Still just over 2500 too many

The thinking probably goes along the lines of:

1. The oil will run out “long” after current oligarchs are dead so they don’t care
2. Even if it is diminishing sooner than anticipated, would you want to be the one to tell oligarch #236311 that his oil fields and money are about to run dry, pissing him off? They’re surrounded with sycophants and suck ups who have their own money wells to run dry
3. Solar and other renewables have just enough real problems with them that aforementioned sycophants can blow it out of proportion and frame them as bad investments.

Systematic capitalism plus human greed heavily incentives short term thinking

Nah, it was a result of the continuing collapse of competition in the defense industry.

Raytheon and United Technology Corporation (UTC) were stagnating so they merged to create Raytheon Technology Corporation in 2020 with the Raytheon brand being split off to a subsidiary, along with Collins Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney. After the merger the new company was being traded under the RTX ticker, which it fully rebranded to in 2023.

I worked for one of their subsidiaries of subsidiaries around that time and rumor mill was the RTX executives were getting pissy about the name Raytheon being used and not the full name, so Raytheon the subsidiary company was getting all the attention from Raytheon Technology Corporation the parent company. So they spent an absurd amount of money on a rebrand and they gave all employees a corporate gift which has this sad little branding on it saying “Raytheon, an RTX company”

Uhhhhhh did you watch the video?

He goes to great lengths to point out that it isn’t an efficiency problem, and despite US residential standard outlets being 120VAC dedicated electric kettles are still the fastest way to boil water given other appliances (though induction cooktops are closing the gap).

The biggest reason dedicated electric kettles are not popular in the US is because we’re either boiling water for cooking some meal (pot is already on the stove so why bother with another appliance) or we’re making coffee. And the vast majority of coffee makers over here have the exact same circuitry and heating elements as an electric kettle. It’s just not standalone

Working in the aerospace industry has given me a lot of insight into the different ways engineers rationalize the potential for harm that they cause. The most common is wilful ignorance or straight up denial. No, the products I work on can never hurt anyone, it’s just xyz I know personally engineers who work on weaponry and fall heavily into that camp and it blows my mind.