Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water • Hacker News Board

Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water

#141

Post by Dylan16807 » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 3:09 AM UTC

spuz wrote: post #119

Dylan16807 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> explaining one https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16176246

I don't get it. This is just a link to another attempt to explain the facetiousness of another comment which was itself also downvoted. Why don't we downvote facetious comments instead of the comments that try to redeem them?

I'm saying that it looks like an earnest explanation of a comment that was not facetious.

That's why the explanation as if it was facetious gets the downvote.

Especially since it's not at all baseless. Outside of the subtropics rainfall is expected to increase. But drought length can also increase. It's complicated.

Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water

#142

Post by chesimov » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 8:35 AM UTC

eisa01 wrote: post #140

chesimov wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair point, but choosing the electricity crisis as an example is not helping your claim - the Apartheid lot left us with something like 50% overcapacity and almost the cheapest electricity in the world at the time. We actually have less electricity generating capacity right now than at that time. The lack of generting capacity has severely constrained our economy since. When the crisis first bit in the 2000s, many mi…

If you have 50% overcapacity you have completely failed to plan your electricity system - that't not really a measure of success

It was a different time - my understanding is that having a multiply redundant system was important for an isolated pariah state. Think of it like the strategic petroleum reserves in certain isolated states of today. Of course none of that was necessary once SA rejoined the global community. This extra capacity could have been carefully mothballed for later use; instead we are now building 2x brand new coal stations, each of which will be the largest coal plants in the world.

Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water

#143

Post by toomuchtodo » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 4:13 PM UTC

opportune wrote: post #101

pixl97 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>2. The city has lost R1.6b ($130m) in water fees due to reduced usage, so now we're facing a "drought tax". To me this is bullshit but thats a whole other post. Why? In already deployed networks, decreased usage means the cost per client, or the cost per unit used will go up. This is a problem with any network that charges for delivery based on usage and cannot easily cut off unused parts of the network.

Because that shouldn't be charged after the fact, ideally it should be priced into the water prices as consumers purchase it.

To not charge it after the fact, you’d have to recoup costs much faster in the earlier years of the system existence, causing crushing water bills to exist.

It’s not a policy issue, it’s an education issue.

Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water

#144

Post by m0llusk » Mon, Jan 22, 2018, 1:21 AM UTC

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #4

pjc50 wrote: post #2

Sanaa, the capital city of Yemen, has already run out of water. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-blockade-r... There were serious problems before the war, but now it's just a disaster area. The US supports this.

The difference is, Cape Town is not in war time. I can't think of the last time there was literal war in Cape Town, there's nothing in recent times. My best guess would be "a small but significant military engagement" on 8 January 1806 (1). Unrest in the late 1980s doesn't count. As far as I know, there were no military engagements in Cape Town during the Anglo-Boer wars (1880 - 1881 and 1899 – 1902). 1 ) https://en.…

Yemen was nearly running out of water even before the war started. In any case these are quibbles. Yemen and South Africa having cities without water should be a major alarm to all civic leaders.

Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water

#145

Post by ambivalence » Mon, Jan 22, 2018, 7:51 AM UTC

Feniks wrote: post #49

Amusing since Cape Town was founded by the Dutch as a place to resupply for the long voyage to the Spice Islands. Including clean drinking water.

Saying it's "ironic" would be somewhat harsh (but would still get the point across), saying it's "amusing" is just cruel. You know there's real people affected and the ones hurt will likely not be the ones responsible, right?

A bit of empathy would go a long way.

Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water

#146

Post by pathseeker » Wed, Jan 24, 2018, 3:01 PM UTC

croon wrote: post #67

pathseeker wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that state's aren't really motivated to get things done in a cost efficient manner. If the government in SA is like the US, employees are not rewarded for doing anything beyond the bare minimum to prove that they are still alive. In a private business, the employees have to help the business towards its goal of making money, so all of the incentives are aligned to be successful (employees want promotio…

> The problem is that state's aren't really motivated to get things done in a cost efficient manner. And businesses aren't really motivated to provide cheap water or more than bare-minimum health standards. There are obvious pros and cons on both sides of that debate.

>And businesses aren't really motivated to provide cheap water or more than bare-minimum health standards.

Neither are governments (see Flint).

Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water

#147

Post by KhanMahGretsch » Fri, Jan 26, 2018, 5:31 PM UTC

SeoxyS wrote: post #132

dragonwriter wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The apartheid government no longer exists because it caused the country to descend into so much chaos that the rulers gave up trying to continue. So, by the standard you imply with your comparison, the apartheid government— even more certainly than the present regime —did not know how to run a country.

The apartheid government no longer exists because (1) open racism was no longer tenable in the face of an evolving society, and (2) the worldwide sanctions placed on it became too great. That's fine, but that's also completely orthogonal to the point, which is that: 1/ By most standards, the effectiveness of government has plummetted since the end of apartheid. Crime is up; corruption has increased; resources are run…

>But we should aspire to a post-racial world where we race is no longer relevant, where both apartheid and affirmative action are considered revolting abominations, but also where we judge governments based on their net effectiveness.

Hear, hear. While "the better angels of our nature" should inform our aspirations, the political, social and economic facts-on-the-ground should inform what action should be taken in order to bring us closer to the ideal.

Affirmative-action is a symptomatic treatment (that could be argued as being punitive) which achieves little-to-nothing in solving the root-problem, while creating a whole new set of problems. Successful integration of former-colonial and indigenous peoples in ZA would have been an unprecedented achievement, but adopting policies that are so obviously regressive will not bring that into reality.