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Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

propublica.org

151–160 of 332 posts

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#151

The tricky thing about environmental regulations is that they are crafted and utilized by NIMBYs to block any infrastructure development. Even if, on balance, the infrastructure is a net positive. It's not clear if these violations actually represent a real environmental hazard or are more reflective of NIMBY degrowth sentiment.

> It's not clear if these violations actually represent a real environmental hazard or are more reflective of NIMBY degrowth sentiment.

Here’s an article that has some details on some of the violations [1]. The sound like things that the state legitimately should be regulating and that this would have minimal impact on growth.

[1] https://www.propublica.org/article/elon-musk-boring-company-...

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you are just shilling for polluting billionaires. What an acidic thing to fling. I want us to build infrastructure. Nowhere did I say we need do whatever Musk says. I want us to use cost-benefit analysis to judge infrastructure projects rather than the heavy moral framing we get a lot.

> What an acidic thing to fling. if you don't automatically assume bad faith when dealing with hypercapitalist private infrastructure projects, you're going to be taken advantage of. every time. that, or you're on the payroll. there's not a ton of wiggle room here.

You are falling prey to the myth of the cynical genius

> A further three studies based on the data of about 200,000 individuals from 30 countries debunked these lay beliefs as illusionary by revealing that cynical (vs. less cynical) individuals generally do worse on cognitive ability and academic competency tasks. Cross-cultural analyses showed that competent individuals held contingent attitudes and endorsed cynicism only if it was warranted in a given sociocultural environment. Less competent individuals embraced cynicism unconditionally, suggesting that-at low levels of competence-holding a cynical worldview might represent an adaptive default strategy to avoid the potential costs of falling prey to others' cunning.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29993325/

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: > Workers have complained of chemical burns from the waste material generated by the tunneling process, and firefighters must decontaminate their equipment after conducting rescues from the project sites. The company was fined more than $112,000 by Nevada’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration in late 2023 after workers complained of “ankle-deep” water in the tunnels, muck spills and burns.…

Yes this sounds quite serious. In line with Elon’s “at all cost” mindset, which is very powerful but also dangerous.

Hard-core tunnel engineering

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#154
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Indeed! I think the Vegas loop has immense potential. There are many ways we can iterate on this concept. Perhaps we can use bigger cars, in a bus like shape to transport more people at once. Or we could remove the batteries to save cost and weight and supply the cars with an external power source. There is immense potential here and I believe this will revolutionise transport.

love how you're slowly working your way to describing a train, I think most people around the world would agree is the optimal solution here

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#155
post #3

All this so a handful of passengers a week can wait for the extremely small pool of vehicles in a dusty hole

There was a CityNerd video (which you may take or leave in general, but I found the anecdote interesting) in which there appeared to be one vehicle in service on the entire system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPjODKUxV5g I assume though that they would adjust the capacity depending on time of day and whether there's an event or something going on, to some degree.

Thanks for sharing this, I had understood prior to this video that the combo of self driving tech + dedicated tunnels might have capacity that rival a light rail system like Seattle has but that's clearly not the case in the current system. I'm curious why more of the autonomous driving tech isn't being used in what I might have thought would be an "easier" place to do it.

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#156
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed! I think the Vegas loop has immense potential. There are many ways we can iterate on this concept. Perhaps we can use bigger cars, in a bus like shape to transport more people at once. Or we could remove the batteries to save cost and weight and supply the cars with an external power source. There is immense potential here and I believe this will revolutionise transport.

love how you're slowly working your way to describing a train, I think most people around the world would agree is the optimal solution here

OP is being extremely sarcastic.

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#157
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Indeed! I think the Vegas loop has immense potential. There are many ways we can iterate on this concept. Perhaps we can use bigger cars, in a bus like shape to transport more people at once. Or we could remove the batteries to save cost and weight and supply the cars with an external power source. There is immense potential here and I believe this will revolutionise transport.

[flagged]

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

everybody knew and voiced their knowledge before, during, and after the Vegas tunnel that Boring Co and the Hyperloop were just bad concepts. You didn't need to waste money to try it, because it's not new tech. It's a tunnel. It's a solution to traffic. It's for riders, not drivers. But instead of calling it a train and therefore being _lame_, you slap a fresh coat of paint on it with _self driving cars_ and _insane_…

Ok, so they should build a train/subway. Who has done this? Is anyone doing it? If not, why?

Should we stop all other projects that are short of the perfect solution?

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#159
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

They aren’t just trying shit in the real world, they are literally boring holes into it causing significant harm to people and the environment.

Can you list the significant harm to people and the environment? I read the article and I'm struggling to find anything.
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