Torque vs HP again
Convective thought.

Reread this morning's entry about FEEEEELLINGS. Realized I hadn't linked it to BBC website. Went looking for the article, halted at this:

Driven: Tesla's astonishing new ride

Top Gear's Ollie Marriage samples America's "astonishing" 762-horsepower electric saloon.

762 horsepower. ABSOLUTELY NOBODY needs 762 horsepower, and there is NO LEGALLY PERMITTED SITUATION where it will help you drive better or help you get out of a jam.

In the first place it's not the HP number that matters for actual driving. Torque, more precisely the SHAPE OF THE TORQUE CURVE, is what matters. Having enough torque to merge into the interstate at 65, or enough torque to pass a slow truck and get back into the right lane, is what matters. HP is a shorthand way of describing "torque at higher speeds", but it doesn't really tell you what you need to know.

For the usual family-size car 100 HP, and 200 foot-pounds of torque at highway speeds, is sufficient for usual family-size driving. Family-size cars have converged on 100 HP for many years. If you do a lot of two-lane highways, then 200 HP is good.

Beyond that it's NOTHING BUT STATUS. Pure number-worship. Knowing that you own a thing with the number 762 in its specifications and a COOL name on its hood.

Okay. But I just broke the tautology that I listed earlier. Status is not NOTHING. Obviously having 762 in the specifications and Tesla on the hood actually FEELS different to the people who enjoy such things. Therefore the neural pathways must be different.

And I'll take one more step. STATUS is such a deep and PRIMARY purpose among animals that it must have a PHYSICAL ORGAN to measure it. Something like a cochlea or retina or gamma stretch sensor, probably tied to the vagus nerve. Not just an accidentally formed pathway among parts of the brain.

I don't have this organ, or maybe it's just dim, like color-blindness. Definitely a genetic thing, going back several generations on my father's side. Very low concern with status. Low Energy People, as Trump says.
  ¶ 5:01 PM