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It’s the End of California as We Know It

nytimes.com

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Re: It’s the End of California as We Know It

#81

Post by masonic »

BurningFrog wrote: post #31
Ididntdothis wrote: post #6

Somehow I feel this is not only a California problem but the whole US. The country seems to be incapable of or unwilling to address fundamental problems. Instead you are getting endless political fights while infrastructure is falling apart. The contrasts in Silicon Valley and LA are extreme. You have some of the richest people in the world living in beautiful mansions with cities around them full of homeless people,…

Nowhere is perfect, but I definitely think California is uniquely bad for the US. My pet theory is that small units govern themselves nest, and I'd support splitting California into as many smaller states as possible. Of course, a state where building a 4 story housing building takes on average math.inf will not get it together to dissolve itself in anyone's lifetime. So I guess things will just continue on this trac…

  I'd support splitting California into as many smaller states as possible
You don't cure a cancer by just cutting it into smaller pieces.

Among other things, that would just replicate CA's legacy of inept representation in the Senate many times over.

Re: It’s the End of California as We Know It

#82

Post by masonic »

goodsignal wrote: post #77

It's interesting to observe the length of time it has taken for a power utility to crumble. I believe the disintegration we're seeing now began with the governmental deregulation of utilities during the Regan administration. The current state was predicted by losers in that round of voting. We are now seeing the tipping point of those regulatory changes. I think in other industries we might have seen these problems a…

There was no deregulation of CA utilities under Reagan, either as Governor or as President.

Re: It’s the End of California as We Know It

#83

Post by pas »

baggy_trough wrote: post #33
jdhn wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a symptom of one party governance? It's certainly not because of a lack of money or progressiveness. If anything, I would expect that the California state government would be leading in all of these issues.

It's almost as though progressivism and throwing money at problems doesn't really work that well.

Nah, it works, it just takes a loooot more money than people imagine.

Especially because if you want to tackle local problems that require local service providers (education, healthcare, craftsmen) you'll have to pay local (very high) prices.

Re: It’s the End of California as We Know It

#84

Post by carty76ers »

pcwalton wrote: post #34
_jahh wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's funny because what you describe sounds accurate of the megametrapolis of the global south. Terrible public infrastructure the rich avoid, and the poor suffer through. Sad the U.S. seems to be moving that way having lived on the investment of the 30-70s.

Yes, it's important to remember that the Gini coefficients of Florida (leans red) and California (blue) are 46th and 47th most unequal in the country respectively (0.485 and 0.490). Texas (red) isn't much better, at 39th with a Gini of 0.480. Inequality isn't a liberal/conservative, blue/red, or California-specific issue: it's a U.S. issue.

Looking at states is probably a bad approach (too broad). Do you have the same calculation on a per-metro basis? SFO, Austin, LA, Dallas, Orlando, Miami, Houston, San Antonio?

Re: It’s the End of California as We Know It

#85

Post by pas »

roenxi wrote: post #63
Ididntdothis wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you not call the health care situation a fundamental problem? A large portion of society is at constant risk of financial ruin if they have a serious illness, a lot of of people stay in their jobs mainly to keep their insurance which reduces entrepreneurial activity and a lot of people can’t afford any health care. I would call that a problem that other countries already have solved. I don’t like it when people…

A large portion of society is at constant risk of death if they have a serious illness. The range of things people can recover from in 2019 is astounding. There are always going to be good uses for resources poured into healthcare. It is, without exaggeration, a bottomless pit of ways to spend money. The US does a terrible job of managing healthcare but that is not a fundamental problem; it is horrible but superficia…

The fact that basic medicine (insulin) is just left to be provided by the not-really-free market is very telling.

And this is strictly a problem of lack of imagination, political will and compromise.

But that's just the symptoms of a deeper festering problem, namely that of increasing political polarization.

Re: It’s the End of California as We Know It

#86

Post by rasz »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #6

Somehow I feel this is not only a California problem but the whole US. The country seems to be incapable of or unwilling to address fundamental problems. Instead you are getting endless political fights while infrastructure is falling apart. The contrasts in Silicon Valley and LA are extreme. You have some of the richest people in the world living in beautiful mansions with cities around them full of homeless people,…

People in US are allergic to putting money into common pools (be it taxes, healthcare, licenses, insurance, infrastructure), even if the aim is better quality of living for everyone. Its EVIL as long as someone else has potential of gaining anything from said payment.

F you I got mine, mah freedoms, communism, handouts, those are the recurring 'arguments'. Take this YT dude learning that in order to run business you need to ... actually get permits, license and pay taxes, and all the comments under the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR5n3v9Sih8 Its a never ending stream of "move to another state", "bad government", "stealing from small guy" while dude hacks Salvage title wrecks on his curb (or illegal condemned structure) and flips them to unsuspecting victims. No license, no registered business, no insurance, no liability. 6 months later he is still at it, whining about receiving permanent injunction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XNHVKSjzOY and contemplating car raffles (apparently being taken down for running illegal gambling sounds better than paying taxes) and tax dodging schemes (charities, non profits).

Re: It’s the End of California as We Know It

#89

Post by cagenut »

cagenut wrote: post #45
baggy_trough wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you honestly believe that famine is going to affect the middle of the United States in, say, the next 100 years?

In a 2C world its very unlikely, in a 4C world its highly likely. So the question is, and always has been, where will we stop? The BAU trendline is ~4.5C by 2100. At which point everything from philidelphia to oakland will be desert.

it is really disturbing how relentlessly hacker news reactionaries will downvote anyone who dares phrase the ipcc reports in plain english.

what does it mean to our concepts of reason and engineering if one of the most "technical" self-selected audiences on the internet cannot read basic graphs and charts?

what possible hope is there to get policymakers to base their understanding and decisions in the science if self-professed engineers can't or won't?

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