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Google Project 10^100 Reaches Voting Phase
An anonymous reader writes "In autumn last year, Google announced Project 10 to the 100, through which it aimed to commit $10 million to implement the best philanthropic idea. The project was suspended indefinitely after receiving more than 150,000 submissions. Google has now announced sixteen finalists — each of which was inspired by many individual submissions — and issued a call for votes. The voting deadline is October 8 and the Project 10^100 advisory board will then select up to five ideas to be implemented."
Google's googol garnering a gaggle of generous gentlemen.
The tax option looks interesting, but a little too in line with typical ideas of the conservative right in the United States to win my vote. Eliminating income tax and taxing consumption directly through sales tax would severely detriment lower income brackets and reward the affluent. The research on sales tax being more detrimental to lower income groups is pretty solid. I was actually surprised Google passed this idea through given its obvious politics.
The transportation option, on the other hand, while somewhat far-fetched, would revolutionize commerce and local economies if it were widely adopted.
Since all of the ideas are a bit of a long shot, I voted for what I would like to see in an ideal world. In addition, the idea of riding blimps to work is just too cool to pass up.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
What a bunch of lame ideas.
Many of them appeared to be: ...)
- Things that should already be done by well-defined organizations (usually governmental).
- Things that shouldn't be done (because the downsides, like creating databased of personal information that can be used to harm individuals, violate Franklin's rule: (He who trades freedom for safety
- Things that have proven cost-ineffective (such as public transport which, except in special circumstances, tends to cost far more per ride - in money, risk, and rider lifetime - than individual vehicles).
But a handfull of 'em did look useful, rather than just politically correct but probably counterproductive. (My pick: Free online educational materials.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It's not unfortunate if they're effective. The way we're living now is simply not sustainable, fossil fuel being an obvious example. Some say, "don't worry, technology will increase the carrying capacity without limit," and then whine at every proposed investment in said technology, which doesn't make a lot of sense.
Now we know why there were sixteen finalists. It's 10^100 in binary (a.k.a. 2^4 in decimal).
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
1) Obviously the point of investing in new public transport technologies is to improve them. You seem to be ruling out any potential technology that could be called "public transport" out-of-hand, which makes no sense
2) There's no reason public transport might not rely on individual vehicles. Heck, that's what taxis are.
3) There are economically viable public transportation systems all of the world, including the US (commerial air, for one). Dismissing them all as "special circumstances" is a loophole big enough for a double-decker bus.
4) I'd love to know what you were thinking when you said public transport is more risky.
Don't get me wrong, the bus service where I live is a huge time waste and I never ride it. That's why I'd love it if somebody invested in finding something better.
All these projects depend on the Make government more transparent. Without this one, the governments will limit all other projects. This is exactly the same reason why Lawrence Lessig is fighting corruption and not copyright problems. He was fighting people that couldn't hear him. So, I vote for it.
I consider Google a smart company.
But I don't think they have manage this project very well.
Instead of going trough 150000 suggestion and let the
public vote for 16 made-up projects.
They should have used the wisdom of the crowd to vote for the 150000 suggestions
and have the advisory board chose between the top 100.
What I would like to see is a open funding network.
Where people can post ideas like this, vote on there favorite projects
and where funds can find and support this projects.
ps. yes, I did submit this idea to 10^100.
It would have been better if they
Hell, you could use the $10m to kick start a bunch of bike sharing programs in various cities.
If the bus service near where you live is a waste of time that might be because you live in a place that can't be well-served by public transit. Public transit is efficient when it consolidates common trips, and can become convenient when trips are common enough for frequent service. With common trips into dense areas parking becomes a hassle, so driving is inconvenient and expensive also. Those things don't happen in areas without a focal downtown, or places that are quite dense. When I lived in Silicon Valley I almost never used public transit (exceptions being Caltrain to San Francisco, and taking the shuttle bus to San Jose airport because I'd rather walk the two miles to the bus stop than mess with airport traffic and parking). When I lived in Chicago I almost never drove (only when I needed to carry lots of stuff or go to the suburbs).
As far as changing the nature of public transit, there's always PRT... If you think Google, with no public works experience, will figure out PRT, you're high (although I wouldn't be surprised if they tried). Tons of money has been blown on studies, and it's resulted in one system that partially implements a very simplistic version of the concept: Morgantown, WV. Morgantown's half-PRT works more like a tram during busy periods anyway, because it couldn't handle the volume otherwise.
Some americans have some pretty funny ideas about things which they don't have well implemented but work quite well elsewhere. Where the hell do you get these ideas about public transport?
From lots of research.
The scale and layout of much of the US makes mass transit impractical. In some places (like post-fire Chicago and dense-rectangular-grid New York City) it does work - quite well. But in others (like the San Francisco Bay area) it does not. Even if the various agencies worked together rather than building little fiefdoms studies indicate that it would never approach the per-ride total cost of private cars.
In still others (like rural Nevada or even outside a dense city) it's a joke. To have practical mass transit you need masses of people in some places and masses of destinations in others.
A car is in 99.9% of all cases more risky and more expensive for the owner.
You're not counting things like muggers and gangs working bus and train lines or exposure to seasonal flu, TB, and other diseases among "risks", are you?
As for cost I'm not comparing the tax-subsidized fare paid by a rider. I'm talking the total cost of the construction and operation of the bus/train service divided by rides vs. total cost of ownership and operation of an automobile (including its share of road construction and maintenance where it's not double-counted due to gas/license taxation) divided by equivalent rides. Cars beat buses or trains by a factor of several, even if the latter use exisiting rail lines.
Indeed, here in the SF Bay area we have several bus lines where the per-ride cost is in the thousands. It would be cheaper to decommission the line and use the tax money to take each of the regular riders, lease them a Mercedes every year, provide enough gas to make the equivalent trips. As for BART the cars are non-standard, built in France, and cost six million each as of a decade ago. Divide the depreciation over the cars' lifetimes by the number of riders, add in the amortized cost of the land under the (non-standard-gauge) rails, the construction, and the operation. Cars come out 'WAY ahead - even paying the horrible bridge tolls that help subsidize the BART system.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Or lives in a place that is *underserved* by public transit - as is the case for many US cities.
There is an issue of critical mass with public transportation - gradual adoption doesn't make sense. Most people don't use it because they *can't* use it, because the routes are too few, inconvenient and unreliable to depend on them. But once you reach critical coverage on an area, and you don't have to wait >=1 hour for the bus anymore - things are *qualitatively* different and you have a chance to scale.
I understand your point that some places are too sparsely populated to make it cost effective. But the argument that you need a focal downtown and high density frankly doesn't make sense - many places in this planet don't match that description, and yet 'public' transportation is both omnipresent and effective far into the suburbs and small towns.
I put 'public' in quotes because often it is a mix of private and government-funded mass transit. When there is no public monopoly, it's often easier for small entrepeneurs to extend the official transit network into underserved areas at a smaller scale, for a small profit margin - since they don't have to deal with the politics (or the guarantees of service).
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...