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Texas power crisis revealed flaw in market’s design

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Re: Texas power crisis revealed flaw in market’s design

#261
post #258

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> Both of these are explicit examples of regulatory capture. > The FAA is heavily dependent on aircraft manufacturers to self certify. EU members met in Brussels to discuss the exact metrics VW was spoofing, but failed to implement a measurement strategy that would have easily detected this manipulation due to pressure from companies regarding the expense and time of tests. Furthering this line of thought, are you su…

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Re: Texas power crisis revealed flaw in market’s design

#262

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>Hahaha! You have to be joking?

Which modern, high quality of life, non capitalist countries are less harmful to the environment?

>You have no scruples at all do you? "No insight into" then you go on avoiding the point and just falsely suggesting that I said something I didn't say (treating all historical North American societies as one, which is ridiculous), what a deeply dishonest thing to write, shame on you.

What was your point then? You were leveraging some native American sentiments and factually incorrect popular myths on their beliefs about property ownership to contend falsely that they had better economic systems devoid of profit motive or property.

>I won't be wasting energy on replies that have zero prospect of breaking through that dogma. I can see others have tried with no success.

The irony coming from someone with entirely unsourced, repeatedly demonstrably false assertions, while I have provided endless examples and sources.

Sorry, not sorry for sticking to my well researched and verbosely sources principles and reasoning because random strangers on the internet regurgitate easily countered dogma from ideologues and propagandists.

I can tell you exactly what evidence would look like that would change my mind about any topic I hold strong beliefs about. Meanwhile you can't even stick to one topic.

Re: Texas power crisis revealed flaw in market’s design

#263
post #216
post #189

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Sure, the military bootstrapped the semi-conductor industry, but we’re a long fucking way from the 8088 processor - thanks to capitalism. I mean for $1,000 I can have effectively a 1990’s supercomputer in my pocket. The government didn’t do that, greedy capitalists did.

> I mean for $1,000 I can have effectively a 1990’s supercomputer in my pocket. The government didn’t do that, greedy capitalists did. Heavily reliant on research funded by the government, ambitious funding for things the internet, the financial stability and access to markets supported by the government, etc. Neither side of this is doing it on their own — it’s like trying to decide whether the wheel or chain deserv…

The point is - the government did not and would not create the phone in my pocket.

Greedy capitalists trying to make more and more money figured they could do that by making better and better phones.

Re: Texas power crisis revealed flaw in market’s design

#265
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Both of these are explicit examples of regulatory capture. > The FAA is heavily dependent on aircraft manufacturers to self certify. EU members met in Brussels to discuss the exact metrics VW was spoofing, but failed to implement a measurement strategy that would have easily detected this manipulation due to pressure from companies regarding the expense and time of tests. Furthering this line of thought, are you su…

Quoted post unavailable.

> Sounds like a great opportunity to do some self directed research and critical thinking instead of exercising confirmation bias.

This boils down to "I am right without any arguments, and if you can't see that then you should figure out how I'm right yourself". It's not a great look.

> No thanks, I'm not willing to invest any more time in curing the ignorance of someone unwilling to seek truth for themselves and who only asks questions in bad faith

Asking very specific questions is bad faith?

Re: Texas power crisis revealed flaw in market’s design

#266
post #263
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean for $1,000 I can have effectively a 1990’s supercomputer in my pocket. The government didn’t do that, greedy capitalists did. Heavily reliant on research funded by the government, ambitious funding for things the internet, the financial stability and access to markets supported by the government, etc. Neither side of this is doing it on their own — it’s like trying to decide whether the wheel or chain deserv…

The point is - the government did not and would not create the phone in my pocket. Greedy capitalists trying to make more and more money figured they could do that by making better and better phones.

Nobody is saying the government made your phone. The point is that those private companies depended on a business environment stabilized by the government, workers educated by the government, research funded by the government, business opportunities created or protected by the government (e.g. patents), etc. I realize there’s a lot of libertarian propaganda in certain circles but it’s not like the last century’s guiding policies weren’t regularly recognized & discussed.

Re: Texas power crisis revealed flaw in market’s design

#267
post #266
post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is - the government did not and would not create the phone in my pocket. Greedy capitalists trying to make more and more money figured they could do that by making better and better phones.

Nobody is saying the government made your phone. The point is that those private companies depended on a business environment stabilized by the government, workers educated by the government, research funded by the government, business opportunities created or protected by the government (e.g. patents), etc. I realize there’s a lot of libertarian propaganda in certain circles but it’s not like the last century’s guid…

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. In communist Russia the government provided stability, research funded by the government, etc and could barely feed their population.

Capitalism is why we have super computers in our pocket.

Re: Texas power crisis revealed flaw in market’s design

#268

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My wife got a contract with our provider, we pay normal prices during the day but get 100% free power from 8 PM to I think 5 or 6 AM. Can't really complain.

What does "normal" prices man? After everything is said and done, what is your normal effective per-kWh rate? Most people I've seen with these plans only really get a good deal with a plan like that with a good solar or battery install, or are truly never at home except for those free hours.

She pays the bills, she's happy, when she's happy about anything to do with money, with me burning through power with my gaming on several nights per week; it's got to be all good news. Always check to see whether your utility can work a deal.

Re: Texas power crisis revealed flaw in market’s design

#269
post #259

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Even grids designed around winter can fail, hard. Quebec's grid is extremely important to the province, and it's actually a source of pride here yet it also failed in a catastrophic way in 1998. And I've had 3 outages this year in Montréal too. I don't know why everyone seems to be judging the soundness of the Texas grid based on single event that happened last year. Yes it was catastrophic, but so was what happened…

The 1998 ice storm was something that had not happened before. Montreal was in particularly bad shape because numerous towers for something like 2 of the 3 transmission lines going into the city collapsed under the weight of the ice (please forgive my foggy memory for the exact numbers and details). My family in eastern Ontario was without power for 8 days in 1998, and another friend was without power for 17 days. On…

Wow!That is very interesting, it's amazing that a pole can even survive almost 100 years of frost/defrost like that and still hold any lines. I guess considering the incredible distances involved here in Canada, keeping track of the poles and actually inspecting them is a huge challenge though. I wouldn't have thought broadband added any significant weight on the poles though!

And you are right, that storm was pretty unique because of how much ice (instead of snow) it ended up creating. But honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if we see another big grid failure soon. The network has been noticeably less reliable the past 2-3 years, and not just in my location. I've had to build a DIY UPS for my home server this year because of that (the outages have been around 7-8h each so an off the shelf UPS was not really an option if I wanted 100% uptime). Hopefully I'm wrong because electric heating is massive here.

Re: Texas power crisis revealed flaw in market’s design

#270
post #56

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> Kids froze to death in their own beds. Wow, that sounds horrible. I tried googling this since I hadn't heard about this before. I came across one 11 year old who his parents claimed died of hypothermia. However, the autopsy revealed that his death was due to carbon monoxide. Source: https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/conroe-police-autops...

This report shows 8 minor deaths, approx 2/3 of total deaths were hypothermia, but doesn't show a cause/age breakdown https://www.dshs.texas.gov/news/updates/SMOC_FebWinterStorm_...

Thank you. How unfortunate, I am sad to see lack of leadership/determination/vision to fix this issue in the state :(.
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