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The Boring Company will develop an underground “people mover” for Las Vegas

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Re: The Boring Company will develop an underground “people mover” for Las Vegas

#321

Post by kadendogthing »

Robotbeat wrote: post #85
fabioborellini wrote: post #27

Maybe Elon should visit Europe or Asia and check out an underground mass rapid transit system or two. They have two orders of magnitude larger capacity. And even their capacity is finite. And keep in mind that the NYC Subway and the London Underground are NOT a good example of a modern mass transit system.

I've noticed that Elon Musk's projects often start off in the wrong direction, but evolve in a way that works ultimately. And that's what matters. For instance, SpaceX originally insisted on parachute recovery of their Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets. They tried, and it didn't work. But they switched to powered landing as some others had demonstrated (DC-X and Masten Space Systems and Armadillo Aerospace), and they mas…

>I've noticed that Elon Musk's projects often start off in the wrong direction, but evolve in a way that works ultimately.

With butt loads of public money?

Re: The Boring Company will develop an underground “people mover” for Las Vegas

#322

Post by inamberclad »

spraak wrote: post #95
calgoo wrote: post #67

I love watching all of Musk's projects, as every single one can be connected to Mars colonization. 1. Electric cars for transport, Check. 2. Solar panels and batteries for power generation and storage, check. 3. Tunnel digging equipment for making underground bases and transport, check. 4. Satellite communications for an entire planet, check. 5. Then finally, the actual rockets to get us there. Hopefully he will cont…

The goal of Mars to me is silly. Mars is already worse off in terms of climate than Earth. Why not work to improve what we have? The only appeal I see is "uncharted territory" / wild west

Do you propose not going to space at all? Or is there somewhere better nearby? The Earth won't support us for much longer.

Re: The Boring Company will develop an underground “people mover” for Las Vegas

#323

Post by [deleted] »

computerex wrote: post #311
zaroth wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Little Elon had a dream that he will one day walk on Mars. He thought to himself, well why can’t I? All I need is billions of dollars, and rockets (lots of rockets), and space ships, and renewable energy, and tunnels, and,... And then Little Elon started a little company during the dot com boom called Zip2 and sold it to Compaq for $300 million. Then X.com which led to PayPal. Then SpaceX, Tesla, and all the rest. It…

> An underground autonomous system which otherwise would have cost hundreds of millions for $50 million risk free is a perfect win-win for Boring and Vegas. How do you think the boring company is going to be able to achieve these cost savings? If this system is otherwise going to cost hundreds of millions how the hell is the boring company going to achieve orders of magnitudes improvement?

[deleted]

Re: The Boring Company will develop an underground “people mover” for Las Vegas

#324

Post by protomyth »

djsumdog wrote: post #235
swampthinker wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The JR and Tokyo metro trains are significantly quieter and better maintained.

Yes and Chicago's stock is super old. The Orange Line is newer and is also much quieter and smoother. New rail in America, elevated, can be pretty quite and enjoyable. I like living near trains personally. It's relaxing to watch them go by in the evening, while sipping on some whiskey or wine.

Your mind will eventually tune out the noise of a track. Our house was near a freight rail track that had a run all night. Never woke up after the first couple of days.

Re: The Boring Company will develop an underground “people mover” for Las Vegas

#325

Post by embwbam »

Causality1 wrote: post #306
embwbam wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to live in a world where rich dickheads act more like Musk and do cool things. It's like living in a comic book. It's fun. But that's not our way forward. Forget the billionaires, we need to assemble, reinvest in our political system, and start building a better future from the ground up.

Why do you think those things are mutually exclusive?

Because I think we need to change the system so that unelected rich folks don’t have that much power. The more we legitimize their work the harder that will be. I’m all for them continuing their work in the meantime though. I’m doing a poor job explaining it. Defining check out the book I recommended. “Winners take all”

Re: The Boring Company will develop an underground “people mover” for Las Vegas

#326

Post by hnzix »

halter73 wrote: post #317
hnzix wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The goal of Mars to me is silly. Mars is already worse off in terms of climate than Earth. Why not work to improve what we have? Earth's biosphere has already had five (5) mass extinctions. Guess what happens to humanity if number six shows up before we colonize another planet? Mars is simply the closest option.

The thing about the last five mass extinctions is they didn't involve a species so good at adapting the environment to serve its own needs that said species could colonize Mars. Of those 5 mass extinctions, did any of them make Earth less habitable than Mars is today? I'm genuinely curious.

The Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event is theorized to be a massive asteroid strike which "release[d] the equivalent energy of several million nuclear weapons detonating simultaneously" and killed off 75% of extant species.

Sure, the preppers will be gleefully LARPing Fallout from their bunkers, and a small percentage of humans would probably pull through. Maybe.

If we have a seed colony on Mars, it significantly de-risks human extinction from an asteroid strike. Elon is the ultimate prepper.

Re: The Boring Company will develop an underground “people mover” for Las Vegas

#327

Post by gok »

rayiner wrote: post #271
gok wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old steel elevated tracks like the L are kinda crummy. You have to deal with weather both on the tracks and the stations, they darken whatever is below them, are incredibly loud, and wear out relatively quickly. Derailments can be catastrophic because trains fall from a great height (as happened in the Loop in 1977). Using concrete solves the noise problems, but requires more space and money.

Concrete adds a lot more bulk and makes them visually oppressive. I’ve always hated how they did the elevated Metro lines (hulking concrete structures high in the air, requiring climbing up long escalators with multiple mezzanines), versus the L lines which are organically integrated into the neighborhood.

The picture of Tokyo you posted elsewhere in this thread is a good example of concrete done well.

Re: The Boring Company will develop an underground “people mover” for Las Vegas

#328

Post by ianbicking »

djsumdog wrote: post #248
ianbicking wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The El was built along with the city's expansion (often by developers who wanted to make new tracts of land accessible). That doesn't work for infill, where the intrusion and space the elevated tracks require aren't accounted for in current prices and expectations, and where right of way isn't established. If we had a Robert Moses of transit, then it could happen, just like the highways happened. There are no Robert…

Personal rapid transit is just a waste. You can transport A LOT of people by rail ... orders of magnitudes of people more than cars, even if you had a highway full of self driving cars all moving at 120kph. There's not even a comparison. Self driving and even personal transport does not compare to the capacity of standard rail stock: https://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-so... Public transport als…

"Personal rapid transit is just a waste. You can transport A LOT of people by rail ... orders of magnitudes of people more than cars"

You're answering a question no one is asking. Cars and taxis (and imagined self-driving cars) get people from where they are to where they want to go. Roads are capable of serving any trip, and with a reasonable travel time. If transit could serve most trips then transit could be successful. Start from there, and see if you can work backwards to traditional rail mass transit. I don't see it happening, but maybe I'm missing something.

Re: The Boring Company will develop an underground “people mover” for Las Vegas

#329

Post by [deleted] »

HALtheWise wrote: post #246
calgoo wrote: post #67

I love watching all of Musk's projects, as every single one can be connected to Mars colonization. 1. Electric cars for transport, Check. 2. Solar panels and batteries for power generation and storage, check. 3. Tunnel digging equipment for making underground bases and transport, check. 4. Satellite communications for an entire planet, check. 5. Then finally, the actual rockets to get us there. Hopefully he will cont…

I see this point get made often, but I'm not sure it is an insightful way to look at the world. Tesla cars are only barely related to Mars colonization, and PayPal is not really at all, which is a product conveniently ignored in your post. Even the SpaceX internet satellite constellation looks almost nothing like what internet access on Mars will be anytime in the forseeable future. It seems like a similarly strong a…

[deleted]

Re: The Boring Company will develop an underground “people mover” for Las Vegas

#330

Post by geofft »

gleenn wrote: post #276
alaskamiller wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon is new Steve Jobs is the new Jesus. Anyone can foist one's own unbridled ambitions, mixed in with a dash of lottery dreaming, tossed in with a bit of hubris, to come up with whatever the bright shiny future could be.

The difference might be they were also heads of million dollar companies. How many of those have you or I started?

Minor note (mostly since a lot of people don't know this): Musk did not start Tesla. He led investment in their Series A, became chairman of the board, and became actively involved with the company's operations, which allowed him to gain the title of "co-founder," but he was not involved with the company before then.
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