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The Boring Company [video]

boringcompany.com

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Re: The Boring Company [video]

#521

Post by oska »

idlewords wrote: post #481
Xcelerate wrote: post #377

It's amazing to me the amount of negativity directed toward his projects and the millions of reasons people give for why they "won't work" (not necessarily on HN, but at least on general news websites). I'm starting to believe the only difference between those who start their own companies and those who don't is that the latter convinces themselves that it is impossible, never builds anything, and from their own lack…

It's possible to start your own company and still think Musk's ideas are foolish. People are giving millions of reasons why they won't work not because they are haters, but because there are millions of reasons why they won't work.

> and still think Musk's ideas are foolish

With Musk's established track record I think it's pretty arrogant for anyone to call his ideas foolish. He has achieved things that people thought were impossible or bound to fail. You can say: “I can see this potential problem”, or “I wonder how he's going to deal with this physical limitation” or similar sorts of statements. That's feedback and analysis given with respect. Simple dismissive negativity against ideas put forward by a person who would already rank in the top 10 in the world today for technological and engineering achievement is arrogance and narrow-mindedness.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#522

Post by clarkmoody »

mirimir wrote: post #515
whack wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're asking the wrong question. There are over a hundred million Americans who commute long distances in their car. Mostly because they live/work in areas that aren't dense enough to have good last-mile public transit, and they don't want to deal with transfers. You can lecture them all you want, but ultimately, these people aren't going to downgrade their lifestyle just to fit your ideas of engineering efficiency.…

> Mostly because they live/work in areas that aren't dense enough to have good last-mile public transit, and they don't want to deal with transfers. Well, suburbanization was a totally dumbass move. Maybe instead of building tunnels, we could be rebuilding cities. We could be designing them to be attractive enough that people would want to live there.

You'd have to get the government to stop building roads...

which of course is seems crazy to most people. But the consequences are all around us.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#523

Post by jonas21 »

mljoe wrote: post #490
djsumdog wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still incredibly wasteful compared to a real subway. The amount of people a real mass transit system can move is orders of magnitude above tons if individual little cars: http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-sol... ..not to mention all the energy required to move each of those vehicles compared to a train that can move hundreds of more people in a similar space. Americans need to get over all…

According to the DOT, a train is only about 33% more energy efficient then driving.[1] In addition a subway or bus system has to run on a schedule even when the train is mostly empty. The train and bus is always starting and stopping and causing all it's passengers increased delay to serve the needs of the few entering or leaving. Public transport is the token ring networking of transportation. It's just inherently l…

First of all, the most recent data in the document you linked to shows Amtrak at 1,629 BTU/passenger-mile vs 3,877 BTU/passenger-mile for cars -- a 58% reduction in energy consumption, or alternately 2.4x better energy efficiency for trains over driving.

But it's also important to note that the numbers for Amtrak are averaged across the entire system -- and most Amtrak routes outside the Northeast Corridor operate way below capacity, despite it being very inefficient to do so. If you look at rail systems where this is not the case, like in Switzerland (716 BTU/passenger-mile) or Japan (534 BTU/passenger-mile), you end up with 5.4x and 7.3x improvements energy efficiency over driving, respectively.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transport...

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#524

Post by theWatcher37 »

pnathan wrote: post #85

This is very, very wasteful compared to actual mass transit. A subway network is much more effective at delivering people. If he's looking for mega-good, Musk would do significantly better to drop a full subway network. edit: tunnelling is a broadly solved problem. It's difficult, expensive, slow, etc. But there's no engineering reason why a hole in the ground can't happen. Musk might be able to drive some significan…

Except the monoculture here doesn't account for just how terrible buses and trains are.

Mass transit is fundamentally superior and realistically inferior. The second any rational actor has the economic advantage necessary to not ride in a box packed with people of questionable hygiene they'll chose option #2 no matter the negative externalities.

I love this place but people aren't packets in your stream, they actively decide against your well designed "optimal" systems and opt for less efficient "luxurious" options as soon as they possibly can.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#525

Post by MattRix »

Trd wrote: post #468
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really unfair considering the source. This is someone who continually has proved the skeptics wrong. At what point does he earn the benefit of the doubt in your eyes?

Proven what? His main claim of glory, Tesla, still hasn't achieved what he built the company for: making EVs mainstream. Rather than the ecological revolution he pretends it to be (his focus on climate change), it is still nothing but an expensive toy for the wealthy. Not exactly selling at the levels where we could talk about making a change for the planet. Maybe you're referring to SpaceX in proving skeptics wrong?…

I think this crazy tunnel thing Elon just announced looks horrible, but the moment you claim that Tesla and SpaceX aren't doing anything special is where it becomes pretty obvious that you don't know what you're talking about.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#526

Post by elihu »

pnathan wrote: post #85

This is very, very wasteful compared to actual mass transit. A subway network is much more effective at delivering people. If he's looking for mega-good, Musk would do significantly better to drop a full subway network. edit: tunnelling is a broadly solved problem. It's difficult, expensive, slow, etc. But there's no engineering reason why a hole in the ground can't happen. Musk might be able to drive some significan…

Cars and mass transit both have major problems. Cars aren't scalable, and mass transit is often slow when you have to wait for trains/buses to come. (It's worse when you have to change buses or trains.)

The video looks more like a high-speed form of personal rapid transit [1], which is a sort of hybrid system that tries to achieve the best of both. It's like a bus or train system, except the vehicles are smaller and don't operate on a timetable. Instead, they pick you up when and where you want and they take you where you want to go.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#527

Post by accountyaccount »

jaimex2 wrote: post #491
accountyaccount wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get what you're saying, but sometimes a bad idea is a bad idea. You can't just positive think yourself out of it.

Sure, but you can't make that call when you have no real clue what the actual idea is or have the full details.

The video has a lot of bad details. That's the call being made.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#528

Post by andrepd »

oska wrote: post #521
idlewords wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible to start your own company and still think Musk's ideas are foolish. People are giving millions of reasons why they won't work not because they are haters, but because there are millions of reasons why they won't work.

> and still think Musk's ideas are foolish With Musk's established track record I think it's pretty arrogant for anyone to call his ideas foolish. He has achieved things that people thought were impossible or bound to fail. You can say: “I can see this potential problem”, or “I wonder how he's going to deal with this physical limitation” or similar sorts of statements. That's feedback and analysis given with respect.…

So because he has a "track record" of founding companies that achieved impressive feats he it's now forbidden to call out his ideas as foolish?

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#530

Post by Robotbeat »

astrange wrote: post #310
stupidcar wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He may well be out of touch, but at least Musk's suggesting a real solution to current transit problems, even if it's impractical. On the other hand, whenever I read stuff by politicians and engineers with real knowledge and influence in this field, I'm astonished by the total lack of vision. Even in London, where you have a major, successful transport engineering project (Crossrail) completing, and an entire city de…

Opening new lines, like building new roads, might hurt everything due to induced demand. You can reduce demand by not needing everyone to go the same place every day. Why does everyone have to work in London and why don't they already live where they work?

Induced demand means people are now able to practically get places when they couldn't before. It doesn't mean "hurt everything."
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