US unprepared for an electrical grid collapse, but it costs only $300M • Hacker News Board

Re: US unprepared for an electrical grid collapse, but it costs only $300M

#201

Post by celticninja » Mon, May 04, 2020, 9:32 AM UTC

nickff wrote: post #141

JSavageOne wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is largely the democratic system itself. The average U.S. Senator spends 2/3 of their time fundraising during the last 2 years of their term. Half of Congress are millionaires, their salaries are in the 95th percentile ($174k/yr), and they receive world-class healthcare. The electoral college means Trump and Bush get elected despite losing the popular vote. We're limited to a two-party system because thir…

Many people dislike the 'easy verify and submit' system of taxes, because they think it basically hides taxes from the public. There are similar objections to employer deduction of taxes. Additionally, the current system of many different taxes on different things makes it very hard for a voter to understand what their total tax burden is (especially if there are VATs which are included in prices). For these reasons,…

"many people dislike"... Could you find even a sizeable proportion of the population that felt this way? as with the re-open states protests these things are easily gamed by interested parties and it takes a vocal minority, which is amplified by media voices, such as Fox news, where it aligns with their owners beliefs to make it seem more of an issue than it is.

having taxes included in the price when I buy something at a store makes lige easier for consumers. I dont need to know everytime I pay some tax exactly how much has been paid.

I honestly read your comments as a sort of astroturfing with your use of 'many' as if to mean a significant number of people, rather than the reality, which is 'some people', indicating a whole lot less people but more than 1.

you are being worked over by special interest groups who are being led on by some rich people who have their opinions and are forcing every one to live by them.

TurboTax lobby officially to make tax filing difficult in the US, they will also spend money under the radar to give voice to the 'individual' who is anti tax because it benefits Turbo Tax not because they align with the individual, but because it helps their bottom line.

Re: US unprepared for an electrical grid collapse, but it costs only $300M

#202

Post by zimpenfish » Mon, May 04, 2020, 9:38 AM UTC

benrbray wrote: post #152

s5300 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite tired and ill right now so I'm unfortunately not going to be able to write this out even slightly well... but for some reason, I want to post the thought anyway so I will. (Note: I'm a U.S. citizen) In short: As an engineering student with quite severe chronic illness that also got fucked over by abusive parents/a broken home I couldn't escape even with scholarships... I simply can't come to the moral conclusio…

I've had the same thought and it sickens me that we've come to this point. As someone who has made the transition from teenager to young adult during the Trump era, I feel like I've lost a game I never even had the chance to play. We have clearly gone so far off course but very few seem interested in steering us back to reality (between the impeachment "trial", the primaries, and our handling of COVID-19). After four…

> Bernie, maybe, had the chance to.

Bernie didn't even inspire people to vote for him in the primary; how was he going to inspire people if he got nominated?

Re: US unprepared for an electrical grid collapse, but it costs only $300M

#203

Post by Fricken » Mon, May 04, 2020, 9:41 AM UTC

JSavageOne wrote: post #153

Fricken wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can rise up and fix the system and get the leader you deserve, or you can complain about and do nothing else, and in that case you'll end up with the leader you deserve.

> You can rise up and fix the system and get the leader you deserve No individual can just "rise up and fix the system".

A clusterfuck of 300 million individuals, getting the leaders they deserve. You can't organize. You can't think outside the system that abuses you. A tiny cabal of openly corrupt individuals can push you all around. You got the leader you deserve.

Re: US unprepared for an electrical grid collapse, but it costs only $300M

#204

Post by zimpenfish » Mon, May 04, 2020, 9:44 AM UTC

taylorhou wrote: post #199

s5300 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite tired and ill right now so I'm unfortunately not going to be able to write this out even slightly well... but for some reason, I want to post the thought anyway so I will. (Note: I'm a U.S. citizen) In short: As an engineering student with quite severe chronic illness that also got fucked over by abusive parents/a broken home I couldn't escape even with scholarships... I simply can't come to the moral conclusio…

Trump 2020 only since it seems not enough people think we haven't learned sht and hell, think we are somehow a better country because of him. Let it burn and maybe AOC can start with a clean slate in 2024.

> Let it burn

That may well be ok for you to say but thousands of people have already died as a direct consequence of Trump's presidency. Hundreds of thousands more have been penalised for their race, beliefs, sexuality, etc. Generations to come will suffer because of the regulations they're undoing and the courts they've packed with Federalist wingnuts. Have some compassion, c'mon.

Re: US unprepared for an electrical grid collapse, but it costs only $300M

#205

Post by thawaway1837 » Mon, May 04, 2020, 9:54 AM UTC

s5300 wrote: post #135

flipgimble wrote: post #99

This article has an unexpected resonance for me after several weeks of pandemic lockdown. Just three months ago I would have laughed it off. Now I am increasingly pissed off. In the US, but I see reflection of this in Europe as well, has allowed irresponsible puerile imbeciles to be elected. These people play games with wealth and power, with no regard to the lives and well-being of the society that pays for it. I di…

Quite tired and ill right now so I'm unfortunately not going to be able to write this out even slightly well... but for some reason, I want to post the thought anyway so I will. (Note: I'm a U.S. citizen) In short: As an engineering student with quite severe chronic illness that also got fucked over by abusive parents/a broken home I couldn't escape even with scholarships... I simply can't come to the moral conclusio…

A lot of people feel similarly.

And almost all those people are people whose lives will not be affected negatively by 4 more years of the terrible administration, so they get to enjoy moral outrage while others bear the burden of feeding their moral indignation.

On the other hand, people whose lives are actually getting destroyed don’t have the same luxury. On a personal note, I have colleagues whose entire lives have been upturned thanks to this administration, but fortunately they are extremely skilled so they were simply able to recall rate by building their lives elsewhere in a country where the administration is not trying to make their lives miserable. The same cannot be said for the many millions of others who are suffering negatively thanks to the admin (especially the many tens of thousands who will be dead due to COVID who wouldn’t have been in a bare minimum competent admin).

Re: US unprepared for an electrical grid collapse, but it costs only $300M

#206

Post by jacobush » Mon, May 04, 2020, 9:55 AM UTC

s5300 wrote: post #151

alden_penny wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a software engineer and have given considerable thought to leaving the US because I am struggling to come to terms with how my taxes are spent and politics in general here. It's universally bad. I'm considering Finland, Sweden, Norway, or Switzerland. They all rank high in happiness, high in democratic representation, and low in corruption. All are difficult to immigrate to but I basically feel a moral obligation…

The only issue I do have with leaving is the war thing. The past few years, I've really been telling myself we're probably at the point that China really does have the U.S. militarily beat if it comes down to it... but despite how many of us HN'ers are aware of some frivolous military budget spending (like literally doing something, tearing it down, and doing it again to spend the budget) - some of those hundreds of…

Don't you have the missile silos in rural Midwest. A truly global conflict with existential fear in major powers, will get hot. But currently the US could absolutely devastate China atomically, but China would only be able to take swings at major US cities.

Everyone will be losers but as things currently stand, China would loose the most.

Re: US unprepared for an electrical grid collapse, but it costs only $300M

#207

Post by jacobush » Mon, May 04, 2020, 9:56 AM UTC

taylorhou wrote: post #197

benrbray wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the same thought and it sickens me that we've come to this point. As someone who has made the transition from teenager to young adult during the Trump era, I feel like I've lost a game I never even had the chance to play. We have clearly gone so far off course but very few seem interested in steering us back to reality (between the impeachment "trial", the primaries, and our handling of COVID-19). After four…

I feel like there are many more folks that would vote for Trump in spite of Biden "winning" the Democratic nod. 1000% agree that the next president is going to be left holding the bag of sht and get blamed for everything so might as well let it be Trump.

Trump seems immune to blaming. To his fans, everything bad is because of unpatriotic traitors.

Re: US unprepared for an electrical grid collapse, but it costs only $300M

#208

Post by kelnos » Mon, May 04, 2020, 10:06 AM UTC

JSavageOne wrote: post #162

benrbray wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the same thought and it sickens me that we've come to this point. As someone who has made the transition from teenager to young adult during the Trump era, I feel like I've lost a game I never even had the chance to play. We have clearly gone so far off course but very few seem interested in steering us back to reality (between the impeachment "trial", the primaries, and our handling of COVID-19). After four…

I agree, but at least it seems like we're incrementally moving in the right direction, even if at a glacial pace. The fact that a 27-year old AOC was elected shows that people are fed up with establishment politicians and change is possible (prior to being elected she was a bartender with no money or connections, who ran on a grassroots campaign of being fed up with politicians taking corporate money and serving corp…

The problem is that when the older generation dies out, the younger generation is no longer young, and their attitudes have changed. Not quite to the same exact conservative/anti-progressive place that their parents and grandparents occupied, but definitely more conservative than they were when they were younger.

We'll see progress, to be sure (and that's good!), but it won't be as dramatic as you think. It'll likely be similar to the last several generations of progress.

Re: US unprepared for an electrical grid collapse, but it costs only $300M

#209

Post by kelnos » Mon, May 04, 2020, 10:11 AM UTC

celticninja wrote: post #201

nickff wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people dislike the 'easy verify and submit' system of taxes, because they think it basically hides taxes from the public. There are similar objections to employer deduction of taxes. Additionally, the current system of many different taxes on different things makes it very hard for a voter to understand what their total tax burden is (especially if there are VATs which are included in prices). For these reasons,…

"many people dislike"... Could you find even a sizeable proportion of the population that felt this way? as with the re-open states protests these things are easily gamed by interested parties and it takes a vocal minority, which is amplified by media voices, such as Fox news, where it aligns with their owners beliefs to make it seem more of an issue than it is. having taxes included in the price when I buy something…

I get what you're saying, but you're essentially doing the same thing as the person you're replying to: you're asserting, without evidence, that, if there's some group of people who want taxes to be more in-your-face, then it must be a small, vocal minority. I agree that the parent should provide sources to back up their claim, but you must do the same if you want to be taken seriously.

Re: US unprepared for an electrical grid collapse, but it costs only $300M

#210

Post by kelnos » Mon, May 04, 2020, 10:15 AM UTC

JSavageOne wrote: post #164

nmfisher wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You realize Trump lost the popular vote right? I am well aware, but that has nothing to do with the almost half of eligible voters who didn't vote at all. Californians who didn't vote in 2016 (~9m) far outnumber Hillary's margin over Trump (~4.3m). There's only "no point voting for president in California" because 9m Californians don't vote. That's nothing to do with "the system", that's a choice that every single…

> If you live in California or New York, there's basically no point in voting for president because there's such a large Democratic majority and it's winner-take-all. Winner-take-all in any state that leans predominantly in one direction means that your vote doesn't matter. Unless those 9 million people happened to all be of the Republican party (extremely unlikely), it wouldn't have made any difference had they vote…

> Unless those 9 million people happened to all be of the Republican party (extremely unlikely), it wouldn't have made any difference had they voted or not.

Perhaps if more people voted in places like CA, the discrepancy between the popular vote and the actual winning candidate would be shown to be so absurd that we could actually get a movement going to successfully change how we elect our leaders.

Then again, it's possible (likely?) that would be matched by more people in red states voting such that the margins would end up the same.