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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

#541

Post by Mz »

mason240 wrote: post #511
Mz wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to walk to the grocery store in Germany six days a week with a toddler and an infant and a backpack for my groceries. I was in American military housing. After I moved to Kansas, I ran into a soldier I did not remember, but he clearly remembered me. The soldiers who knew what it was like to carry a 60 pound ruck sack had all kinds of respect for me. It can be done. Not by everyone and I am not saying you are r…

Yes, just like we can live by subsistence farming with manual labor, living in huts. It can be done, but most of us want to progress.

There you go, insulting me again.

Preferring to walk in no way makes me some undeveloped savage. Maybe you haven't noticed, but I am online. I spend a lot of time online. I make my earned income online.

For the last time: My desire to see more walkable environments and better public transit in the U.S. in no way bars people from driving. Busses use the same roads that cars use. This is in no way whatsoever a situation where we must choose one or the other.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#542

Post by [deleted] »

jimmyk wrote: post #536
deong wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't suggesting I had one. I'm just pointing out that SuperPACs get around pretty much any meaningful prior attempts at regulating campaign contributions. I don't think there is an alternative. What is needed in order to solve the problem is a complete overhaul of how campaigns are financed, including making quite a lot of currently protected speech illegal. And that cure may be worse than the disease. Without it…

What can possibly be done about media outlets, whose owners choose what news gets reported and what slant it takes on so on? The more you restrict the ability of people to pay for advertisements, the more control the media has over what people see.

[deleted]

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#543

Post by deong »

jimmyk wrote: post #536
deong wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't suggesting I had one. I'm just pointing out that SuperPACs get around pretty much any meaningful prior attempts at regulating campaign contributions. I don't think there is an alternative. What is needed in order to solve the problem is a complete overhaul of how campaigns are financed, including making quite a lot of currently protected speech illegal. And that cure may be worse than the disease. Without it…

What can possibly be done about media outlets, whose owners choose what news gets reported and what slant it takes on so on? The more you restrict the ability of people to pay for advertisements, the more control the media has over what people see.

Like I said, probably nothing can be done that isn't ultimately likely to be worse. Short of people spontaneously becoming smarter, you'd effectively have to outlaw news outlets deemed to be "too slanted", and even if you could do that (you can't), I'm not so naive as to think a government in control of the press would be in any way better.

Basically, it's all fucked, I guess would be my considered opinion. Democracy just doesn't work when half or more of the population can be trivially manipulated into believing anything you want them to believe.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#544

Post by pikzen »

bzbarsky wrote: post #531
pikzen wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Can I create a video and post it on my private youtube channel, as a private individual? Yes. >Can I spend $10 million creating the youtube video, if I have that much money as a private individual? Yes. However, if it turns out that those ten million were gathered from other friends, explicitly in the goal to make this video without disclosing your donors or ignoring the caps, you should be fined and be made unelect…

This was apparently not clear: in all those questions the "I" posting the video is not the person running. That's the context of the Citizens United decision.

Then you are more than welcome to blow as much money as you'd like on your favourite candidate! And since it's on Youtube, noone is "forced" to watch your video, they can always switch to something else.

However, TV and cable channels (as well as press) should have strict equality rules when it comes to candidates for a given period until the elections. What good will your ten million dollars video do on CNN when they are legally obligated to give every candidate the same amount of air time? But of course, you could skirt around it, and make your video subtly hint about said candidate, never mentioning him. But if countries with civil law can manage to make that work when it comes to respecting the spirit of the law, I have no doubt a country with common law will have no issues realizing that this is quite obviously violating the spirit of the law.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#545

Post by pikzen »

bzbarsky wrote: post #539
pikzen wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>corporations shouldn't be able to engage in political speech Corporations should be able to engage in political speech, as long it is done through their CEO or anyone that represents them officially, who then would be nothing more than just another citizen who happens to own a company, defending its interests. By all means, have an interesting debate, explain your point of view, reason as to why you'd like X or Y. M…

I think you just ignored my questions about how the specifics of this work. Again, say the CEO decides to create a video to explain his point of view. Is that a problem? Is it a problem if he pays for production of that video? Is it a problem if he gets several people together to pay for the production of that video? Where do you, personally, draw the line? Making yourself heard on television commonly takes the form…

>Making yourself heard on television commonly takes the form of TV advertising, which is all about money, unfortunately.

Like I answered in your other post, equality of air time for each candidate. I know, you've had twenty something candidates, and it would be hard to make that work. Tough luck, that's the price to pay for a fairer election.

I don't envy your ridiculous two year long campaigns, but at least you'd get some diversity, unlike your two-candidates-blow-100-million-in-total-and-bombard-you-for-months current way of doing it. And who knows, that might even bring you to reform your woefully outdated political system.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#546

Post by pikzen »

jimmyk wrote: post #532
pikzen wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>corporations shouldn't be able to engage in political speech Corporations should be able to engage in political speech, as long it is done through their CEO or anyone that represents them officially, who then would be nothing more than just another citizen who happens to own a company, defending its interests. By all means, have an interesting debate, explain your point of view, reason as to why you'd like X or Y. M…

>you are throwing away the very foundation of democracy and equality amongst citizens when it comes to being represented. There is no such foundation. You're lying to yourself. At the very least, the owners of media outlets have far more influence than other citizens due to their ability to set the conversation. There is literally nothing you can do to achieve your ridiculous ideal of equality, or to even come anywhe…

Or maybe your terrible political system has made you jaded and not realize that democracy is still a thing of the people ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yes, whoever owns CNN can use up all his airtime telling you that X is the greatest vandidate that's ever lived and yes, he will reach more people than I ever will. Yet, his vote has the exact same value as mine.

Impose limits, educate people. You'll see that things will improve. Yes, it's expensive. Yes, it takes some time. But you can either do that, or slump in your apathy and watch your country descend ever lower into the depth of intelligence and be the butt of everyone's joke even more than it is right now.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#547

Post by seanp2k2 »

chc wrote: post #365
brookside wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society is not moving away from a car-based infrastructure. The majority of people have no issues with a car-based society. MORE people need to be making a stink. If this annoys you...sorry not sorry.

Everyone on the planet could weep in unison about the continued existence of cars and it wouldn't improve a thing. If this is a problem you sincerely want to solve, create real-world solutions, not angry Internet rants.

How do we convince home owners in Cupertino, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Atherton, etc that BART down the peninsula won't "bring inner city crime" to their perfect neighborhood? We've already lost that battle; Berryessa BART opens in the next year or so and it runs down east bay, so SJ SF will still be faster driving except during rush hours. Caltrain is an option but neither run 24.7 either. Coming from a rust belt state with a private bus service that frequently didn't show up at all, I understand that we're in a much better public transit situation than the majority of America, which is really sad, but I place a lot of the blame on NIMBYs, mortgage interest tax deduction (a form of welfare that almost no one receiving it argues against), and how home ownership here basically makes or breaks you (if you rent and don't benefit from the credit rating (renting doesn't count toward your credit history or score)): https://www.forbes.com/sites/lawrenceyun/2015/10/14/how-do-h...

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#548

Post by seanp2k2 »

Johnny555 wrote: post #449
EdSharkey wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, was…

The old arguments evaporate in a cloud of red smoke Only if you exclude traffic congestion as a problem. Self-driving cars can help with some optimization (i.e. closer following distance on freeways, less traffic disruption due to erratic drivers), but they aren't going solve the overriding problem of too much traffic in the city. San Francisco is already experiencing extra congestion from the precursor to self-drivi…

Yeah, the misconception around solar vehicles is hilarious. I met someone who was otherwise intelligent who thought that they had previously been in a Prius with a solar panel on the roof that powered the car. The option they referred to was only able to help power the hvac in the Prius. They seemingly had no concept of how many watts it takes to drive a car down the freeway versus how many watts a solar panel of that size might put out. http://electrek.co/2016/06/20/toyota-prius-plug-prime-solar-... looks like the new non-US Prius prime might have a solar roof option that could be capable of providing up to 10% of the energy required to drive it. Since this is marketing material, I would be surprised if that's not under ideal conditions. The panels on that roof look to be a few hundred watts max, during the best period of a clear day at the ideal angle.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#549

Post by jimmyk »

pikzen wrote: post #546
jimmyk wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you are throwing away the very foundation of democracy and equality amongst citizens when it comes to being represented. There is no such foundation. You're lying to yourself. At the very least, the owners of media outlets have far more influence than other citizens due to their ability to set the conversation. There is literally nothing you can do to achieve your ridiculous ideal of equality, or to even come anywhe…

Or maybe your terrible political system has made you jaded and not realize that democracy is still a thing of the people ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Yes, whoever owns CNN can use up all his airtime telling you that X is the greatest vandidate that's ever lived and yes, he will reach more people than I ever will. Yet, his vote has the exact same value as mine. Impose limits, educate people. You'll see that things will improve. Yes, it'…

>Yes, whoever owns CNN can use up all his airtime telling you that X is the greatest vandidate that's ever lived and yes, he will reach more people than I ever will. Yet, his vote has the exact same value as mine.

Interesting logic. Let's try applying it to the completely obvious parallel:

"Yes, whoever owns boatloads of money can use up all his money buying TV ads telling you that X is the greatest candidate that's ever lived and yes, he will reach more people than I ever will. Yet, his vote has the exact same value as mine."

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#550

Post by int_19h »

beat wrote: post #525
jonknee wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That along with a real mandate and the fact that Switzerland is a tiny place (similar in population as Virginia, though 1/3 the physical size).

I've seen the geography argument brought up for a "Why no national insurance companies?" Apparently, network stuff is so localized that it's very hard to set up a national-level insurance company. Although I suspect state-by-state laws play into it as well. At any rate, the sheer geographic size, plus the large population, plus the legalistic bizarreness of our federal/state divide, leads to a chaotic system, and we…

But why would a national insurance company be a prerequisite for quality healthcare in at least some states?
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