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

#241

Post by jyrkesh » Mon, May 04, 2020, 9:37 PM 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…

As someone in predominantly blue state, I make a point to vote 3rd party. 15% of the popular votes means they get to be in the debates. At least it's something....

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

#242

Post by thomaslord » Mon, May 04, 2020, 10:15 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #73

henrikschroder wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, there are two interstate pacts doing just that, coordinating their covid-19 response because they think the federal government is useless. There's the Western States Pact (CA, OR, WA, NV, CO), and NY just announced an eastern states consortium (NY, NJ, MA, CT, PA, RI, DE). Add to the fact that several states have had to take drastic measures like calling in their national guard to protect their own PPE ship…

I have a hard time seeing what these pacts accomplish. What's gained by coordinating Covid response in Spokane and Fresno?

Having any intelligently coordinated response at all?

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

#243

Post by jyrkesh » Mon, May 04, 2020, 11:23 PM UTC

roywiggins wrote: post #57

beambot wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Events like the Carrington & Covid seem to fit: high profile, hard to predict and rare. IMO, both qualify as Black swan. At some point, you have to pick a threshold on the probabilities involved... These events are likely independent & identically distributed (i.e. hard to predict for any year), and I'd call sub-1% annual chance pretty rare. But I'm receptive to a different threshold... But you can't just say "Black…

Not to be all Word of God, but Nassim Taleb does not consider COVID19 a black swan at all. https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-pandemic-is... It's not a black swan because everyone with half a brain could say that there would eventually be a global pandemic respiratory disease. H1N1 was technically one, it just happened to be mild. We thought there was going to be one in 1976 and raced to vaccinate every…

I can understand his frustration with our lack of preparation, but he's used the term black swan to describe economic recessions that were also predicted by many people.

Wikipedia says Taleb gives three criteria for black swan phenomena:

1. The disproportionate role of high-profile, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance, and technology. 2. The non-computability of the probability of the consequential rare events using scientific methods (owing to the very nature of small probabilities). 3. The psychological biases that blind people, both individually and collectively, to uncertainty and to a rare event's massive role in historical affairs.

Given these criteria, how could a San Andreas earthquake NOT be a black swan? (And by "San Andreas earthquake" I mean The Big One, not one of the many smaller tremors that occur all the time.) Because we know that, one day, The Big One will eventually occur? Or because we can prepare for it to some degree (though I'd argue there are magnitudes that The Big One could hit that even the most earthquake safe of buildings aren't prepared to endure in CA).

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

#244

Post by withdavidli » Tue, May 05, 2020, 12:39 AM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #211

withdavidli wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer that I use similar remarks to the quote you disagree with. This is with the understanding that the price that needs to be paid will literally take lives at times, and that there is little to no fairness at who bears that cost. That being said, you seem to be quite active politically and doing more than most in this arena. At what point do you give up and move to where you think you'll be represented? This…

> Disclaimer that I use similar remarks to the quote you disagree with. This is with the understanding that the price that needs to be paid will literally take lives at times I guess it's easy to make those kinds of remarks when you know you won't be the one paying that price, huh?

I put zero reliance on external forces making the change I want to see and make decisions without this being a factor. It cuts out false hope.

If I'm not willing to pay the price, I should not expect change.

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

#245

Post by watertom » Tue, May 05, 2020, 1:40 AM UTC

The movement to run the government as a business is at the heart of a lot of these problems.

Governments have a different risk model than a for profit business.

For profit businessEs can’t in any way financially justify to it’s stock holders the spending of money to protect against something that might never happen.

I ran DR & BC for a very large global firm, I reported to the Board, and I can tell you these people thought I was insane, even to protect against things like fires.

“When was the last time you heard of a large office building having a major fire with more than a couple of casualties?” This was actually said to me when I was proposing to improve the company’s fire protection system. I got out voted and they “ saved” the money. They still haven’t had a fire, so as far as they are concerned I was stupid.

Electric companies are necessary so they know if something does go horribly wrong they get bailed out.

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

#246

Post by LargoLasskhyfv » Tue, May 05, 2020, 4:47 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…

While i feel similar, be careful what you whish for, because it could also swing the other way, giving imbeciles even more power. Like for example in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale_(TV_seri...

I didn't like it that much, but didn't need too much suspension of disbelief to see it as a realistic possibility.

Think of all the televangelists, megachurches, religious fundamentalists and so on. What happens in dire times? People flock to such things. There is no 'rationality" in it, just instinct. Thereby worsening the chance of the outcome you wish for.

I felt the smarter way would be to ridicule these horror clowns as much as possible, so their incompetence would obvious to almost everyone. But somehow that seems to not even matter.

I'm clueless as to why. It does not compute!

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

#247

Post by LargoLasskhyfv » Tue, May 05, 2020, 5:02 AM UTC

moeadham wrote: post #214

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 think your sentiment is understandable given the state of affairs. Have you spent time reading about past societies that have undergone collapse? While it may seem daunting, changing the system before a point of no return would historically be the right move. Historically, the most likely outcome of your strategy is a shift towards more oligarchs and feudalism. Have a look at Russia, Iraq, China (post ww2), etc. I…

Maybe a modern exception, split of the former https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechoslovakia into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_Republic and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovakia which don't do so bad.

Also, at least recently https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguay

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

#248

Post by naasking » Tue, May 05, 2020, 5:05 AM UTC

viscoelastic wrote: post #236

cglace wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck with that. There is a very large portion of the population that believe this administration has left the world better than they found it.

30 millions jobs lost and counting. 70,000 deaths in the US alone. No international cooperation. No organized plan to contain the pandemic, or even demonstrate confidence. to the markets. The endless stream of scandals before that can only be dismissed if you buy into the endless propaganda machine. The world is not better by any measure.

> The world is not better by any measure

Strictly speaking, that's not true. The world is now aware of how painfully unprepared we are for cataclysmic events, like pandemics.

The world now also knows how dangerous China is due to the dangers of offshore supply chains, the disinformation they spread which endangered lives, and the dangerously strong influence they have over the WHO.

These are all good things and we're better off knowing them.

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

#249

Post by LargoLasskhyfv » Tue, May 05, 2020, 5:26 AM UTC

jacobush wrote: post #206

s5300 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do we really know that? Maybe they have developed some form of working SDI.

Furthermore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_Great_Wall_of_Chin...

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

#250

Post by JSavageOne » Tue, May 05, 2020, 7:56 AM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #208

JSavageOne wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's true to an extent, but I think this time is different because the millenials have had to endure so much obvious hardships as a direct result of the baby boomers' incompetence (eg. student debt), and because millennials grew up with the internet and all the information that gives one access to. Politicians like Bernie and AOC are more in line with how millennial stand (my Boomer dad doesn't understand what they're so angry about), and if those policies were implemented, that'd be a massively different society than today.