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Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction

arstechnica.com

241–250 of 446 posts

Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an interesting perspective because my town is currently being sued by the state for years of secret discrimination by police and authority(my neighbors obviously voted strongly MAGA) so its an interesting hard right perspective. After sitting and observing my local town's MAGA base for the better part of two years straight(by attending town meetings and joining all their facebook groups) it is clear that there…

I'm strongly of the opinion that we're seeing the consequence of 40 years of neoliberalism in which there's no longer any political objective of actually improving things for normal people, just hoping the private sector will sort things out.

Its certainly a symptom. With corporate financing of elections in the post Nixon years, neoliberalism has run amok and led to the disaster we are in. What I worry about is that only about 50% of the country has a passport. Half the country have never seen how other places are run and now 40+ years later a large percentage of the country wouldn't even remember how things used to be. They just think this is how every place runs.

The movie Fahrenheit 11/9 builds up understanding of the theory using specific case studies on the behavior you describe. They also discuss efforts to try and fight back. It is a recommended watch for anyone interested in understanding the underlying reasons for how we ended up where we are now. I can't believe the film is now eight years old yet feels like it was produced right now. Some of the people who were high school kids in the movie graduated college and are now even running for congress to try to fight back against neoliberalism! :O

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Wf-Y2_I91A

Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction

#242
post #2

posted this at ars forum: (it should be clear I think it was a stupid move by the WH, but I am trying to think what might have "informed" it) Steelmanning the risks, its the link to mainland as a weakness in supply chain of power, compared to onshore sources possibly. But, the construction is in close water, well inside the exclusive economic zone. You would think passage of a craft capable of causing a power shock w…

US wind farms are 30 miles from the coast at most? No country is attacking that under some plausible deniability and it not being seen as an act of war.There are more important power lines further from civilisation running through rural areas in the US. These are not fiber cables a 1000 miles from the coast. Gas generators can be spun up to provide megawatts in seconds btw. With less than a quarter of the grid being…

> Gas generators can be spun up to provide megawatts in seconds btw

Only if they're already spinning and everything is hot and ready.

Non-spinning reserves can take hours to bring online. Cold power plants cannot be brought up quickly. The simplest designs can ramp within a few minutes, but these are generally not intended for any kind of continuous operation due to efficiency concerns.

Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "good thing" they did, is stopping their actions which causes millions to starve. Which lead to people getting themselves out of poverty.

Yeah, and whilst getting themselves out of poverty they built 50,000km of high speed rail.

By racking up debt of epic proportions, with no return on investment in sight.

All the while going into a demographic death spiral. Partly cause by the draconian 1-child policy, which attempted to fix the pronatalist policies of Mao.

Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction

#244
This must be the best example of why China will overtake the US as the world's number 1 super power before 2050. I would link you to a white house press briefing from Biden https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases... but it has been taken down by Trumpists. Another irony.

It's a shame that the US is being actively sabotaged by Republicans and Trumpists and people will continue on because saying that is apparently a capital-p Politics and not an objective fact.

Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction

#245

If a country changes course every four years, how can the success of a long-term project be ensured? And what of its negotiating credibility? How can the other side trust that an agreement will hold in the future? This is not a critique, but a genuine curiosity, because there's an obvious drawback with a system with opposing world views. Unless, of course, something still unites them in the first place, with acceptab…

By only doing projects for which there is sufficient political support across the board, not the ones that are supported by a tiny vocal minority of the electorate.

Either we live in a democracy or we do not. Democracy determines the correct path by wobbling between two incompatible options - implementation and repeal. That which is implemented by one side, but not repealed by the other survives as the appropriate path.

There is no alternative to this - without abandoning democracy and universal suffrage.

Remember that democracy is the worst way to run a country, except for all the other.

Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction

#246
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is largely why presidencies do not mess with the order they inherit too much (subjective statement I know). Most institutions and projects are not stressed and the government branches just keep doing what they always did. The current administration is an outlier, but we all know that.

That could be a problem in itself. It certainly is here in the UK. If you have two parties that have much the same policies you do not get necessary change and voting becomes meaningless.

The thing is that wether the ruling party is right or left there are limits to what they can do based on the real world we live in. For example there is a limit to how much they can lower or increase the tax. There is a limit to how much they can save on one thing and invest in another.

Often when a new party takes power, no big real changes are seen as it is not so easy to implement considering the real world. They have to go down some kind of middle path.

Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are not in fact millions of people who want to burn the world just to spite others. If you truly believe that then you have really failed to understand people around you, and should try to better empathize. As a rule, people do what they do because they believe it to be the right thing. They might be misguided in that belief, of course, but the idea of millions of people deciding on a cartoonishly evil course o…

I have an interesting perspective because my town is currently being sued by the state for years of secret discrimination by police and authority(my neighbors obviously voted strongly MAGA) so its an interesting hard right perspective. After sitting and observing my local town's MAGA base for the better part of two years straight(by attending town meetings and joining all their facebook groups) it is clear that there…

> Its depressing trying to steelman that behavior because you realize that the country you grew up in had these people there.

Maybe we should stop steelman them all the time. That is how they got enabled by centrists and pundits and moderates so much, they became the rulers. Steelmanning obvious bad faith actors is just another fallacy.

Steelmanning consists of ignoring disturbing claims conservative right says, not listening to what they are actually saying and replacing what they are saying by some feel good fiction of good intention.

Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not advocating their system, but here's one pro for China obviously.

Dictatorships work as long as they're benevolent, much like democracies work as long as they aren't bought.

It depends what you mean by work. Technology - among a myriad of other things - enables the worst dictators to stay in power, even if the country as a whole doesn't work.

Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction

#249
post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an interesting perspective because my town is currently being sued by the state for years of secret discrimination by police and authority(my neighbors obviously voted strongly MAGA) so its an interesting hard right perspective. After sitting and observing my local town's MAGA base for the better part of two years straight(by attending town meetings and joining all their facebook groups) it is clear that there…

> Its depressing trying to steelman that behavior because you realize that the country you grew up in had these people there. Maybe we should stop steelman them all the time. That is how they got enabled by centrists and pundits and moderates so much, they became the rulers. Steelmanning obvious bad faith actors is just another fallacy. Steelmanning consists of ignoring disturbing claims conservative right says, not…

The other method of challenging them and trying to prove your point does not work either. There is no solution it seems. They need to suffer the consequences of their decisions on their own.

Thats why I was so depressed. I have an engineering mindset of finding out how to improve things and there seems like there is no solution to this problem that involves remaining with this group as part of your society because it takes two to tango (ie. both sides need to put in genuine effort at growth).

Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction

#250

If a country changes course every four years, how can the success of a long-term project be ensured? And what of its negotiating credibility? How can the other side trust that an agreement will hold in the future? This is not a critique, but a genuine curiosity, because there's an obvious drawback with a system with opposing world views. Unless, of course, something still unites them in the first place, with acceptab…

By only doing projects for which there is sufficient political support across the board, not the ones that are supported by a tiny vocal minority of the electorate. Either we live in a democracy or we do not. Democracy determines the correct path by wobbling between two incompatible options - implementation and repeal. That which is implemented by one side, but not repealed by the other survives as the appropriate pa…

The pitchfork bifurcation: https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5987495
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