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The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

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Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#371

Post by vacri »

anovikov wrote: post #267
TulliusCicero wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a self-inflicted problem though. Nobody put a gun to America's head and forced us to make our cities sprawl out. We collectively decided to do it that way because we thought it was better. And for a few things it IS better. But there are a whole lotta costs, too, with the top 3 being being actual financial cost, grinding on the faces of the poor, and making us fat.

It was done for a very rational reason: making country more immune to a nuclear attack, especially the retaliation to its own nuclear attack (i.e. a nuclear attack that is coming in convenient time of day and week because you chose the time). It works perfectly to that purpose: it is whole lot better to keep all relevant population in separate houses with basements, with little combustible material around, than in mu…

'easy win' = the people in the area die more slowly rather than in the initial blast? Apart from the now-radioactive work centers (that are the wealth of your country), take out your city centers and industry, and you also take out your transportation network. Hello, famine.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#372

Post by moojah »

justinator wrote: post #139
imgabe wrote: post #80

I don't know the answers, but as someone who works in the industry (on the design side). I think a big unmentioned factor is probably liability and the prospect of litigation. If you look at old blueprints for projects in the past, they are a LOT less detailed. They had to be, because it was physically more difficult to produce them since they had to be drawn by hand. A lot was left to the contractor to figure out in…

Perhaps also Back In The Day, Big Picture things were over-engineered. I guess also, ever do a home renovation on a house > 40 years old? You usually walk into a disaster of things not up to code. These days, it would just be done correctly, just as cheap as possible, and not built to last. Most recent housing developments near here are just ways for developers to make money and run, as the infrastructure (housing, n…

To be fair, houses and engineering projects in the olden days probably suffered from exactly the same problems. I've read multiple accounts of people complaining about just this in the late 1800s in the UK...

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#373

Post by wfunction »

equalunique wrote: post #325
deanCommie wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have a source for any of that? Sounds like a completely made-up justification after the fact. Surely someone would have raised the point that the soviet union could just launch it's missiles in the middle of the work day. Also, Moscow is tremendously sprawled out.

Federal Highways in the US are designed to increase national security. The best example is certain bridges are in certain places so that their destruction would cut off the easy path for mobilized enemy armor. They're designed to be easily blown up on purpose.

> The best example is certain bridges are in certain places

And you cannot utter their names or locations because?

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#374

Post by zanny »

saosebastiao wrote: post #98

I'm pretty sure we're so far invested in being crappy at government that we can't feasibly turn back without inflicting a lot of pain. Admittedly anecdotal, but after having lived near two major DOE national laboratories (where >40% of my neighbors worked at the lab), I wouldn't be surprised if 60-80% of the workers at these labs could be eliminated under a combination of audit-based reform, regulatory reform, and ma…

This is a symptom of David Graeber's phrase of "bullshit jobs". Capitalism and the government work together to create unnecessary work (often through regulation and oversight and middle management stuffing) to maintain "safe" employment levels to keep the economic system working. If we were only hiring people to do productive things, and considering we saw a 75% productivity increase between 1975 and 2005 with all the bullshit jobs, while domain-specific productivity figures hit the 300% or higher ranges, you could maintain the same GDP at 40%+ unemployment. The only problem being the country would collapse with that much unemployment, so the private and public sectors respond by fabricating things to do that don't actually create goods or services.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#375

Post by sanderjd »

Mz wrote: post #232
sanderjd wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you're also not working at a Starbucks or a Chipotle. This is what your parent was talking about: a lot of the jobs in our economy require physically being where your customers are.

I am aware that many jobs require physically being there. That is not at all what the reply to me said. I am a writer. I am quite poor. In fact, I am currently homeless. I have been bitching via blog here recently about my frustrations with the widespread attitudes that writers don't deserve to be paid dirt, never mind that people online expect good quality writing to be readily available on the internet. Somehow, th…

I think you're reading too much into our comments. From your parent comment:

> most service industry workers

Those are folks that predominantly need to be physically present. We weren't assuming anything about your membership in a privileged elite, just pointing out that lots of people still need to transport themselves to work.

Good luck with your writing! I agree that we need better business models to reward it.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#376

Post by EdSharkey »

chc wrote: post #226
karmelapple wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The abusive relationship love-affair is the best explanation I've ever heard of cars in the USA. Just like a an abusive relationship, the car love affair still produces some good things. It's not all dark and dreary. "I hate that he comes home drunk and hits me, but he's so loving and apologetic the next morning." "I hate that I get so stressed from my daily commute, but being able to drive to the countryside on the…

Can we try to get through one thread on HN without frothing at the mouth about how much we hate cars? Message received, you happen to be in a situation where you don't need a car — I am genuinely happy for you, as well as envious. But it is not necessary or helpful for someone to bang on about it in every single thread that has anything to do with building stuff. It doesn't help anything, and it just annoys people wh…

I cock an eyebrow at the car haters too, especially these days.

We're on the cusp of autonomous self-driving cars! A transport revolution, lives saved, traffic optimized, pollution reduced, etc, etc. Why all the drip-drip-drip poison words about cars?

Does GP and our numerous sibling commenters have a case of the premature sour grapes? Are they wrong even after all the pot banging?

Consider cars today: polluting, wasteful in time/money/energy/lives, loud, dangerous killers ... transformed into cars tomorrow: a nimble, safe, convenient, "zero-carbon" (battery-powered), direct and fast conveyance! The old arguments evaporate in a cloud of red smoke!

We who are so blessed to own (or hire) cars can all feel GREAT about avoiding the urban density, travel villages, inconvenient bus routes, foul smelling light rail cars with their stabby/gropey fellow passengers, etc! Soon, we'll travel in comfort, productive and safe in our cars, as we merrily scoot from our far-flung, clean, beautiful, sprawling suburbs to our glittering commute destinations on the other side of the map forever! Smiles everywhere you look!

The above is all just theory. I mean, who knows what is really behind peoples' complaints these days.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#378

Post by Mz »

sanderjd wrote: post #375
Mz wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am aware that many jobs require physically being there. That is not at all what the reply to me said. I am a writer. I am quite poor. In fact, I am currently homeless. I have been bitching via blog here recently about my frustrations with the widespread attitudes that writers don't deserve to be paid dirt, never mind that people online expect good quality writing to be readily available on the internet. Somehow, th…

I think you're reading too much into our comments. From your parent comment: > most service industry workers Those are folks that predominantly need to be physically present. We weren't assuming anything about your membership in a privileged elite, just pointing out that lots of people still need to transport themselves to work. Good luck with your writing! I agree that we need better business models to reward it.

You are confused. That is not from any of my comments.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#379

Post by [deleted] »

sanderjd wrote: post #375
Mz wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am aware that many jobs require physically being there. That is not at all what the reply to me said. I am a writer. I am quite poor. In fact, I am currently homeless. I have been bitching via blog here recently about my frustrations with the widespread attitudes that writers don't deserve to be paid dirt, never mind that people online expect good quality writing to be readily available on the internet. Somehow, th…

I think you're reading too much into our comments. From your parent comment: > most service industry workers Those are folks that predominantly need to be physically present. We weren't assuming anything about your membership in a privileged elite, just pointing out that lots of people still need to transport themselves to work. Good luck with your writing! I agree that we need better business models to reward it.

[deleted]

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#380

Post by vacri »

karmelapple wrote: post #167
deanCommie wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, having moved to Western Europe, I get the sense that this is the major factor as well. If I walk down the street and there is a group of workers excavating a road, there's a lot more of a relaxed attitude about fencing, walking underneath construction equipment, etc. After all - use your common sense - don't fall into the hole. If you do, isn't it kind of your own fault? Nobody's going to sue anybody. Ad…

The abusive relationship love-affair is the best explanation I've ever heard of cars in the USA. Just like a an abusive relationship, the car love affair still produces some good things. It's not all dark and dreary. "I hate that he comes home drunk and hits me, but he's so loving and apologetic the next morning." "I hate that I get so stressed from my daily commute, but being able to drive to the countryside on the…

Meh, public transport also sucks. I have a daily commute a bit over an hour each way on a tram. I'm near the end of my line, so I'm 'lucky' enough to get a seat for that time. I'm not the one who gets squished in during peak hour, or has to watch overfull trams just pass by. If they're not overdue, that is (a famous problem with public transport). I'm also lucky in that where I live and work are on the same line. I do, however, have to walk a moderate distance at both ends - it's not end-to-end transport - and I'm limited to having a small amount of things I can personally carry; no carting much extra stuff to work to do things afterwards for me. I'm also tall, which means that public transport vehicles aren't built for me (seats too small, hit my head on things if I'm standing, etc) and there's nothing I can do about it. Then if it's raining, not all stops have shelters for the proles, and the floors can get slippery. Or perhaps its winter, and that press of people on the vehicle is a haven for colds and viruses to spread.

Public transport is a good thing overall, but I do get tired of people talking about it like it's heaven 'if only it were more available'.

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