It’s worth noting that Americans also must spend that income in a similarly-inflated market, so it doesn’t much matter what their salary would be worth in, say, Uganda. I think any such comparison of global wealth runs into these sorts of issues.

Someone earning in the global top 10% may not be able to afford a house locally. Someone earning in the top 30% may not be able to afford rent and food at the same time in their locale. It makes the percentile meaningless.

More of an environmental Skyhawk, actually

That was a great watch - it’s cool to find out the history.

I must say, society is much better off without widespread use of TEL, but as someone who used to do racecar things, TEL works like magic. A little goes a LONG way, and Midgely did legitimately stumble upon something with very high effect for the concentration (they also touch on ethanol in the video which has the drawback of needing a lot).

I’m not opposed to using it in a small scale racing context (like definitely not NASCAR) because it’s so fucking useful and the quantity is unlikely to cause harm. Unfortunately so much bad has been done with it at this point, I don’t think that’s a very popular opinion.

Whatever your views on it, it’s the only thing that can make gasoline legitimately 120+ octane, and that has huge implications for some types of racing.

It’s approved as of last fall, but the FAA spent well over a decade stonewalling it with unnecessary bureaucracy.

Now we’re left with the chicken-and-egg problem of the market, where nobody will offer unleaded because it’s more expensive, but it’s expensive because it’s not widely used. The feds should subsidize it down to $4/gal for 5 years to get it off the ground.

Yes, some light planes have fuel economy similar to efficient cars (which is very impressive considering how fast they are relative to cars). If you consider the advantages of direct, straight line routing, it’s not hard for planes to do better on fuel economy.

We’re not talking about jets here, though some of those do very well in mpg on a per passenger basis.

I gave up kids to have flying!

Worth noting that the amount of aviation fuel burned annually should make it a negligible contributer to environmental lead contamination compared to widespread automotive use (although I’m sure it contributes on airport grounds).

Edit: All the pilots I know want to use unleaded, and it was recently approved after being stuck in a bureaucratic nightmare process, but market forces may make it hard to adopt.

It was caught in FAA-Bureauctatic hell for 15+ years and just approved last year. It will be still be slow to become available and adopt for reasons that are complicated, but amount to bureaucracy, economics, and an insane degree of risk aversion. The vast majority of pilots want unleaded and it’s also much better for the engines.

Have you seen the unbelievably entitled, self-centered assholes who play music on trails because they’re too cool for headphones and fuck what anyone else wants?

Get in, make as much as possible (with little to no regard for others), get out, retire early.

Arguably, this is what the American dream has become. It used to be we wanted middle class wealth, 2.1 kids, and a nice suburban house. But now all we want to do is sell out, retire, and never have to work again. I can relate, even if I lack the skills to play the game.

That’s where we got antiwork, FIRE, etc. It’s true: nobody wants to work anymore. I sure don’t. Maybe we never did.

Quite literally, same here. There’s nothing wrong with bikes, but used cars became unreasonably expensive and younger people never tasted the freedom. Planes are like that with even smaller percentages of pilots and even more unreasonable prices (last affordable in the 1960s, while cars were affordable until the early 2000s or so). People hate what they don’t have or understand. Personal vehicles are incredibly liberating for those of us who get it. We’re being shamed for appreciating an independence everyone should experience, but can’t because there are too many people, too much demand, and all the ecological problems that come with it. Yes, human impact could be reduced if everyone lived in abject poverty, but guess what, poor people in developing countries want Western amenities too. Everyone should.