safest and fastest vehicles and will save the city money in lower maintenance and fueling costs," he added in a statement.
Click here for the article.
How to buy a 2023 Chevy Bolt for under $15,000 (Not a joke)
AllSides asks: “Should AI be regulated?”
AllSides offers a take on this question from left, right, and center.
On the left, as one might expect, there are robust calls for regulation. In the center there is - we must regulate - but. On the right, and this is not necessarily the right of center position on AI regs, comes an argument from an old colleague of your editor’s Tim Carney, who warns that large corporations will use any AI regulation to consolidate power in the emerging technology. (This always happens with large pieces of regulatory legislation. Much legislation OF industry is actually written by lobbyists FOR a particular industry. This is how the regulatory sausage is made.)
All three arguments have their merits and flaws but none of the three get it quite right from our perspective.
Lay people have just begun to wake up to the power of Artificial Intelligence. Your editor has been following it fairly closely for about a decade and quite closely for three years or so. AI represents a truly revolutionary and transformational technology. The potential for good with AI is mind boggling. Many people think that AI will prove on par with the agricultural and industrial revolutions with massive leaps in productivity.
AI is in the process of changing the very fabric of human existence - right now. But with the breakthroughs in medicine, transportation, and communication, so too come serious perils.
Like, really serious.
In fact, in a recent interview on CNBC BCA’s chief global strategist Peter Berezin argued that there was a 50/50 chance that AI will “wipe out all of humanity.”
Huh?
And it’s not some nut making this call. Mr. Berezin represents a highly reputable research firm. You can see his interview below.
Is this call right? We don’t know. No one does. But it seems feasible that AI could build upon itself over and over leaving human intelligence far in the dust. And then what happens?
Such a transformation is also something that could happen quite quickly, as in months or weeks, not years. Berezin argues that too many people are thinking about AI in linear terms when they should be thinking about it in exponential terms. In other words, we should think of AI almost like a spreading virus. In the beginning there might be a case of concern here. Then there might be a case of concern there. At first it doesn’t seem like a big deal. But then things metastasize, or reach actualization depending on your perspective, and the world changes in an instant.
We face a dilemma. The potential for good with AI is so incredible, so enticing, that many want to enable AI as much as they can. Heady dreams of cures for cancer loom for some in the not so distant future (potentially.) On the other hand there are those who fear that we are unleashing a digital kraken that in the end will swallow us all. The answer is somewhere between these two perspectives we suspect but what that answer is, exactly, is yet to be determined. But we had better do some hard thinking, and quick. Time is not on our side.
AI in some ways can be thought of like nuclear energy. When it literally burst onto the scene we didn’t even know what it was that we had. We saw the destructive power, but we also saw incredible potential for energy. That is where we are now with AI, the dawn of a radically new technology. Hopefully we will make wise decisions in the next couple of years. We can’t afford not to.
Click here for the article.
Are we fated to another Trump/Biden contest in 2024? Probably, but many voters despair at the prospect
Trump elicits such extreme hatred among some. Some in my own family. Biden elicits less hatred (largely because he is seen as less charismatic) but still plenty among some, including people in my own family.
The Trump haters are convinced that he’s a racist, misogynist, or whatever the current insult of fashion is. And Trump drives these people crazy because he looks them right in the eye and smiles. Impeach him. Indict him. He survives. This drives them nuts. And If I disliked someone (and I am no fan of Trump) as much as some of my friends do Trump I’d probably lose it too. He’s like the political terminator. How could ANYONE support Trump?
On the other side the Biden haters wonder why the legacy media won’t cover the Hunter Biden scandal(s), or the Durham Report. (Though it should be noted that CNN’s Jake Tapper publicly said that the report “exonerated” Trump on the Russiagate question. He did qualify this however.) Why in light of these things can so many people continue to follow the official narrative coming out of official Washington? This drives the Biden haters nuts. How could ANYONE support Biden?
But in the middle on the presidential question is a large plurality, if not majority. Many of us would like to move on from the Bush/Obama/Trump/Biden era of partisan bitterness back to the regular level of American partisan bickery. Say the Bill Clinton era. Wouldn’t that be nice? We still battled it out with one another then. I was on Capitol Hill the day of Clinton’s impeachment and there was passion on the steps but nothing like what we see today.
A short while ago there wasn’t the deep seething vitriol that currently infects the American zeitgeist.
Some people blame Trump for the ugliness. Some people blame Obama for setting the stage. Some blame the media. Some blame someone or something else. But many of us, the common sense crowd and likely most of our readers, are just tired. We would like some sanity. We’d like the adults to come back. We’d like to be able to deal with one another like a first world nation should.
Also, as our founder Bill Shireman said recently in his podcast (I paraphrase), “are these two guys, Trump and Biden, really the best we can get?”
We all know the answer to that question yet for some reason it looks like we are fated for a 2020 replay. But fate can be fickle.
(From The Center for Politics)
Most Americans do not want to see a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in 2024. Both Biden and Trump are viewed unfavorably by a majority of voters. Nevertheless, there is a strong likelihood that Biden and Trump will be the Democratic and Republican candidates in 2024. In that case, a group of voters who currently favor “someone else” in 2024 may decide the outcome of the presidential election. These voters make up close to one-fifth of the electorate according to data from the 2022 ANES Pilot Study…
…Given the unpopularity of both Biden and Trump, there would appear to be an opening for a third party or independent candidate in 2024 who would appeal to the substantial minority of voters, 15% in the ANES Pilot Study, who dislike both major-party candidates. In 2020, however, third party and independent candidates won less than 2% of the national popular vote. Whether any strong third party or independent candidates emerge in 2024 and, if so, which major party candidate’s support they cut into, may well decide the outcome of the presidential election.
Click here for the article.
IBT Podcasts
May 17 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm CDT
Living Room Conversation: Gender
Location: Online
Join us in a small group discussion with various people from different perspectives on the topic of gender in America.
Layering tax is super interesting. Can’t wait to see which companies take advantage of the tax break to create large scale green energy projects