Hypnotized by Hyperloop • Hacker News Board

Re: Hypnotized by Hyperloop

#51

Post by rtpg » Sun, Jul 30, 2017, 4:17 PM UTC

solatic wrote: post #38

dalbasal wrote: post #18

One feature of the transport market (from a mile high view) is that demand is almost infinite. If you can get 40kms in 45 minutes, then you can live within 40 miles of work and commute in that time. If you could go 400kms, then that becomes your commuting radius. We've seen people spread this way as earlier mechanized transport was invented. IE, average commute times didn't go down because of faster transport, distan…

> If I could get to hong kong in 15 minutes, I might go there this afternoon for some dumplings. And that's a good thing, because it increases the amount of demand available to businesses. The more potential customers you have, the more product you can make to sell to that market, and the more product you can make, the better your economies of scale. The large population of New York is what allows it to offer so many…

counterpoint: it's also a bad thing because society functioning now becomes more reliant on this transportation method.

It destroys "walkable" spaces and encourages centralization of services, when a more uniform spread of services across space is in fact healthier.

I heard of a study recently that showed that cities in Japan that ended up getting Shinkansen stations ended up almost always shrinking, because people got used to going to Tokyo all the time and ended up just moving there. You see similar centralization in places like France (everything goes through Paris)

I realize your point but food deserts exist for a reason.

Re: Hypnotized by Hyperloop

#52

Post by schiffern » Sun, Jul 30, 2017, 4:18 PM UTC

ardit33 wrote: post #27

dalbasal wrote: post #18

One feature of the transport market (from a mile high view) is that demand is almost infinite. If you can get 40kms in 45 minutes, then you can live within 40 miles of work and commute in that time. If you could go 400kms, then that becomes your commuting radius. We've seen people spread this way as earlier mechanized transport was invented. IE, average commute times didn't go down because of faster transport, distan…

Yes, but it creates huge economic positive impacts 1. You can live in a less expensive area, (i.e. miles away), and work in a major center. This makes both possible of talent being able to live cheaper, and be able to work where they want (less geographical restrictions), which unlocks greater efficiency of the work place. 2. The alternative? Most people living with few tens of miles of workplaces, prices of living r…

That's a very rosy view, only looking at the positive side of the coin and ignoring the negative side.

>1. You can live in a less expensive area, (i.e. miles away), and work in a major center.

...causing property values to rise in the "less expensive area" to match those in the urban center minus the cost of transport. Ultimately you're gentrifying the current residents out of their homes, causing more urban sprawl, and increasing land use pressure on agricultural land and wilderness.

>Basically once you have super fast transportation, it relieves pressure to housing prices on the work hubs/city centers

...shifting that pressure to surrounding rural areas. TANSTAAFL.

You talk about "huge economic positive impacts," but it sounds awfully like wealth transfer from rural people (which we're apparently ignoring?) to urban people. Given the audience on HN this bias is unsurprising, but still disappointingly common.

Re: Hypnotized by Hyperloop

#53

Post by maxerickson » Sun, Jul 30, 2017, 4:19 PM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #45

kfk wrote: post #2

Difficult topic. You can make this argument on any new transformative tech. You could have made the same arguments about smartphones 10 years ago. On the other hand, I am still not clear how a pod that can carry max 12 people can compete with trains that can carry hundreds.

If we take two lines (one rail and one hyperloop) and compare the number of people that can be transported in an hour, then we can judge if multiple 12 person pods can transport more/less than trains over the same period. I suspect that pods might have a pretty good shot at winning.

I would want to see such throughput numbers scaled to cost.

(because if one or the other wins by spending 10x, well, duh)

Re: Hypnotized by Hyperloop

#54

Post by untog » Sun, Jul 30, 2017, 4:21 PM UTC

usaphp wrote: post #33

Asdfbla wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Musk has been able to take two or three other previously considered impossible tasks and bring them to completion Such as? SpaceX and their reusable rockets might be the closest thing I guess. Tesla and his solar company use pretty conventional technology, on the other hand. He is willing to invest a lot of money, that's true. But when talking about the Hyperloop, it's hardly just his money that's at stake if govern…

> Tesla and his solar company use pretty conventional technology The technology might be conventional, but having useful Electric cars on the road was looking like impossible task back in the days before Tesla roadster

Was it? If Tesla didn't exist would things look dramatically different today?

All electric cars use pretty much the same technology. It's been developed by a variety of companies. No doubt Tesla has moved things along faster than if they weren't here, and they've made some fantastic products, but I think the economic argument for electric cars plays a far bigger role in their development than any one specific company.

Re: Hypnotized by Hyperloop

#55

Post by stale2002 » Sun, Jul 30, 2017, 4:22 PM UTC

ethn wrote: post #25

The problem with the Hyper-loop and Elon Musk in general, isn't that Elon Musk is wrong or that the Hyper-loop won't work. The problem is that he engages in a nepotistic political-industrial complex. That is, he subsidizes his risk for the benefit of the shareholders and himself at the expense of the taxpayer. The same tax payers who are often in a state of financial uncertainty and destitution of education. The same…

Huh? Transportation technology massively benefits the poor more than it does the rich.

The biggest expense that the working class pay is rent.

If you can cut long distance commute times in half, then that means that someone who works in the city is able to save 50% or more on rent by living outside the extremely expensive city.

Transportation and housing (2 sides of the same coin) is arguably the single most important issue facing the working class.

Re: Hypnotized by Hyperloop

#56

Post by dalbasal » Sun, Jul 30, 2017, 4:23 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #44

solatic wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I could get to hong kong in 15 minutes, I might go there this afternoon for some dumplings. And that's a good thing, because it increases the amount of demand available to businesses. The more potential customers you have, the more product you can make to sell to that market, and the more product you can make, the better your economies of scale. The large population of New York is what allows it to offer so many…

Yes, but the point was that if you could get to Hong Kong in 15 minutes for dumplings, you couldn't get to Hong Kong in 15 minutes because everyone else was going there, too. And some of us don't live in New York because of the friction involved.

The point (at least my point) is that if you could go to Hong Kong in 15m, we would be consuming a lot of "transport," thousands of times more KMs than we currently travel for dumplings or work or whatever. Whatever teleportation technology is responsible, needs to be almost unlimited in its capacity because our demand is almost unlimited.

When supply is limited (teleportation wormhole congestion) and demand is unlimited, something will negotiate the difference. This can be prices or congestion.

Re: Hypnotized by Hyperloop

#57

Post by drawnwren » Sun, Jul 30, 2017, 4:23 PM UTC

usaphp wrote: post #33

Asdfbla wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Musk has been able to take two or three other previously considered impossible tasks and bring them to completion Such as? SpaceX and their reusable rockets might be the closest thing I guess. Tesla and his solar company use pretty conventional technology, on the other hand. He is willing to invest a lot of money, that's true. But when talking about the Hyperloop, it's hardly just his money that's at stake if govern…

> Tesla and his solar company use pretty conventional technology The technology might be conventional, but having useful Electric cars on the road was looking like impossible task back in the days before Tesla roadster

Even into the present there are a lot of legitimate concerns about Tesla. The rate at which he wants to ramp up production, whether public demand will be there for the 3, etc etc. It was and still very much is an unknown for Musk to pull this off. Not disagreeing with you, just trying to underscore that Tesla still has a lot of risk in it.

Edit: Also before the S no one had produced an EV with the range/polish to make anyone think they were anything more than a pipe dream at our current stage.

Re: Hypnotized by Hyperloop

#58

Post by untog » Sun, Jul 30, 2017, 4:24 PM UTC

alexandros wrote: post #6

Couldn't finish this. It started off badly by calling the hyperloop "vacuum-powered". First, it's not even vacuum sealed (just low air pressure), and second, how can something even be powered by the vacuum? Are we just throwing terms around for effect here? Then, the author continues with more material errors. The hyperloop/tunnel combo apparently "requires a hard reboot" of the modern city. No it does not. The whole…

> The whole point is that it is tunnels underneath the modern city.

And I suspect part of the point the author is making is that this is the problem. Look at the East Side Access project in New York. Building a tunnel underneath a modern city is an extremely difficult project - and largely for political and legal reasons, not technological ones. Hyperloop wouldn't solve a single one of those problems.

We have enough transportation problems with known solutions that are underfunded. Why would we spend government money on a risky Hyperloop bet rather than invest in technology we already know works well? The article isn't really about the technology being used in Hyperloop (hence, I suspect, the inaccuracies you point out. I don't see how the detract from the point being made, though), it's about our desire to always chase the new shiny thing at any cost rather than spend money on the boring, functional stuff.

Maybe we have lost sight of the marvels we can achieve with grand projects. Or maybe people are arguing we should fix the sewers before we make our gleaming tower in the sky.

Re: Hypnotized by Hyperloop

#59

Post by gutnor » Sun, Jul 30, 2017, 4:25 PM UTC

ardit33 wrote: post #27

dalbasal wrote: post #18

One feature of the transport market (from a mile high view) is that demand is almost infinite. If you can get 40kms in 45 minutes, then you can live within 40 miles of work and commute in that time. If you could go 400kms, then that becomes your commuting radius. We've seen people spread this way as earlier mechanized transport was invented. IE, average commute times didn't go down because of faster transport, distan…

Yes, but it creates huge economic positive impacts 1. You can live in a less expensive area, (i.e. miles away), and work in a major center. This makes both possible of talent being able to live cheaper, and be able to work where they want (less geographical restrictions), which unlocks greater efficiency of the work place. 2. The alternative? Most people living with few tens of miles of workplaces, prices of living r…

Why commute ? Remote working is a thing and everything the topic comes up, something that a significant part of HN is already enjoying. No need to pour billions in public transport.

Also companies have proven that they are more than willing to outsource everywhere, hiring people anywhere. There are reason they still hire in very expensive place like SF. You bet that it is a problem that will go away at some point, and very likely a significant part of HN readership is working hard solving it.

You need to realise that moving commuter to the city centre is a race to the bottom. Stuff like hyperloop are a perfectly fine way to spend private investment money, but as far as public money is concerned, that would be better to invest it in area that look beyond a world where physical location is an employee primary competitive advantage.

Re: Hypnotized by Hyperloop

#60

Post by kome » Sun, Jul 30, 2017, 4:25 PM UTC

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #7

For fun, let's say we'd sat Geoff down 20 years ago and asked him to rate the following futures in units of 'preposterousness': "Geoff, how preposterous is it to believe that in 20 years..." 1. We live in a world of self-driving, all electric automobiles, the safest and fastest ever built in mass production. 2. We live in a world where private space companies build profitable space transportation systems that can lan…

> 2. We live in a world where private space companies build profitable space transportation systems that can land themselves after orbiting the Earth.

yeah, but mainly with public money.