Andy Warhol's quote is about aspiration and perceived attainment. The average person is not aspiring to drink a gold flake truffle-infused Coke.
The implication is the lack of a rigorous class hierarchy in America. Not that the rich don't live different lifestyles or consume more. But that niche luxury products were considered effete and un-American.
(Andy Warhol was almost certainly also being ironic - that the richest people in America publicly shared the same trashy taste as average Americans).
The closest analogue today might be an iPhone. Rich or poor, if you want the "best" phone you have an iPhone. Sure, there are gaudier and more expensive phones out there. But you're essentially using the same product as the richest Americans.
Fair point.
What about cars or houses?
Personally I don't envy an "high-end" car (RR, McLaren, Ferrari, Porsche, etc.), or a big mansion which needs a horde of people to run.
I personally developed a feeling for things which are at the edge of "diminishing returns" curve. I get the things which are high-end enough, but not in the "pay 3x more to get 1% more" region.
> no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking
Doesn't the fact that the original quote literally acknowledges "bums on the corner" imply that he wasn't referring to housing at all?
I have found the Coke machines at Costco to always have a perfect mixture.
“If you raise (the price of the) effing hot dog, I will kill you”
That fancy Lamborghini is going to be sitting in the same traffic as my Honda.
the lambo is a toy.
the people who have the real money are flying in private jets.
no - it will be getting very expensive servicing while you're enjoying 200K+ trouble-free miles
But it's not expensive to the person getting it serviced. Finance becomes a matter of perspective at a certain level, I imagine. You buy the Lambo because it's fun to drive, you buy the clothing with the most 000's at the end of the price because it's most likely the best. It's not 'expensive,' it's just... why would you take anything less than the best everytime?
Which is of course entirely besides the point. While it’s receiving service the owner will be in their Honda accord (they drive it daily), but they will always have the top trim and will probably get a new one once it’s out of warranty and needs its first “real entropy” repair.
Being rich is better than being poor. The Warhol quote has nothing to do with that fact.
>Being rich is better than being poor.
As someone who started out very poor, and is now ~ 30x above that. I strongly subscribe to the idea that happiness from income is very logarithmic. The first 2-3x income was life changing. I'm talking going from eating pasta, rice and beans for most meals to fresh fruit and veg, lean cuts of meat. From renting a room in a noisy apartment with 4 other people to having my own place that was both safe and quiet. My reading list was suddenly more constrained by time instead of price or library backlog.
I suppose it's down to my starting position, a content disposition and a boring lack of imagination, but my expenses have now ~ 5x'd what they were when I was on the strugglebus, but still very modest, and I honestly can't identify any spending that would make my life better or make me happier long term.
It’s very true. When I got my first apartment on my own I was living on $3000/month (today’s dollars adjusted for inflation). Now I live on $20k and I can’t say there’s many things better about my day to day. I seem to spend a lot on things that don’t matter that much :(
I'm reminded of the Polish proverb that it's better to be rich & healthy than sick & poor.
You're equals in that regard, but try riding a motorcycle one day. I live in a country where lanesplitting is legal. There's nothing quite like getting passed by an extremely expensive car, and then at the traffic lights, cut in front of it.
Sounds like an evolutionary advantage adapted by the Toxoplasma gondii in your brain to more efficiently deliver you to the big ghost cat in the sky.
It feels great until you die.
So do most nice things in life old boy.
[Honda Fireblade: throttle open and in the red, eyes closed and smiling.]
It's going to be sitting here in my garage in hollywood hills. (and seven more lamborghinis in my lamborghini account)
In other words, it's still perceived as a sign of status.
Unless they pay for the express lanes
Yeah, those are obnoxious and a fundamental undermining of America, imo.
The owner can afford to use the HOT lane at any price.
Not in LA/socal. The secret is out. There's a bunch of underground tunnels that rich and well connected people can use, that the little people can not.
Is this actually true cause it reads like STRAIGHT paranoia. I imagine those tunnels are owned by the illuminati, right?
A Tesla will out accelerate all but the most niche cars now. Even the cheapest cars can have giant screens and climate control. I don't think they are equal to a Rolls Royce, but extreme luxury has greater diminishing returns now than at any point in history.
Where I live pretty much all new houses are being built with granite counter tops and hardwood floors. Whether that's a good thing is a whole other topic ...
> Where I live pretty much all new houses are being built with granite counter tops and hardwood floors. Whether that's a good thing is a whole other topic ...
When land and labor (and fees leveraged by the city, state, etc.) are extremely expensive, the additional cost for these "luxury" items is very low by comparison. The buyers for these homes are buying everything new and it makes little sense to save $10k or so on such a visible amenity that is expensive to retrofit afterwards, on a home that costs $500k.
It is the same reason why crank windows are gone from cars. They aren't really status symbols.
And when my kitchen had to get rebuilt after a fire, I got neither. There are better synthetics for countertops and good tile is generally better for the floors. Maybe new houses are being built with granite and hardwood floors but they're not necessarily the best choices. I've known lots of people who had issues with granite (and my contractor agreed) and my hardwood was pretty beaten up even before the fire though I still have plenty of very old hardwood flooring in other less-trafficked areas of the house.
Like car colors, new house design decisions tend to be driven a lot by various current fashions because they're the low risk for purchasing reasons whether by developers or perceived resale by buyers.
Personally, I didn't care. My new color schemes are muted but not neutral. And my kitchen/dining room choices were, I think, practical for the most part.
>It is the same reason why crank windows are gone from cars. They aren't really status symbols.
That has more to do with automotive engineering being tightly coupled to academic engineering and the latter having gone through a "people are idiots, rob them of the ability to put force on anything at every opportunity" phase.
A Tesla is a poorly built expensive semi-luxury car.
The first Teslas were poorly built expensive semi-luxury cars.
The current Model 3 and Model Y are properly built competitively priced cars with many luxury features (such as huge trunks, rear climate control, all wheel drive, etc) and gadgets (Netflix on huge touchscreen, self-driving, etc).
They are still out of reach as new to a lot of people. Let's call that premium market instead of luxury.
A Tesla Model 3, dual motor has a 0 to 60 speed of 4.3 seconds. My F-150 lightening extended range can do that it 3.8 seconds.
Tesla Model3 dual is 4.03 seconds, not 4.3 while the F-150 lightning standard range is 4.2.
The F-150 extended range is 3.8 as you state, but then the Tesla Model 3 performance comes in at 2.8.
https://www.0-60specs.com/tesla/model-3-0-60-times
https://www.fordoffeasterville.com/blogs/4896/ford-lightning...
Both are absurd and entirely unnecessary for vehicles not on a race track. Tesla's great trick was replacing BMW as the car your neighborhood prick who wants to look upscale buys by default.
> race track
I presume that F150 ain't getting round the corners very quickly.
I reckon optimising for straight line speed is a strange goal.
Right, there's no form of racing that is a straight line, is there.
Regardless, optimizing a pick up for 0-60 time is a strange goal, unless you have some express desire to launch 2x4s a great distance in a complicated way.
I was sad to see it discontinued. I hope the slate truck is gonna be good when it's released, cause I dig their emphasis on customization and repairability.
Me too, it's such a fantastic truck. Built like a tank, huge battery and insanely fast charging for a 400V architecture. The only thing that sucks about it is it's a bit bouncy, and the software can be stupid. But I love it.
We bought it mostly because we wanted an EV for power backup for the house. We get ice storms in the winter and it can knock out power for days, and we need to be able to keep almost 1,000 gallons of aquariums running during them. The F150 extended range has that in spades and was cheaper than the equivalent power wall system.
It's basically a whole house backup generator that we can happen to drive around.
The fascinating thing for me was that they actually had trouble selling it ( and thus the production stop and fairly aggressive incentives to sell the remaining ones off ). I really do enjoy mine and I swear I was not a truck person.
it’s pretty much useless for anything you would actually use a truck for
like cybertruck? :)
yes, those aren’t selling either
f150 power boost is superior, has all the features you mention but you can use gasoline to keep your generator going
Why would I want to lug around an engine everywhere I go? I'd only need it like once or twice a year.
As for the generator aspect, with its 135 kWh battery pack, I can power the aquariums for weeks and weeks.
The frunk on the F150-Lightning has not been praised enough. It's a really great truck, but having that giant storage space that locks makes it so much better than anything else out there if that's what you need.
You'd think they'd emphasize the singe cab at least a little since the frunk does the job most people use the second row for.
Lightning was crew cab only.
I know. I think that's dumb. At least offer extended if not single.
>A Tesla will out accelerate all but the most niche cars now.
Claims presented without evidence. My slightly modified Subaru Wagon from '05 "out-accelerated" base Teslas - dead even in 1st gear, started pulling once the shift to 2nd happened. (Most) EVs cannot shift gears to get torque multiplication, so they start fast, but fall off as speeds get higher. My Kia gas car will outrun all but the model 3 performance - which the average person is NOT driving. Neither of those cars are "niche".
> My slightly modified Subaru Wagon from '05 "out-accelerated" base Teslas - dead even in 1st gear, started pulling once the shift to 2nd happened.
Slightly modified is doing some heavy lifting there. No 2005 Subaru wagon in stock config is anywhere close to beating a Model 3.
> (Most) EVs cannot shift gears to get torque multiplication, so they start fast, but fall off as speeds get higher.
Pretty much irrelevant, because they’re still blisteringly fast up to 60 which is where most of the acceleration happens in day to day. Nobody really cares about 60-80 or 60-100.
> My Kia gas car will outrun all but the model 3 performance - which the average person is NOT driving.
What Kia is that? Even the stinger GT (which is definitely a niche car) is slower than a regular dual motor model 3.
Another reason it's irrelevant is you just don't need the accel. Flooring a Tesla is fun once or twice, but if you floor it every chance you get I don't want to be your passenger. It's neither comfortable nor safe.
Comments like this are pretty useless unless you bring numbers.
EV motors can rev insanely high, so they don't need to shift gears, while most gas engines are limited to 6-7k RPM from factory. Thus the gassers need gears that essentially torque divide to reduce RPMs. You are very confused.
I’m guessing your ‘slightly modified Subaru’ is an ‘05 Impreza STi (276 HP stock) with a chip and higher boost? That is a niche car.
It’s not particularly noteworthy that the road version a vehicle used by Subaru’s WRC team can keep up with a Tesla if you modify the ECU and add more boost.
This doesn't make any sense. You can do a < 5 second 0-60 in your Subaru or Kia?
The real question is what about toilets. You'd think they're all the same, but a $700 Toto bidet with a heated seat that cleans your butthole with warm water is a better experience than using toilet paper.
My $200 home depot bidet does the same.
Toto survives by brand name reco only nowadays.