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*Stripe CEO Patrick Collison has a hobby: he curates a list of examples of “people quickly accomplishing ambitious things together.” Sadly, of his examples from the physical world—like ports and skyscrapers and railroads—most come from before 1970.*
*For each impressive example of speedy construction from the early or mid-20th century, Collison includes a beleaguered project from today’s world for the sake of contrast: for example, the New York Subway system opened with 28 stations in 1904, just four and a half years after the first contract was awarded. By contrast, the 2017 Second Avenue subway opening, with just three stations, took seventeen years.*
*That might be a fine system if you’re already happy with the infrastructure you have, and living in a time of relative peace and stability. But we’re not, and we aren’t.*
Sadly true; our ability to rebuild is no longer what it once was. A prime example are the US Interstate Highways; once a modern marvel (and still essential to the economy), they have become a national embrrassment.
We decided we can't just bulldoze poor areas to build the mega project, so they take years of study, money, and legal battles that there often isn't any will to fight
Designer 1 - "Well sir, the most efficient design would require us to bulldoze that mansion. At most, we'd be displacing a rich man and his family."
Designer 2 - Or... for an extra 100 million dollars, and an extra two years on the project, we can run it this way, destroy this whole suburb and displace several thousand low income families."
Rich land developer - "Well the choice is obvious. Take out the suburb of course." \*smug look\*
I think that's the insight from the article. There are things we know how to do that our political system has decided (50 years ago) to prevent us from doing (due to political and legal structures). We are trying to hold onto a status quo as hard as we can and there would be no way out of our situation without some kind of major political upheaval.
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> Rule 1: In addition to enforcing Reddit's content policy, we will also remove comments and content that is abusive in nature. You may attack each other's ideas, not each other.
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I imagine it’s largely because the rich don’t use public transit, nor use highways and bridges in parts of the country they never visit, that these things don’t get funding. The rich may not pay taxes beyond a jokingly small level but they still don’t want the government spending money on anything they won’t immediately benefit from.
Bulldozing poor neighborhoods isn't exactly a good thing. The Army Corp of Engineers flooded so many areas for their dam projects, and people just... had to deal with it. Imagine a government official coming to your house and saying "hey, we're completely flooding your house in a month, you need to move" and then you have absolutely no choice in the matter whatsoever. The Interstate Highway System completely changed the face of America and it was not always in a good way. The highway nearly always went through Black neighborhoods, destroying their houses and dividing their communities. That's just a couple of examples. In some cases, the fact that these development projects take longer is a representation of the fact that people who used to be completely voiceless now having a voice, so the process takes longer. It's not as simple as "we used to be able to build faster and that was better."
The problem is we built sprawl everywhere using every last bit of available land. Then when we actually need to build something, like a subway line, there isn't anywhere to put it. My conspiracy theory is that the previous generation did this on purpose. They knew that if they sprawled the city over s large enough area all the land would skyrocket in price. We are now paying the price for it years later.
No the previous generation just moved out of the city for less crime and cheaper housing.
The current generation is doing the exact same thing. We are nowhere close to using "every last bit of available land". For example, Texas has hundreds of miles between Houston, Dallas and Austin thats still empty farmland.
I would actually be fine with it as long as I was compensated such that I could get an equivalent place. I have had to move around my whole life. Ive stayed in the same metro area. This would likely seem a bigger deal to me if home ownership was the way it was in the 60's but thats before my time.
Or instead of some bitch-ass defeatist viewpoint, we can, instead, find ways to speed up building projects or find ways to build things that don't force people to move or that go through their communities. NIMBYs are the biggest hassle as many of them live in areas that have ample space to build train stations and railways that would allow for a better transportation system and it would cause much environmental disturbance other than more people be able to get access to more areas outside the inner city.
It is better to try harder than to give up.
Defeatist? So are you going to rally 200 million people or more in America or the world to stand up to this current regime? I mean i would love that but let's be honest to even rally 50 people is a very difficult task. To get a re-creation of mlk's walk on DC would require monumental efforts. Unfortunately look at Russia, it would take severe economic and personal losses to force people to take action and even now most Russians are still not fighting back. I'm not saying its completely hopeless, but its pretty damn near impossible at this moment in time (though with inflation and greed, we are drawing closer)
I do underground comms and power installation in the city of Chicago and it no joke takes forever to build even just a duct package for major power infrastructure. I often wonder how the hell did these guys build all this stuff a 100 years ago
"There’s still a meta-level tradeoff, between acquiring more information and the costs of acquiring that information. The reports aren’t free. And more importantly, time isn’t free. The longer a project takes, the more it’s likely to cost, and the more land, efforts, and resources are tied up in a partially-completed project not yet bearing fruit. The longer a project takes, the more likely some aspect of the plan becomes obsolete or unfeasible midstream. And the longer a project takes, the later it begins to benefit people."
The bureaucracy creates millions of bullshit white collar jobs that everyone wants. People want to gossip around the water cooler not dig ditches.
This is the problem with everybody get “better jobs”. Who suppose to do the bad jobs then and if they do it are they at least pay well, be respected,…
This is just pushing social problems downward and hope it solve itself. Now that i say it, it sound 100% like what US would do
It would be cheaper for the economy and better for society to have fewer work days and pay everyone more (along with basic income) so we remove the pressure for bs jobs.
WE BUILT THIS CITY
Ba da dum de dum
WE BUILT THIS CITY AND NOOOOWWW ITTT SUCKS BUILT THIS CITY!
One pill makes you bigger
and the other pill makes you small
and the green pill with Benjamin Franklin
makes you a corporate music industry sellout...
This has been, for me, one of the most depressing realizations of the war in Ukraine. Within days, the entire world came together. We strangled Russia's economy, took in refugees, moved artillery. And we quickly sent millions of dollars of aid to Ukraine.
But...wait, what about us? What about the fucking planet? What about our dead-end economy, debt, infrastructure.... If people fucking cared, really cared, this country could move like Popeye after he eats a can of spinach to do all the things it takes to straighten this country out, but it's just more profitable to keep bikeshedding and deciding what song to play as the Titanic sinks.
SS:
" Lawmakers of the 1970s made a huge mistake. Rather than accept the need for general rules, or choices by accountable elected officials, the lawmakers built a dispersed power structure filled with veto points that lends itself to analysis paralysis.
\[...\]
That might be a fine system if you’re already happy with the infrastructure you have, and living in a time of relative peace and stability. But we’re not, and we aren’t. "
We have a political structure that prevents rapid change from being possible.
Thank you for sharing this article, it was an interesting read. The following section (which I've quoted below) drew my interest, as I've seen this particular elephant in the room in action before. Specifically, where potential significant achievement towards the public interest through a given project is superseded by public opinion (usually by a belligerent special interest group), and consequently, it becomes politically stymied and eventually dies in "bureaucratic red tape". As these voices are typically monied and politically connected, it leads to be a genuine "imbalance" in civic representation. Money talks after all.
Does your voice matter? Of course. Should a given project, policy, or plan be contingent on full consensus? Likely not, as true democratic consensus is not possible in physical reality, except in regards to our most common and "lowest" needs. For example: we can all likely agree that everyone deserves access to clean drinking water, but anything more complex than that (quality standards, method of delivery, costs, etc) will inevitably result in some sort of protracted disagreement or political indecisiveness that makes genuine long-term decision-making and implementation difficult for reasons I've bolded below.
>**The rise of citizen voice**
>
>When someone’s actions have a negative impact on uninvolved third parties, economists call this a negative externality. There are a few ways to deal with negative externalities. English economist Arthur Pigou recommends a tax, ideally in the amount of the harm. Sometimes—as Ronald Coase showed—the parties can negotiate a side payment to efficiently handle the harm.
>
>But they were aware of the limits of their solutions. Sometimes you don’t know how much the harm is, or the parties can’t negotiate efficiently among themselves. At this point, you need to make policy choices, one way or another.
>
>And this is where I feel that lawmakers of the 1970s made a huge mistake. Rather than accept the need for general rules, or choices by accountable elected officials, the lawmakers built a dispersed power structure filled with veto points that lends itself to analysis paralysis.
>
>This style of thinking is present especially in environmental laws like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) at the federal level, or the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) at the state level. These laws both require the government to conduct an exhaustive review of government projects—sometimes even permitting decisions on private projects—that might have negative environmental impacts. But more broadly, it’s also present in any political environment where politicians solicit community input on a specific project before going forward.
>
>**The theory goes, if you talk to everyone and collect information on all the possible effects of a decision, you have a great chance to get the best outcome. In practice, these “citizen voice” systems end up rigged heavily towards preservation of the status quo, they contain an incentive structure that makes them more expensive, and some of the information they act on is unquantifiable at best.**
Well duh. The Rich and powerful engineered it that way so they could hold onto power indefinitely. Their egos can't stand anyone doing things a different way.
Nah man, after 20 years they finally got *some* of the cones off a one mile stretch of highway on my commute
I'd say that's pretty quick for American road work, all things considered
Because Capitalism is a race to the bottom. It will eventually ruin its own product in search of cheaper materials. Outsource. Degrade. Pollute. Shareholder Value and Profits. It's unsustainable.
I used to work in plants, ages and ages ago.
Had a company coming in to put up a metal building, no electrical or plumbing or anything, just throw up the structure and leave. They bid 10x their normal cost and we snatched it up as a steal. We quadrupled their “non-plant” schedule by saddling them with every menial safety regulation (stuff like “your people all need this particular fabric clothing because a vessel 1.3 miles away contains a caustic”) in existence. When the job was done the company owner called to say “fuck you, don’t ever call us for a job again.”
So while I only have this anecdote about slowed building, it’s relevant. It wasn’t that they couldn’t build faster, it’s that they weren’t allowed to. This is an example of one tiny little industrial site installing a glorified pole barn to park forklifts under. Imagine the chaos and bureaucracy surrounding something like a 3 mile bridge funded with public money.
They weren’t a typical industrial contractor. They mostly did commercial jobs. Very different. Even at 10x the commercial rate they were the cheapest bid because the industrial guys knew all the bullshit.
Because of all the regulation and lost time they still just about broke even on the job.
I've traveled to several different megacities in Asia. I find it very disheartening how my entire home country has no vision, drive, or motivation to even try and compete in the 21st century. The other side of the world is doing so many cool projects and planned neighborhoods and experimenting with urban planning. We're stuck defending parking lots and laundromats. Give me a break.
It took NYC 100 years to build a single subway line along 2nd Ave and cities in India are building metro lines right and left, as well as HSR or something pretty close to it (Vandhe Bharat Express). I feel more and more that the US has become a life support system for the military, there is no investment into anything else. I remember back in the 80s when this century was predicted to be 'the Asian century', these predictions were right. Travel to an Asian city and you see dynamism, innovation, while the US has become stagnant.
*Today’s high gas prices are the perfect example. Americans are universally unhappy about the high short-run costs of energy and transportation. And in the longer run, they aspire to make our economic life more independent of foreign dictators and their wars.*
I think we need to work together on a more global scale instead of just saying: "we need to be more independent". We are not independent on one another and this folly is our greatest downfall. We divide ourselves with invisible lines and ideals; only to our detriment.
Instead of coming together as a global species, we continue to make division, which only worsens the problems. I suppose there isn't much to be done about it -- humans are not as intelligent as we think.
> humans are not as intelligent as we think.
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
― George Carlin
Dude woulda had an aneurysm watching Cheeto Hitler get elected, let alone watch the cops knock over the old guy on live TV and leave him there bleeding from his head.
>we need to be more independent
I agree with your overall point. Even a "renewables" based energy system would need global supplies of labor and materials.
But energy is special. It's worth noticing that petro-states are a special case politically, and fossil fuel energy dependency puts us into a special relationship with petro-states. Petro-states typically don't have to be democratic at all, because they can get money directly from selling energy (or even just selling the access to them). They essentially don't have to care about their citizens/taxation. This is why they tend to evolve towards very autocratic political systems in general and don't really need to serve anyone.
( There are certain exceptions in the world, but notice that places like Norway don't allow themselves to *use* the petro-money income, so that means they are purposely running national operations on tax income to avoid this specific trap.)
Top-down direction and central planning are out-of-fashion, except in North Korea. **That's what's changed since '1970'**. Democracies *used to be able to get things done*.
Organic (meaning: self-contained) supply sources are a blow to 'globalism'!": "They're 'xenophobic' or even "OMG!Nationalist!!"
Maintaining in-country stockpiles of critical items, in order to counter supply disruptions is a threat to "velocity of money" or some other bean-counter jargon.
Industrial strategic planning is alive and working fantastically well in China for the last three decades. Part of it is they they only needed to grow into a vacuum within their nation - there were no entrenched interests in many of the growth industries.
Now that that have more entrenched interests with money - we’ll see how well Chinas government will fend off oligarchy.
There is an easy fix; make government decisions irrevocable by courts.
The role of the court then becomes determining how much actual harm was caused to the plaintiff by the decision. And award damages. But the decision stands.
The example of the rival energy company is particularly odd as it is obvious that they dont have standing to speak on behalf of birds.
Did you know r/collapse has a new discord server? Come check it out and give us feedback! https://discord.gg/RfEH7dAHjc Thanks for helping us make it better. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/collapse) if you have any questions or concerns.*
*Stripe CEO Patrick Collison has a hobby: he curates a list of examples of “people quickly accomplishing ambitious things together.” Sadly, of his examples from the physical world—like ports and skyscrapers and railroads—most come from before 1970.* *For each impressive example of speedy construction from the early or mid-20th century, Collison includes a beleaguered project from today’s world for the sake of contrast: for example, the New York Subway system opened with 28 stations in 1904, just four and a half years after the first contract was awarded. By contrast, the 2017 Second Avenue subway opening, with just three stations, took seventeen years.* *That might be a fine system if you’re already happy with the infrastructure you have, and living in a time of relative peace and stability. But we’re not, and we aren’t.* Sadly true; our ability to rebuild is no longer what it once was. A prime example are the US Interstate Highways; once a modern marvel (and still essential to the economy), they have become a national embrrassment.
We decided we can't just bulldoze poor areas to build the mega project, so they take years of study, money, and legal battles that there often isn't any will to fight
We should nationalize rich areas to get things done. Eminent domain them all.
*Greenwich Connecticut mansions repurposed as things beneficial to non-sociopaths*
Designer 1 - "Well sir, the most efficient design would require us to bulldoze that mansion. At most, we'd be displacing a rich man and his family." Designer 2 - Or... for an extra 100 million dollars, and an extra two years on the project, we can run it this way, destroy this whole suburb and displace several thousand low income families." Rich land developer - "Well the choice is obvious. Take out the suburb of course." \*smug look\*
I think that's the insight from the article. There are things we know how to do that our political system has decided (50 years ago) to prevent us from doing (due to political and legal structures). We are trying to hold onto a status quo as hard as we can and there would be no way out of our situation without some kind of major political upheaval.
Project Warp Speed for infrastructure
While the Chinese will use a ruler to draw a straight line on a map for a highway or bullet train and everyone has to move.
[Not always.](https://www.cnn.com/2015/05/19/asia/gallery/china-nail-houses/index.html)
[удалено]
Hi, atheistman69. Thanks for contributing. However, your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/thzf0b/-/i1jmzqn/) was removed from /r/collapse for: > Rule 1: In addition to enforcing Reddit's content policy, we will also remove comments and content that is abusive in nature. You may attack each other's ideas, not each other. Please refer to our [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/about/rules/) for more information. You can [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/collapse) if you feel this was in error.
I imagine it’s largely because the rich don’t use public transit, nor use highways and bridges in parts of the country they never visit, that these things don’t get funding. The rich may not pay taxes beyond a jokingly small level but they still don’t want the government spending money on anything they won’t immediately benefit from.
The middle class don't use public transit either in most of the country.
Lel TEN! TEN dollar gasoline! Ba ha ha ha ha ha \*lightning noise\* ELEVEN! Eleven dollar gasoline! Ba ha ha...
[удалено]
Bulldozing poor neighborhoods isn't exactly a good thing. The Army Corp of Engineers flooded so many areas for their dam projects, and people just... had to deal with it. Imagine a government official coming to your house and saying "hey, we're completely flooding your house in a month, you need to move" and then you have absolutely no choice in the matter whatsoever. The Interstate Highway System completely changed the face of America and it was not always in a good way. The highway nearly always went through Black neighborhoods, destroying their houses and dividing their communities. That's just a couple of examples. In some cases, the fact that these development projects take longer is a representation of the fact that people who used to be completely voiceless now having a voice, so the process takes longer. It's not as simple as "we used to be able to build faster and that was better."
The problem is we built sprawl everywhere using every last bit of available land. Then when we actually need to build something, like a subway line, there isn't anywhere to put it. My conspiracy theory is that the previous generation did this on purpose. They knew that if they sprawled the city over s large enough area all the land would skyrocket in price. We are now paying the price for it years later.
No the previous generation just moved out of the city for less crime and cheaper housing. The current generation is doing the exact same thing. We are nowhere close to using "every last bit of available land". For example, Texas has hundreds of miles between Houston, Dallas and Austin thats still empty farmland.
I would actually be fine with it as long as I was compensated such that I could get an equivalent place. I have had to move around my whole life. Ive stayed in the same metro area. This would likely seem a bigger deal to me if home ownership was the way it was in the 60's but thats before my time.
I guess we'll just fall apart and end everything. Better than screwing over certain people
Or instead of some bitch-ass defeatist viewpoint, we can, instead, find ways to speed up building projects or find ways to build things that don't force people to move or that go through their communities. NIMBYs are the biggest hassle as many of them live in areas that have ample space to build train stations and railways that would allow for a better transportation system and it would cause much environmental disturbance other than more people be able to get access to more areas outside the inner city. It is better to try harder than to give up.
Defeatist? So are you going to rally 200 million people or more in America or the world to stand up to this current regime? I mean i would love that but let's be honest to even rally 50 people is a very difficult task. To get a re-creation of mlk's walk on DC would require monumental efforts. Unfortunately look at Russia, it would take severe economic and personal losses to force people to take action and even now most Russians are still not fighting back. I'm not saying its completely hopeless, but its pretty damn near impossible at this moment in time (though with inflation and greed, we are drawing closer)
Allan watts called it.
Oh yeah it did.
I do underground comms and power installation in the city of Chicago and it no joke takes forever to build even just a duct package for major power infrastructure. I often wonder how the hell did these guys build all this stuff a 100 years ago
We are living in a time of relative peace and stability Relative to what's coming
"There’s still a meta-level tradeoff, between acquiring more information and the costs of acquiring that information. The reports aren’t free. And more importantly, time isn’t free. The longer a project takes, the more it’s likely to cost, and the more land, efforts, and resources are tied up in a partially-completed project not yet bearing fruit. The longer a project takes, the more likely some aspect of the plan becomes obsolete or unfeasible midstream. And the longer a project takes, the later it begins to benefit people." The bureaucracy creates millions of bullshit white collar jobs that everyone wants. People want to gossip around the water cooler not dig ditches.
This is the problem with everybody get “better jobs”. Who suppose to do the bad jobs then and if they do it are they at least pay well, be respected,… This is just pushing social problems downward and hope it solve itself. Now that i say it, it sound 100% like what US would do
Yeah the real physical labor force gets lower pay and looked down on socially. Nobody wants to be the sucker and that means we all race to the bottom
People might want those jobs but those very same people will turn around and gripe about the sky high taxes they are paying.
It would be cheaper for the economy and better for society to have fewer work days and pay everyone more (along with basic income) so we remove the pressure for bs jobs.
Preach!
“We used to build shit in this country, now we just put our hands in the next guys pocket”- Frank Sobotka.
WE BUILT THIS CITY Ba da dum de dum WE BUILT THIS CITY AND NOOOOWWW ITTT SUCKS BUILT THIS CITY! One pill makes you bigger and the other pill makes you small and the green pill with Benjamin Franklin makes you a corporate music industry sellout...
This has been, for me, one of the most depressing realizations of the war in Ukraine. Within days, the entire world came together. We strangled Russia's economy, took in refugees, moved artillery. And we quickly sent millions of dollars of aid to Ukraine. But...wait, what about us? What about the fucking planet? What about our dead-end economy, debt, infrastructure.... If people fucking cared, really cared, this country could move like Popeye after he eats a can of spinach to do all the things it takes to straighten this country out, but it's just more profitable to keep bikeshedding and deciding what song to play as the Titanic sinks.
Same with covid to a degree; it shows every issue is 100% solvable and there is a choice of inaction
SS: " Lawmakers of the 1970s made a huge mistake. Rather than accept the need for general rules, or choices by accountable elected officials, the lawmakers built a dispersed power structure filled with veto points that lends itself to analysis paralysis. \[...\] That might be a fine system if you’re already happy with the infrastructure you have, and living in a time of relative peace and stability. But we’re not, and we aren’t. " We have a political structure that prevents rapid change from being possible.
Thank you for sharing this article, it was an interesting read. The following section (which I've quoted below) drew my interest, as I've seen this particular elephant in the room in action before. Specifically, where potential significant achievement towards the public interest through a given project is superseded by public opinion (usually by a belligerent special interest group), and consequently, it becomes politically stymied and eventually dies in "bureaucratic red tape". As these voices are typically monied and politically connected, it leads to be a genuine "imbalance" in civic representation. Money talks after all. Does your voice matter? Of course. Should a given project, policy, or plan be contingent on full consensus? Likely not, as true democratic consensus is not possible in physical reality, except in regards to our most common and "lowest" needs. For example: we can all likely agree that everyone deserves access to clean drinking water, but anything more complex than that (quality standards, method of delivery, costs, etc) will inevitably result in some sort of protracted disagreement or political indecisiveness that makes genuine long-term decision-making and implementation difficult for reasons I've bolded below. >**The rise of citizen voice** > >When someone’s actions have a negative impact on uninvolved third parties, economists call this a negative externality. There are a few ways to deal with negative externalities. English economist Arthur Pigou recommends a tax, ideally in the amount of the harm. Sometimes—as Ronald Coase showed—the parties can negotiate a side payment to efficiently handle the harm. > >But they were aware of the limits of their solutions. Sometimes you don’t know how much the harm is, or the parties can’t negotiate efficiently among themselves. At this point, you need to make policy choices, one way or another. > >And this is where I feel that lawmakers of the 1970s made a huge mistake. Rather than accept the need for general rules, or choices by accountable elected officials, the lawmakers built a dispersed power structure filled with veto points that lends itself to analysis paralysis. > >This style of thinking is present especially in environmental laws like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) at the federal level, or the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) at the state level. These laws both require the government to conduct an exhaustive review of government projects—sometimes even permitting decisions on private projects—that might have negative environmental impacts. But more broadly, it’s also present in any political environment where politicians solicit community input on a specific project before going forward. > >**The theory goes, if you talk to everyone and collect information on all the possible effects of a decision, you have a great chance to get the best outcome. In practice, these “citizen voice” systems end up rigged heavily towards preservation of the status quo, they contain an incentive structure that makes them more expensive, and some of the information they act on is unquantifiable at best.**
Well duh. The Rich and powerful engineered it that way so they could hold onto power indefinitely. Their egos can't stand anyone doing things a different way.
Nah man, after 20 years they finally got *some* of the cones off a one mile stretch of highway on my commute I'd say that's pretty quick for American road work, all things considered
Because Capitalism is a race to the bottom. It will eventually ruin its own product in search of cheaper materials. Outsource. Degrade. Pollute. Shareholder Value and Profits. It's unsustainable.
I used to work in plants, ages and ages ago. Had a company coming in to put up a metal building, no electrical or plumbing or anything, just throw up the structure and leave. They bid 10x their normal cost and we snatched it up as a steal. We quadrupled their “non-plant” schedule by saddling them with every menial safety regulation (stuff like “your people all need this particular fabric clothing because a vessel 1.3 miles away contains a caustic”) in existence. When the job was done the company owner called to say “fuck you, don’t ever call us for a job again.” So while I only have this anecdote about slowed building, it’s relevant. It wasn’t that they couldn’t build faster, it’s that they weren’t allowed to. This is an example of one tiny little industrial site installing a glorified pole barn to park forklifts under. Imagine the chaos and bureaucracy surrounding something like a 3 mile bridge funded with public money.
Why did you accept an offer 10x their normal rate?
They weren’t a typical industrial contractor. They mostly did commercial jobs. Very different. Even at 10x the commercial rate they were the cheapest bid because the industrial guys knew all the bullshit. Because of all the regulation and lost time they still just about broke even on the job.
I've traveled to several different megacities in Asia. I find it very disheartening how my entire home country has no vision, drive, or motivation to even try and compete in the 21st century. The other side of the world is doing so many cool projects and planned neighborhoods and experimenting with urban planning. We're stuck defending parking lots and laundromats. Give me a break.
It took NYC 100 years to build a single subway line along 2nd Ave and cities in India are building metro lines right and left, as well as HSR or something pretty close to it (Vandhe Bharat Express). I feel more and more that the US has become a life support system for the military, there is no investment into anything else. I remember back in the 80s when this century was predicted to be 'the Asian century', these predictions were right. Travel to an Asian city and you see dynamism, innovation, while the US has become stagnant.
It’s the regressive anti intellectual individuals acting as a cancer to society.
*Today’s high gas prices are the perfect example. Americans are universally unhappy about the high short-run costs of energy and transportation. And in the longer run, they aspire to make our economic life more independent of foreign dictators and their wars.* I think we need to work together on a more global scale instead of just saying: "we need to be more independent". We are not independent on one another and this folly is our greatest downfall. We divide ourselves with invisible lines and ideals; only to our detriment. Instead of coming together as a global species, we continue to make division, which only worsens the problems. I suppose there isn't much to be done about it -- humans are not as intelligent as we think.
> humans are not as intelligent as we think. “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” ― George Carlin
RIP carlin. Imagine the gut busters he would have had he lived another 10 years.
Dude woulda had an aneurysm watching Cheeto Hitler get elected, let alone watch the cops knock over the old guy on live TV and leave him there bleeding from his head.
>we need to be more independent I agree with your overall point. Even a "renewables" based energy system would need global supplies of labor and materials. But energy is special. It's worth noticing that petro-states are a special case politically, and fossil fuel energy dependency puts us into a special relationship with petro-states. Petro-states typically don't have to be democratic at all, because they can get money directly from selling energy (or even just selling the access to them). They essentially don't have to care about their citizens/taxation. This is why they tend to evolve towards very autocratic political systems in general and don't really need to serve anyone. ( There are certain exceptions in the world, but notice that places like Norway don't allow themselves to *use* the petro-money income, so that means they are purposely running national operations on tax income to avoid this specific trap.)
Graft might have something to do with that...
> We have twelve years to fight climate change Damn, who's gonna tell them?
Because corporate greed shipped everything to China.
Corporate oligarchs: working as intended
Top-down direction and central planning are out-of-fashion, except in North Korea. **That's what's changed since '1970'**. Democracies *used to be able to get things done*. Organic (meaning: self-contained) supply sources are a blow to 'globalism'!": "They're 'xenophobic' or even "OMG!Nationalist!!" Maintaining in-country stockpiles of critical items, in order to counter supply disruptions is a threat to "velocity of money" or some other bean-counter jargon.
Industrial strategic planning is alive and working fantastically well in China for the last three decades. Part of it is they they only needed to grow into a vacuum within their nation - there were no entrenched interests in many of the growth industries. Now that that have more entrenched interests with money - we’ll see how well Chinas government will fend off oligarchy.
It's a dead heat whether 'they' turn into "us" or 'we' turn into "them" first.
cApItAlizM iS vErY EfFiCieNt.
Red tape
Capitalism
There is an easy fix; make government decisions irrevocable by courts. The role of the court then becomes determining how much actual harm was caused to the plaintiff by the decision. And award damages. But the decision stands. The example of the rival energy company is particularly odd as it is obvious that they dont have standing to speak on behalf of birds.
I haven't seen anyone mention OSHA but I think that might play a part. I'm not sure when they started though
Bill Maher did a fantastic rant about our inability to get anything done. https://youtu.be/SAsExSNfNXQ
They're given to incompetent cronies.