How Tesla Will Change The World

By Nic Schlueter | Friday, Nov 20, 2015

Some websites are life-changing. I don't know why I have never heard of "Wait But Why" before. Now that I have, it has completely consumed me. To see smart & funny writing, written for smart people in a smart way is delightful.

The post I want to talk about is about Tesla on the surface, but it is really about energy, climate change, and cars. It is not a post that can be read in one sitting and it is not a post that can be skimmed through. It requires thinking. It may even lead you to have a conversation about it with actual people. I read this post weeks ago and I still find myself frequently thinking about it.

Here is an excerpt I liked:

We use “the food chain” as a cute euphemism for this murder/theft cycle, and we use the word “eating” to refer to “stealing someone else’s joules and also murdering them too.” A “predator” is a dick who always seems to want your joules over everyone else’s, and “prey” is just some sniveling nerd you particularly like to bully and steal lunch money from. Plants are the only innocent ones who actually follow the Golden Rule, but that’s just because they have the privilege of having the sun as their sugar daddy—and humans are the biosphere’s upsetting mafia boss who just takes what he wants from anyone he wants, whenever he wants. It’s not a great system, but it works.

I said life-changing, which sounds like a cliché. When I read this post, I had just sold my car and hadn't purchased a new one. It probably made sense for me to get a car, but I decided to tough it out for a couple years to see how the electric market turns out. As a side note I think that no matter what type of car I buy, it will likely be my last car (as cities will be fundamentally transformed by self-driving cars).

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