So there are a few things that make a transfer case and most 4WD systems generally better for off-road. The biggest two are gearing and how durable/robust the systems are.

The ability to change the final drive gives incredibly low gearing to 4WD vehicles. This provides increased torque for traversing obstacles and better low speed control.

In the durability front, that is largely due to design considerations. AWD vehicles are typically designed for on road use, so the engineers built them with that in mind. This means lighter and weaker drive shafts, weaker steering racks, less robust suspension, and generally lighter duty pieces throughout the entire system. 4WD vehicles usually designed with heavier duty used in mind (even if the majority of people won’t use them that way). This means the entire drive train is built stronger and more capable of abuse.

This is a huge generalization though. You could build a purpose built AWD off road vehicle with low gearing, and locking differentials if you wanted. And there are plenty of 4WD vehicles that wouldn’t survive even moderately difficult trails. So the NPS probably made the rule because generally 4WD is more capable for that use case, and it would be difficult to make an all exhaustive list of what vehicles or components would give you the capability to navigate the trail.

Generally if there is a question of AWD vs 4WD, the only thing you need to look for as an ability to shift to 4 low. It changes the final drive ratio so all of your gearing is dramatically lower. It’s a capability that requires having a transfer case. Though I’m sure there are some weird exceptions out there of 4WD vehicles that don’t have 4 low, it’s a pretty simple rule of thumb to decide which side a vehicle falls on.

It’s possible to have an AWD vehicle that has a clutch or some other way to disengage two of the drive wheels. So you can have a selectable RWD or AWD. This is different than how a transfer case works though, and does not allow a change in final drive ratio.

Almost nothing in this article is accurate. AWD vs 4WD has nothing to do with locking front and rear differentials. It is that one has a transfer case, and the other does not. Most 4WD vehicles have open front and rear differentials.

The National Park Service doesn’t require locking differentials, so I’m not sure where this person got that idea from. They do however require that they have a transfer case, which the Cybertruck and Rivian do not. So despite the author claiming those would be 4WD, they are not. And do not qualify by the definition used by the NPS.

I think they are correct that there may be a need to update the rules since EVs have no need for a transfer case since there is no mechanical connection between the front and rear axles typically. It’s terrible to try and make that argument with all of your other information incorrect however.

They literally publish their methodology and scoring system.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/methodology/

So they do say exactly what their criteria is, and how it is scored. None of that is buzz words, it’s just a summary that fit in a few sentences. You can look at the full methodology if you want more than just that small bullet description.

I’m not saying that you have to agree with their scoring, or that it is necessarily accurate. I just think if you’re going to critique a thing, you should at least know what you’re critiquing.

It does. It’s even cited in the abstract, and it’s the origin of bullshit as referenced in their title.

Pretty much everyone here either misunderstands how evolution works, or is willfully ignoring it to push their viewpoint.

Humans at this point have very little evolutionary pressure from natural selection. We aren’t getting weaker, shorter, taller, or anything like that from natural selection because those traits aren’t killing people.

The main driving factors for human evolution are sexual selection, random mutation, and genetic drift. There are still some poorer areas disease may still play a not insignificant part, but even that is fairly minimal since people largely live to reproductive age.

Human evolution has been fairly stagnant for quite a while. The differences most people would notice are from changes in diet, environment, and other external forces. For natural selection to pressure evolution we would need to have a significant portion of the population sure before they are able to reproduce.

If it was a real requirement they should have geo restricted the sale to countries that are allowed to make PSN accounts. Instead they bait and switched players who have been playing past the normal refund window, and now will have an unplayable game. Also the PSN account has nothing to do with fixing crossplay. Other games have functional crossplay without it. And Sony themselves say on their own website that PSN is not required to play Sony games on PC.

I’ve carried a firearm for both the military and personally. And even with ADHD do you want to know how many times I left it unattended on accident? Zero times. If you treat a gun like your keys or wallet then you shouldn’t be carrying it.

Of course I’m aware. What I’m saying is that it’s stupid to give rural white Americans a pass for being shitty and racist just because life hard.

They want to blame everyone else for the problems and double down on a party of grifters and con men, because that is more appealing than admitting they have been wrong. That the propaganda they have been fed their whole lives is a pile of garbage they have been happily eating.

They would rather continue swimming in shit as long as they are told that they are better than everyone else, which is what the right has been telling them for decades.

A huge portion of the country has been let down by the government. You don’t have to be rural for that. Lack of healthcare, education, and support are nationwide. Not everyone decided to be racist because of it.

The balance has no reason to add up to 50. So there is no extra anything. If you kept spending 1 each row, and then summed the balance at the end, it would be massively higher than the 50 you started with.

The founder of Home Depot was definitely involved in some garbage. If the Lowe’s CEO was, I missed it.