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California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

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Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#71

Post by Negitivefrags »

edge17 wrote: post #29

Where is all the load coming from? Aren't most of the office building (in the Bay Area) empty rightnow due to Covid?

I wonder if the climate control units in office buildings have even been switched off when not in use.

I know that nobody turned off the one in our office when we were away from it for 6 weeks during the NZ lockdown.

It’s not remotely managed and we are not allowed to touch it so someone from the company that owns the building would have had to go and do that, and then come back later to turn it on again. And maybe some of the other businesses in the building are essential and have workers? No idea.

Probably was never going to happen.

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#72

Post by Lammy »

mikem170 wrote: post #65
Lammy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go back to the ‘50s and ‘60s and you can actually see things change. California voters put the brakes on infrastructure projects starting in the late 1950s, for example, like the 1959 anti-freeway San Francisco Supervisors vote. It all made sense to me once I learned about the Second Great Migration, a topic that strangely wasn’t taught to me at all by American public school curriculum.

>Go back to the ‘50s and ‘60s and you can actually see things change. The time just after World War II was kind of an economic anomaly for the U.S. Our population of about 4% of the world generated something like 50% of the worlds GDP, most other industrial economies were still rebuilding. It might not be accurate to consider that period as a baseline for purposes of economic comparison.

I'm making a population comparison, not explicitly an economic one.

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#73

Post by refurb »

heavyset_go wrote: post #53
refurb wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you can cherry pick certain statistics for any period. That doesn’t tell you anything. My point was, the US is not falling apart. Or if it is, it’s always been falling apart. The current situation is not unique.

> Sure, you can cherry pick certain statistics for any period. That doesn’t tell you anything. I'm curious what this is supposed to tell you, then: > And corruption is way down from say the early 1900's (don't even talk about the 1800's where it was odd for a politician to not be corrupt).

That was a counterpoint to the OPs concern about corruption today in an attempt to convey that it’s not all that different now, not to argue it’s better now.

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#74

Post by bhupy »

heavyset_go wrote: post #22
refurb wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just your human brain succumbing to its recency bias. As someone who has been around for way too many decades, it was like this in the 70's, 80's, 90's, 00's. And corruption is way down from say the early 1900's (don't even talk about the 1800's where it was odd for a politician to not be corrupt). And your "save the world from fascism" happened at the same time most of the US was segregated.

And inequality is up since the 70's, as are housing, health care and cost of living expenses, while wages have remained stagnant for nearly 50 years.

Who cares about inequality — poverty is down: https://www.nber.org/papers/w26532. The difference between the rich and the poor is less important than making sure that the poor are rich enough.

Real median income is up: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N

Tax revenues as a %age of GDP are mostly flat: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S

US median disposable income is about the 3rd highest on the planet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#75

Post by jacobwilliamroy »

p1mrx wrote: post #56

We're going to need lots of power grid upgrades over the next few decades, for all the new air conditioning (climate change), and the electrification of heat and transportation (trying to avoid climate change.) Are these upgrades even in the planning phase? People will be hesitant to migrate away from fossil fuels if they can't trust the alternative.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

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Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#76

Post by vmception »

chrisseaton wrote: post #18
lisper wrote: post #2

The entire U.S. is feeling more and more like a third-world country. Corrupt government. Unreliable and deteriorating infrastructure. Extreme poverty (I recently learned that 30% of houses on Indian reservations don't have running water). Marginalization or even outright vilification of intellectuals. 75 years ago we saved the world from fascism. Who is going to save us from ourselves? :-(

> The entire U.S. is feeling more and more like a third-world country. Corrupt government. Unreliable and deteriorating infrastructure. Extreme poverty (I recently learned that 30% of houses on Indian reservations don't have running water). Marginalization or even outright vilification of intellectuals. Americans have been saying this about their own country for decades. Many people see the worst in their own. And if…

> if I couldn't live in my home country for some reason.

Which is why America is populated by extremes.

Almost everyone here was either kicked out of or lacked consensus with the prevailing, fairly benign version of whatever was practiced where they came from.

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#77

Post by refurb »

guerrilla wrote: post #60
blhack wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would highly encourage you to reassess where you are getting your information about the world if you genuinely believe this. I’m seeing this sentiment expressed more and more, and it seriously concerns me. If you look at the data, almost any data which compares the US to other countries, you’ll see that the US is at or near the top. This isn’t blind patriotism. Seriously if you are feeling like the US is becoming a…

> This isn’t blind patriotism. Maybe it's just ignorance then. Quality of life in Northern Europe is far better than it ever was in California, which in retrospect looks like a joke.

What is quality of life? Sounds pretty subjective. One person may rank weather at the top, so Northern Europe sucks. Another may rank parental leave at the top, so the US sucks.

Probably the most objective way is to measure how people vote with their feet.

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#78

Post by refurb »

riantogo wrote: post #62
blhack wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would highly encourage you to reassess where you are getting your information about the world if you genuinely believe this. I’m seeing this sentiment expressed more and more, and it seriously concerns me. If you look at the data, almost any data which compares the US to other countries, you’ll see that the US is at or near the top. This isn’t blind patriotism. Seriously if you are feeling like the US is becoming a…

Any data shows US near the top? Are you sure you looked at data at all? Here is data from top sources referenced in the wiki: Education: ranked 40 of 72 in mathematics, 25 of 72 in science, 24 of 72 in reading Health: ranking 42nd among 224 nations Standard of living: ranked 25 out of 151 countries for 2018 Politics: ranked 45 out of 180 countries Peace: ranked 121 out of 162 countries Economics: ranked 17 out of 178…

I always find these subjective rankings by “think tanks” as pretty entertaining (I’m excluding the objective ones like life expectancy).

Regardless if you lean left or right, there is an implicit bias to a lower ranking. Why? Because it means “we need to enact my policy”.

If you dare come out and say “everything is fine” nobody is going to vote for you.

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#79

Post by refurb »

lostlogin wrote: post #21
lisper wrote: post #2

The entire U.S. is feeling more and more like a third-world country. Corrupt government. Unreliable and deteriorating infrastructure. Extreme poverty (I recently learned that 30% of houses on Indian reservations don't have running water). Marginalization or even outright vilification of intellectuals. 75 years ago we saved the world from fascism. Who is going to save us from ourselves? :-(

> 75 years ago we saved the world from fascism. Who is going to save us from ourselves? :-( It was mainly Russia who did that. The US effort may well have saved Europe from Communism though.

Russia saved the world from fascism and replaced it with another authoritative system. Not sure I’d call that “saved”.

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#80

Post by heavyset_go »

bhupy wrote: post #74
heavyset_go wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And inequality is up since the 70's, as are housing, health care and cost of living expenses, while wages have remained stagnant for nearly 50 years.

Who cares about inequality — poverty is down: https://www.nber.org/papers/w26532 . The difference between the rich and the poor is less important than making sure that the poor are rich enough. Real median income is up: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N Tax revenues as a %age of GDP are mostly flat: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S US median disposable income is about the 3rd highest on t…

And yet 78% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck[1], and 40% don't have the money to cover a $400 emergency expense[2]. For our riches, we have the highest population of people without health insurance in the first world, and the number one cause of bankruptcy in the US is medical expenses.

Inequality drives cost of living up. Normal people in the US are competing with the richest people domestically and internationally for housing. While normal people need housing to shelter themselves, the rich, especially the rich outside of the US, see housing as a means to store value.

In the past 15 years, the largest growing population of homeless people are entire families, and the most common reasons for homelessness are lack of affordable housing, insufficient income, or loss of income.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2019/01/11/live-pa...

[2] https://abcnews.go.com/US/10-americans-struggle-cover-400-em...

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