The Righteous of New York City love to talk about how they’re protecting our precious planet. Here’s their police department proudly displaying a video of perfectly functional mopeds being crushed rather than being sold and/or exported to a lower-income country:
If we want to reduce carbon emissions, does it make sense to destroy 5,700 mopeds?
Also confusing… the people who run both New York State and New York City say that they hate inequality. New York City plainly is stuffed full of richer people than New York State. The rulers of NYS and NYC, however, have agreed to funnel NYS money to NYC, thus exacerbating inequality… “Hochul forks over another $4B to bail out Mamdani’s NYC budget woes as she faces intense election pressure”:
Mayor Zohran Mamdani unveiled a whopping $124.7 billion executive budget for New York City on Tuesday – built on the back of $4 billion in funny money from Gov. Kathy Hochul.
The governor’s bailout – announced hours before the city budget’s reveal – was quickly criticized as a fiction used to help out her reluctant ally Mamdani as she faces re-election and pressure to appease the lefty mayor’s comrades.
If inequality haters in NYC actually do hate inequality, they shouldn’t want to receive any money from the state. (Same deal with Harvard University, which says officially that inequality is bad and then takes federal money that could have been spent at University of Michigan instead (U. Mich. is a poorer university than Harvard and located in a poorer state than Maskachusetts).)
Finally, let’s reflect that Mamdanism (steal from the rich; give to everyone else) is going to end up working beautifully because the rich won’t move out of NY and stop paying for whatever Ayatollah Mamdani and his sidekick Gov. Hochul dream up. The rest of the U.S. can reasonably vote for Mamdanism on a federal level after watching what a success it has been in NYC due to these elite tax cattle staying in place and paying.
> The Righteous of New York City love to talk about how they’re protecting our precious planet.
This is something most of India hasn’t yet fallen for totally, if it does it would be totally against the Indian philosophy. Inspite of the deaths from Tsunami, Covid, and numerous other natural calamities, saying that we can “protect the planet”, is just delusional. Human being are protecting THEMSELVES from dying if they don’t listen to what Nature is telling them. “Protecting the planet” flips the narrative totally, implying that human beings are setting the context/laws in which Nature operates, when in reality it’s the other way.
PhilG Fan, what exactly is Nature telling us?
A lot of things that Dr. Greenspun keeps complaining about on his blog. If one removes all the sarcasm, cynicism, etc., that is. For example:
1. Population decline: We need to really understand why is high earning and highly educated people not reproducing and what should be done regarding that. This is happening not just in the States, but even in big cities in India, AFAIK. Nature is telling us that we are doing something wrong which is causing internal violence and making people so cynical that they don’t want to have children. The Swedes saw this very early, like in 60s or something and having more children is beneficial there, money-wise. IMO, the reason is in somewhere in this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_Culture
2. Consumerism: If many of the things that we use are non-biodegradable and hazardous to environment, Nature is telling us to use them carefully, to not encourage their consumption, to recycle them, to find alternatives that are more sustainable, etc. This might get root-caused to cultural issues, we need to understand those.
3. Lack of research on important issues: This is the most important of all the things. The issues that are most important for keeping a population from not causing violence (internal and external) amongst themselves as well as not disturbing other populations are not being researched. Humanities research, IMO, should go hand in hand with technology, this doesn’t happen. This is a major problem, and we end up creating humanities problem with tech. And then use more tech to solve the problems, not realizing that human beings are not deterministic like tech. I have seen this first hand in my extended family.
Overall, I think the problems are very well known, and I didn’t say anything new, it’s just the hubris underlying “saving the planet” that I find very irritating, it is as if we know all of Nature’s laws.
I hope that I haven’t complained about population decline. The world was home to 3 billion humans at the start of my life and there hasn’t been any point in my life where I said “This planet is underpopulated”. (Today’s population is at least 8 billion and possibly closer to 10 billion. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2472604-have-we-vastly-underestimated-the-total-number-of-people-on-earth/ )
Similarly, U.S. population has almost doubled during my lifetime (tough to know precisely since we have no way of counting undocumented enrichers). I don’t remember ever thinking or saying “This country needs more humans.”
Surprised they didn’t bother recycling the expensive bits. Electronicals are no longer getting cheaper. Moped owners have to pay a tax & insurance in NY. Surprised they grew from just a european trend in the last 20 years.
The NYPD is crushing it when it comes to taking illegal migrants and their families off our streets.
“Mayor Zohran Mamdani unveiled a whopping $124.7 billion executive budget for New York City on Tuesday – built on the back of $4 billion in funny money from Gov. Kathy Hochul.”
So a budget built on the back of lower than 4% cash injection from the state? I am sure there is something I am missing, because I personally never managed to have a 4% cash injection supporting a 100% expense, no matter the size of such expense.
Concerning the migration of the rich out of NYC: I would guess as long as high class escorts choose NYC the clientele will remain, I cannot see them switch for the offer available in low tax Ruralville.
@Frederico: “as long as high class escorts choose NYC the clientele will remain”
P (“high class” AND “escort”) = 0
Miami Beach has always had the best-looking escorts.
Federico: your theory may explain why the rich seem to be choosing Miami these days rather than Palm Beach or Naples. People who speak no Spanish and who won’t be going to clubs until 2 am every night wouldn’t ordinarily choose to subject themselves to Miami traffic jams.
In Miami beer is always cold and women serving it always hot. So it checks out two most important things in life. disfruta la vida amigos.
Meanwhile, our hard-at-work Congresswoman Goodlander from the State of New Hampshire introduced a resolution recognizing April 2026 as “National Native Plant Month,” highlighting the role native plants play in strengthening local economies, and preserving America’s natural heritage.
Whereas plants from “distant lands” are identified as not being the best for our native ecosystem.
A case of inequality and plant supremacy?
See: https://goodlander.house.gov/media/press-releases/icymi-goodlander-joyce-introduce-legislation-to-recognize-april-2026-as-national-native-plant-month/
“Native plants are the backbone of our landscapes” does seem odd considering that Science shows recent immigrants being the backbone of everything else good about the U.S.