@cstross Right-to-repair is a huge issue for farm equipment.

One of the reasons is not so much that the OEM prices are high is that the stocks of spares are sized based on the order rate against the high prices; you order it, they make it, and you get it many weeks later.

Combine "the software servers are down" with "the supply chain to the plant that makes spares is disrupted" with "fuel prices are too high for profitable farming according to the financial system" and food supply shrinks.

@cstross What I think people don't get is that the farm skillset in the US is in old people (on the whole and by and large), COVID has been hard on them, and the ethnic cleansing has taken away big chunks of the skills base.

Compelled system change in a context where you've got some patrician landowners and invalidated-axioms agribusiness and not much else is not going to hold together so well. Then throw in the extreme weather events, plural, the US has already had through the Midwest.

@cstross A lot of this has been driven by a desire to re-open Russia's sales channels so they can afford their war of conquest. (Dropped sanctions by the US, calls from the EU right, etc.)

We're seeing late stage Carbon Binge efforts to use military force to be the last supplier standing.

What we aren't seeing yet is the Coalition to Decarbonize; I think we're gonna, and then we're going to see military efforts to prevent any such thing.

Society insists you buy gas, even when there isn't any.

@otfrom @cstross @graydon

The USA could have been the driving force behind world transport/renewable electrification, but we didn't have the political will nor the insight.

Much like VHS videotape and the transistor radio, the US invented something, looked at it, said "meh", and continued doing what we were doing. Another country (Japan before, China now) looked and said "Ooooooh, we can use that!" Japan also did a similar move with small, excellent cars when the US couldn't be bothered.

China realized there's no future in polluting with coal nor in buying oil - it's a mug's game.

They made a calculated political decision to take over the world solar market, and to be the driving force behind world electrification. (Maybe something only possible in a command economy.)

Result? Lots of money coming into China for solar panels and electric cars / bikes. Economic destruction of the petroleum car and petroleum extraction industries. The world looking to China as the provider of energy needs, instead of the US and the Middle East.

Oh, and BTW, much cleaner air and water, and maybe slowing down climate change.

@PhilSalkie @otfrom @cstross @graydon

America invented electricity?
Faraday, Swan and many others would beg to differ.