At worst, the statement excludes the less intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books. And well, it is a book. (The girls who don't like boys' games and books won't care about not being the audience for a boys' game book.)
Any girl gamers who consider themselves the less intelligent sort of girl and are offended by not being included?
What reality do you live in? Perhaps you have some completely different Germans over there.
Your pretty graph shows a % difference year of year. That's nice, but a quick look finds this. Total up the numbers, you get 379 TWH. Renewables total to 30% of the energy produced, but that still leaves 70% of the energy produced by other means, including nuclear.
So has renewables replaced nuclear? No, it's still used, and even drawn down it provides more power than solar and wind combined.
Can renewables replace nuclear? Not likely due to the factors I mentioned before, but it'll be interesting to see it tried.
The total historical subsidies for renewables in Germany are a fraction of the total historical subsidies for coal and nuclear in Germany. Why don't you explain the need for subsidies for coal and nuclear?
Citation, please. What is the true cost of the existing generation, and how does it compare to true costs for renewables?
There's no need to double it. That makes no sense whatsoever. Use your brain for once. For example, why would daylight PV generation during load peaks need to be duplicated by other plants at night during load valleys? What purpose would that serve?
If you want weather to not have any effect on power delivery, then you need the capacity to handle adverse weather disabling the contribution of the renewables.
On a large enough scale, you don't need to do double, since it's unlikely that all of the renewables go down at the same time, but there's still a need for backup capacity - and per you, they only get "hours notice" of when it's needed.
overturning a sixty-year-old dogma that was born when Wells's Little Wars first assumed the "disdain" of women for gaming.
The quote is "for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books." Nothing about disdain.
And judging by the gaming friends I've interacted with over the years, the quote holds true for gaming even today. The ratios are close to even in social games (including MMOs), not so much for shooter/wargames.
Let's just ignore for the moment that even with zero renewables in the German grid, the same thing would have happened because a replacement for the power generation capacity would have to come from somewhere... Of course, I can imagine you'd blame in on renewable energy anyway, just for sport.:-p
When someone's praising Germany for pushing renewable energy to the "benefit" of the country, I think it is relevant to note that:
1.) Renewables can't meet the energy needs. Nuclear is replaced not by renewables (not even a fat chance), but with coal.
2.) The push to renewables has "benefited" Germans with higher energy costs. Most people don't think of higher costs as a benefit. I suppose you could try to blame the cost increase entirely on the switch to coal - but that doesn't explain the need for subsidies for renewables.
So of the two facts, do you wish to refute that (1) Germany is burning far more coal, or (2) that it's paying higher energy costs due to heavy subsidies for "renewable" energy?
Your link refutes neither of those facts. Unless you think coal-burning is an amazing new technology to export to the rest of the world, there's nothing special to imitate here.
I'm fine with less expensive electricity, as long as all externalities are accounted for.
No, you'd simply get switched to another source for that duration. Isn't that the whole point of all those wires?
The backup power source ready to switch on with an hour's notice is part of what makes solar/wind more expensive. Double the capacity needed just to occasionally make use of "greener" solar or wind energy.
Oh, no, no, no. That's not a problem of those sources being "crappy", they work just fine, thank you. That's a problem of the contemporary grid being inflexible. Was AC "crappy"? When we were switching from (low-voltage) DC, to AC, it was the grid that had to change, not the generators. Why should this be any different?
Because we don't have to use this more fickle, more expensive power generation at all. This is driven more by marketing and scare tactics (save the world!) than actual improvement.
And PV isn't "off" on cloudy days. Oh, and both wind and PV output can be predicted at least hours in advance. It's not like they just suddenly stop working, surprising everyone.
It'll have differing output based on weather. Contrast that with a power generator that outputs rated power regardless if it's stormy outside or not.
Hours notice is indeed crappy. Last time they took down power to my work building, they gave us two weeks notice to minimize impact to operations. Wouldn't that be great for productivity when you have to time your compiles and coding to the weather?
Yes, you can work around these shortcomings - but that's exactly the reason why it's crappy. You have to find all these workarounds that shouldn't be necessary at all.
No need to guess, we already know. Germany has the right idea. Get in early, develop the technology and knowledge, then sell it to the rest of the world. As an added bonus the German people get their energy grid back, with public ownership of infrastructure that works for their benefit, not a private company's profit.
It's amazing you can say that with a straight face.
You think the grid will just "switch" in "2-3 years", like suddenly? Everyone around me argues "we can't plug in more solar or wind, the grid can't handle it, it will collapse!
That's a function of Solar/Wind being crappy power generating methods.
Solar - off during the night and cloudy days.
Wind - off whenever the wind decides to die down. Watch out when a storm comes through.
Contrast that with all of the other power generation methods, which are much more independent of weather. Availability matters, and the downtime on other power generation is at least an order of magnitude lower.
Sooner or later, a transmission infrastructure upgrade will be cheaper than dealing with the rising fuel prices and external costs. I don't see how this could be possibly a matter of "if" rather than "when".
If this happens, the transition will happen pretty naturally following the prices of energy/fuel.
Trying to pre-emptively optimize for the "right" outcome ignores the risk of guessing the wrong new future energy tech.
In some places there is still quite a high stigma in divorce. There shouldn't be, a relevant quote is "Divorce isn't the death of a marriage. Divorce is the funeral", but still there are people who won't get divorced for some reason when there is no value in their marriage. This may be stronger among some Christians (and other religions where one of the couple isn't really asked about their opinion in the matter).
Have you heard of the military story where a general burned his ships/bridges to remove his ability to retreat, leading to victory?
People act based on their options. People who "can't afford" divorce will put more effort into making the marriage work - and that effort can pay off and lead to a better outcome than a divorce.
It's not a guarantee of a better outcome for individual cases - but is it overall a better strategy at the societal level? Has marriage improved with easier divorce?
Right, so all this "central planning" stuff is fine as long as it's good, but it's bad if it's bad. As opposed to... um...
I have consistently called it a tool, and one that can be used in varying amounts.
Now, is central planning a tool that tends to be used well, or used poorly? Can you think of any examples where central planning harmed people? When you count the incidents where central planning has benefited people, how does it compare?
Considering the number of people *killed* by centrally planned societies, it's not full of shit to be very wary of "central planning" by association. And those like you, who are so enamored with central planning that you seek to disqualify the justified caution others have of it.
I love this as an argument. I show that your position doesn't make any sense, and your response is to accuse me of being clever. Well... ok, I guess.
It wasn't an argument. It's a reaction to your attitude. I don't think you're a clever person at all - just a person who thinks he is clever, but who continuously fails to understand other people's ideas or thinking.
You think we're too dumb to understand how right you are - because if we were smart, we'd think just like you. Have you considered other possibilities?
Yes, and what we've established is that central planning is actually a perfectly valid way of going about things, so long as it's executed well. So that OP is full of crap. Isn't it lovely that we agreed on that?
IF it's executed well.
The downsides of central planning manifest itself in what the OP was talking about - when self-styled hypocritical "elitists" start dictating what other people should do and think.
So no, he's not full of crap, and we are not agreed on that.
Now don't go backtracking and being inconsistent. You've already said that central planning is fine.
You just think you're so clever, don't you? You just tried to substitute "central planning is fine" for "central planning is fine if it's executed well". I shouldn't need to point out that those positions are not equal.
Even if I fell for that bait-and-switch, does that make your ideas stand on their own?
They haven't held up to scrutiny, and rather than refine your own ideas, you continuously seek to attack the position of others.
To recap: Central planning is "fine" IF and ONLY IF someone like you is not in charge of it.
You're right, I said that there was hypocrisy in people who prefer cars/roads over rail because rail is an example of "central planning". That is hypocritical, regardless of which mode is better.
That's the thing - no one is making that argument.
The OP you responded to pointed out a flaw of central planning in imposing an external top-down judgement of what are a person needs or wants.
He wasn't talking about rail vs roads - you brought it up.
Additionally, the amount of central planning involved with roads is less needed than that of rail, so even valuing it on the metric of "central planning", it is not hypocritical for someone who wants to minimize central planning to support road over rail. Central planning is not binary, it's a spectrum.
No, what we've been talking about since the beginning is whether "central planning" is a bad thing.
You claimed there was a hypocrisy in people who don't like rail over automobiles as both are "central planning". Hypocrisy is not a part of it at all, because rail is overall a worse solution to human transit demand.
I don't even have to touch central planning in the analysis of why automobiles displaced rail. Rail was dominant, and then people bought and used automobiles because it fit their needs better. Central planning didn't drive the transition, and it's not forcing the current status quo.
But now you're saying central planning is fine, then, so long as it's a good plan. So that's a load off my mind. Thanks
No, central planning is fine if it's the appropriate solution. A plan is something that's on paper. "Good plan" is not enough. Plans can fail to deliver. "Good results" is the proper metric.
I don't think that our current situation constitutes "ain't broke".
Do you understand the difference between "a little broke" and "completely broke"? Because a complete overhaul solution is for treating the latter, not the former. When you apply the wrong fix to a situation, you have a high risk of breaking things instead of fixing it.
Have you heard the phrase, "stop helping me?" There's a reason why doctors have a motto, "First, do no harm."
"We can't do anything to try to improve our society, because that would be central planning, which is bad. Except when I'm fine with central planning, then it's good...
The marginal cost/value argument has NOTHING to do with central planning. You think it all boils down to "central planning" even when it's spelled out how it isn't. I'm talking about incremental improvements, and how "natural" incremental improvements led us away from rail in the first place.
You're trying to optimize the transit system on energy efficiency - which is impressive for a rail system with 100% utilization. But rail systems do not naturally get 100% utilization - and when other forms of transportation exist and offer better flexibility, people don't want to take the rail.
You have to reorganize society before rail even starts making sense - but when your first step is "overhaul society", your solution is imposing huge transition costs.
But let's do as you wish and turn this into a debate about central planning. A huge problem with central planning is that a half-baked idealist like you is going to try to run it. And fail. And then impose the cost of failure on the rest of us. All the while lecturing us on how we didn't work hard enough to serve your grand ideas.
No thanks. Transit exists to take people to where they want to go. People do not exist to efficiently use transit.
Yes, I love how civilization has just stuck with the status quo. I enjoy fetching water from my well every day and riding my chariot into town.
It takes a lot more than flippant remarks to engineer new systems.
If you could understand more than one sentence at a time, you'll note that I wasn't against change.
If you don't know why or how we got to the current status quo, you aren't qualified to change it to something better. You're as likely to break things as to improve them.
You have to understand WHY we say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
So then central planning is bad, unless you're using a different amount of central planning, in which case it's good. And I'm still guessing the "right amount" of central planning is when you get to have a cool car.
Central planning is not good/bad. It is by nature less responsive, but more standardized than ad-hoc/organic/bottom-up solutions.
However, that lack of responsiveness is a critical part of why rail was displaced by automobiles and air travel in many applications over the past 100 years. You're trying to rewind history and reverse "progress".
Everyone says trains are expensive because you have to build the train tracks, whereas with cars, people buy their own cars, totally ignoring all of the costs associated with building roads, repairing roads, paying traffic cops to police the roads, dealing with the damage from car accidents, dealing with the loss of anywhere between 30,000 and 55,000 deaths per year. Let's not forget about the hospital bills of the survivers of car accidents. Oh, then there are things like running the DMV paying for drivers ed, paying for court cases for various traffic incidents. There's really no end to it.
Do the roads and supporting infrastructure exist? Yes. Sunk cost.
Do equivalent rail lines exist? No. New cost.
Yes, there are ongoing costs associated with the status quo. Perhaps the ongoing costs for your idealized rail system would be lower than the current system - but that's not enough - there needs to be compelling reasons to incur the transition costs.
It's immensely more complicated.
No, it's quite simple. Basic engineering principle is that you don't throw away the working solution for a theoretically better solution. Yeah, you think you can rewrite the software from scratch - but that's not something to bet the farm on. Manage the risks, prove out the concepts.
If the only possible way to find out if your solution works is to overhaul an entire nation's transportation system in one go, your solution sucks.
The world is not built on ideal solutions, but practical ones. If you can implement the ideal solution practically, all the power to you. Otherwise, the practical solution is the ideal solution - even if it doesn't look like it on paper.
I'm always confused by this objection to "central planning". For example, I've argued that the US should build up the train system, and have been told that it's a terrible idea because it's an example of "central planning". The government building up the train system requires that it assumes to know what's good for us, where we will want to travel, and it can't possibly know with perfect forethought.
It did. In the 1800s. Interestingly, the companies that were subsidized to span the country with rail later went bankrupt, whereas the rail lines that were built up to serve market needs survived.
Rail has since been sidelined because it has been replaced by the automobile and airplane technology. Those may not have the same energy efficiency, but the other benefits make them more desirable.
Meanwhile, some of these same people will support the building an maintenance of the highway system, government support of the American auto industry, and gasoline subsidies. Somehow all of those things represent "freedom" because it means I get to feel good about myself when I buy a cool car.
This is legacy support. We have an extensive road system that supports people traveling where they want on their own schedule. No such thing exists for rail.
Building up rail to have the same capability requires a huge payment up front to build track where it's needed. And even after that, you don't get the same capability - rail is inherently less flexible than personal automobile transport, since you need scale (many passengers) to make it economical.
Central planning is involved with both forms of transportation, but you make an error to treat them as if they use an equal amount of central planning.
One? One dozen? Twenty? What's "quite a few"? And example of one is an example of one.
You sure demand a lot of evidence who believes that one side is wrong "Because" no reasons at all.
Just yesterday, you said you had no idea who the "gaters" were. I gave you a link to do research. You don't want to do research at all - you want to attack and disqualify, attack and disqualify.
It's clear you already made up your mind - but your veneer of rationality is slipping.
We're not talking about Farmville here. Your anecdote doesn't match actual studies of female harassment in gaming (see links above).
Sure, misogyny is so endemic to gaming that I've not noticed it in my decades of gaming. It's that blatant AND subtle. All those guys lining up to be helpful and nice and hit on the ladies - women-haters all. How dare they not act like human beings as they shower women with positive attention.
I'm not saying it does. I'm saying misogynistic gamers equal misogynistic. And they are too common.
How many? One? One dozen? Twenty? What's "common"? Live up to the evidential standards you demand of others.
This is getting circular. The point is that the people in the gaming industry who are tired of misogynists do not care if they're angry. They do not want them around any more if they're not going to behave like human beings.
You seem to be confused.
The gaming industry is the people who build gaming hardware, like Intel. The gaming industry is the people who develop games, like Brad Wardell. The gaming industry lives off the people who pay for said games and gaming platforms, the gamers.
Gaming journalists merely talk about these things. They contribute publicity and marketing to the gaming industry - but only after other people actually produce the games. Don't confuse a small clique of people pushing a social agenda for the entire gaming industry.
And quit trying to deflect from the faults of gaming journalists by attacking a nebulous "misogynist" gamer culture. But then why should I expect honesty and integrity from an extreme leftist? What's a little shit-flinging if it gets you what you want?
Yeah, it's a bad thing. It's why so many people in the gaming computer (especially the press) have said they've had enough.
Funny. My last MMO gaming group had a huge number of females. They were hardly the subject of misogyny. In fact, the general trend was that they'll get a lot of favorable treatment and attention, cause zomg, it's a girl!
If you're trying to accuse me, tell me where I was fantasizing.
I'm really surprised at the extent to which some men will go to rationalize misogyny.
You think people deserve to be killed for "misogyny". You think it's endemic to gamer culture, meaning you think large numbers of gamers deserve to be killed.
That you keep trying to frame "#GamerGate" as pro-"misogyny" is part of the journalistic malpractice that #GamerGate is outraged over. Gamer does not equal misogynistic. You want to tar a large number of people with a "bad person" label, even though it over-generalizes and doesn't even apply to most.
That's "shitslinging", and you shouldn't be surprised when people get offended. They're not angry because they want to defend "misogynists", they're angry because they're covered in the shit you flung at them.
Slashdot Mirror
Doesn't say that.
At worst, the statement excludes the less intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books. And well, it is a book. (The girls who don't like boys' games and books won't care about not being the audience for a boys' game book.)
Any girl gamers who consider themselves the less intelligent sort of girl and are offended by not being included?
Well, it is a put-down for the average girl, since "the more intelligent sort of girl" would be the one who likes "boy's games and books."
Doesn't say that the girls who don't like boy's games/books are dumb. By this standard, every comparative compliment demonstrates disdain.
"That girl is fitter than most"
"OMG, you think the average girl is fat?!?!"
The point of the description is to describe a set of people. It's not making claims about people outside the set.
What reality do you live in? Perhaps you have some completely different Germans over there.
Your pretty graph shows a % difference year of year. That's nice, but a quick look finds this. Total up the numbers, you get 379 TWH. Renewables total to 30% of the energy produced, but that still leaves 70% of the energy produced by other means, including nuclear.
So has renewables replaced nuclear? No, it's still used, and even drawn down it provides more power than solar and wind combined.
Can renewables replace nuclear? Not likely due to the factors I mentioned before, but it'll be interesting to see it tried.
The total historical subsidies for renewables in Germany are a fraction of the total historical subsidies for coal and nuclear in Germany. Why don't you explain the need for subsidies for coal and nuclear?
Citation, please. What is the true cost of the existing generation, and how does it compare to true costs for renewables?
There's no need to double it. That makes no sense whatsoever. Use your brain for once. For example, why would daylight PV generation during load peaks need to be duplicated by other plants at night during load valleys? What purpose would that serve?
If you want weather to not have any effect on power delivery, then you need the capacity to handle adverse weather disabling the contribution of the renewables.
On a large enough scale, you don't need to do double, since it's unlikely that all of the renewables go down at the same time, but there's still a need for backup capacity - and per you, they only get "hours notice" of when it's needed.
Renewables aren't just on a daily cycle.
overturning a sixty-year-old dogma that was born when Wells's Little Wars first assumed the "disdain" of women for gaming.
The quote is "for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books." Nothing about disdain.
And judging by the gaming friends I've interacted with over the years, the quote holds true for gaming even today. The ratios are close to even in social games (including MMOs), not so much for shooter/wargames.
Let's just ignore for the moment that even with zero renewables in the German grid, the same thing would have happened because a replacement for the power generation capacity would have to come from somewhere... Of course, I can imagine you'd blame in on renewable energy anyway, just for sport. :-p
When someone's praising Germany for pushing renewable energy to the "benefit" of the country, I think it is relevant to note that:
1.) Renewables can't meet the energy needs. Nuclear is replaced not by renewables (not even a fat chance), but with coal.
2.) The push to renewables has "benefited" Germans with higher energy costs. Most people don't think of higher costs as a benefit. I suppose you could try to blame the cost increase entirely on the switch to coal - but that doesn't explain the need for subsidies for renewables.
So of the two facts, do you wish to refute that (1) Germany is burning far more coal, or (2) that it's paying higher energy costs due to heavy subsidies for "renewable" energy?
Your link refutes neither of those facts. Unless you think coal-burning is an amazing new technology to export to the rest of the world, there's nothing special to imitate here.
I'm fine with less expensive electricity, as long as all externalities are accounted for.
No, you'd simply get switched to another source for that duration. Isn't that the whole point of all those wires?
The backup power source ready to switch on with an hour's notice is part of what makes solar/wind more expensive. Double the capacity needed just to occasionally make use of "greener" solar or wind energy.
Count all of the externalities.
Oh, no, no, no. That's not a problem of those sources being "crappy", they work just fine, thank you. That's a problem of the contemporary grid being inflexible. Was AC "crappy"? When we were switching from (low-voltage) DC, to AC, it was the grid that had to change, not the generators. Why should this be any different?
Because we don't have to use this more fickle, more expensive power generation at all. This is driven more by marketing and scare tactics (save the world!) than actual improvement.
And PV isn't "off" on cloudy days. Oh, and both wind and PV output can be predicted at least hours in advance. It's not like they just suddenly stop working, surprising everyone.
It'll have differing output based on weather. Contrast that with a power generator that outputs rated power regardless if it's stormy outside or not.
Hours notice is indeed crappy. Last time they took down power to my work building, they gave us two weeks notice to minimize impact to operations. Wouldn't that be great for productivity when you have to time your compiles and coding to the weather?
Yes, you can work around these shortcomings - but that's exactly the reason why it's crappy. You have to find all these workarounds that shouldn't be necessary at all.
No need to guess, we already know. Germany has the right idea. Get in early, develop the technology and knowledge, then sell it to the rest of the world. As an added bonus the German people get their energy grid back, with public ownership of infrastructure that works for their benefit, not a private company's profit.
It's amazing you can say that with a straight face.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24914-germanys-energy-revolution-on-verge-of-collapse.html#.VD1qIGd0zVg
Key facts:
"Yet in 2013, coal burning soared to its highest level for more than 20 years."
So no improvement on the rationale for the switch. (And why coal? Because wind/solar aren't reliable generation)
"Then, last week, economy and energy minister Sigmar Gabriel said he will slash wind and solar subsidies by a third, to cut rising energy bills."
Increased energy costs are a harm, not a benefit.
The markets are not a zero sum game...
Zero-sum games have no relevance to mal-investment/speculative failure.
If you invest large amounts of capital in cow farts as the energy of the future, and it turns out it isn't, you've wasted those resources.
it's one thing if that was done with proper risk/benefit analysis - it's another thing if it was based on scare-tactics and fantastic thinking.
You think the grid will just "switch" in "2-3 years", like suddenly? Everyone around me argues "we can't plug in more solar or wind, the grid can't handle it, it will collapse!
That's a function of Solar/Wind being crappy power generating methods.
Solar - off during the night and cloudy days.
Wind - off whenever the wind decides to die down. Watch out when a storm comes through.
Contrast that with all of the other power generation methods, which are much more independent of weather. Availability matters, and the downtime on other power generation is at least an order of magnitude lower.
Sooner or later, a transmission infrastructure upgrade will be cheaper than dealing with the rising fuel prices and external costs. I don't see how this could be possibly a matter of "if" rather than "when".
If this happens, the transition will happen pretty naturally following the prices of energy/fuel.
Trying to pre-emptively optimize for the "right" outcome ignores the risk of guessing the wrong new future energy tech.
In some places there is still quite a high stigma in divorce. There shouldn't be, a relevant quote is "Divorce isn't the death of a marriage. Divorce is the funeral", but still there are people who won't get divorced for some reason when there is no value in their marriage. This may be stronger among some Christians (and other religions where one of the couple isn't really asked about their opinion in the matter).
Have you heard of the military story where a general burned his ships/bridges to remove his ability to retreat, leading to victory?
People act based on their options. People who "can't afford" divorce will put more effort into making the marriage work - and that effort can pay off and lead to a better outcome than a divorce.
It's not a guarantee of a better outcome for individual cases - but is it overall a better strategy at the societal level? Has marriage improved with easier divorce?
Right, so all this "central planning" stuff is fine as long as it's good, but it's bad if it's bad. As opposed to... um...
I have consistently called it a tool, and one that can be used in varying amounts.
Now, is central planning a tool that tends to be used well, or used poorly? Can you think of any examples where central planning harmed people? When you count the incidents where central planning has benefited people, how does it compare?
Considering the number of people *killed* by centrally planned societies, it's not full of shit to be very wary of "central planning" by association. And those like you, who are so enamored with central planning that you seek to disqualify the justified caution others have of it.
I love this as an argument. I show that your position doesn't make any sense, and your response is to accuse me of being clever. Well... ok, I guess.
It wasn't an argument. It's a reaction to your attitude. I don't think you're a clever person at all - just a person who thinks he is clever, but who continuously fails to understand other people's ideas or thinking.
You think we're too dumb to understand how right you are - because if we were smart, we'd think just like you. Have you considered other possibilities?
Yes, and what we've established is that central planning is actually a perfectly valid way of going about things, so long as it's executed well. So that OP is full of crap. Isn't it lovely that we agreed on that?
IF it's executed well.
The downsides of central planning manifest itself in what the OP was talking about - when self-styled hypocritical "elitists" start dictating what other people should do and think.
So no, he's not full of crap, and we are not agreed on that.
Now don't go backtracking and being inconsistent. You've already said that central planning is fine.
You just think you're so clever, don't you? You just tried to substitute "central planning is fine" for "central planning is fine if it's executed well". I shouldn't need to point out that those positions are not equal.
Even if I fell for that bait-and-switch, does that make your ideas stand on their own?
They haven't held up to scrutiny, and rather than refine your own ideas, you continuously seek to attack the position of others.
To recap: Central planning is "fine" IF and ONLY IF someone like you is not in charge of it.
You're right, I said that there was hypocrisy in people who prefer cars/roads over rail because rail is an example of "central planning". That is hypocritical, regardless of which mode is better.
That's the thing - no one is making that argument.
The OP you responded to pointed out a flaw of central planning in imposing an external top-down judgement of what are a person needs or wants.
He wasn't talking about rail vs roads - you brought it up.
Additionally, the amount of central planning involved with roads is less needed than that of rail, so even valuing it on the metric of "central planning", it is not hypocritical for someone who wants to minimize central planning to support road over rail. Central planning is not binary, it's a spectrum.
No, what we've been talking about since the beginning is whether "central planning" is a bad thing.
You claimed there was a hypocrisy in people who don't like rail over automobiles as both are "central planning". Hypocrisy is not a part of it at all, because rail is overall a worse solution to human transit demand.
I don't even have to touch central planning in the analysis of why automobiles displaced rail. Rail was dominant, and then people bought and used automobiles because it fit their needs better. Central planning didn't drive the transition, and it's not forcing the current status quo.
But now you're saying central planning is fine, then, so long as it's a good plan. So that's a load off my mind. Thanks
No, central planning is fine if it's the appropriate solution. A plan is something that's on paper. "Good plan" is not enough. Plans can fail to deliver. "Good results" is the proper metric.
I don't think that our current situation constitutes "ain't broke".
Do you understand the difference between "a little broke" and "completely broke"? Because a complete overhaul solution is for treating the latter, not the former. When you apply the wrong fix to a situation, you have a high risk of breaking things instead of fixing it.
Have you heard the phrase, "stop helping me?" There's a reason why doctors have a motto, "First, do no harm."
"We can't do anything to try to improve our society, because that would be central planning, which is bad. Except when I'm fine with central planning, then it's good ...
The marginal cost/value argument has NOTHING to do with central planning. You think it all boils down to "central planning" even when it's spelled out how it isn't. I'm talking about incremental improvements, and how "natural" incremental improvements led us away from rail in the first place.
You're trying to optimize the transit system on energy efficiency - which is impressive for a rail system with 100% utilization. But rail systems do not naturally get 100% utilization - and when other forms of transportation exist and offer better flexibility, people don't want to take the rail.
You have to reorganize society before rail even starts making sense - but when your first step is "overhaul society", your solution is imposing huge transition costs.
But let's do as you wish and turn this into a debate about central planning. A huge problem with central planning is that a half-baked idealist like you is going to try to run it. And fail. And then impose the cost of failure on the rest of us. All the while lecturing us on how we didn't work hard enough to serve your grand ideas.
No thanks. Transit exists to take people to where they want to go. People do not exist to efficiently use transit.
Yes, I love how civilization has just stuck with the status quo. I enjoy fetching water from my well every day and riding my chariot into town.
It takes a lot more than flippant remarks to engineer new systems.
If you could understand more than one sentence at a time, you'll note that I wasn't against change.
If you don't know why or how we got to the current status quo, you aren't qualified to change it to something better. You're as likely to break things as to improve them.
You have to understand WHY we say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
So then central planning is bad, unless you're using a different amount of central planning, in which case it's good. And I'm still guessing the "right amount" of central planning is when you get to have a cool car.
Central planning is not good/bad. It is by nature less responsive, but more standardized than ad-hoc/organic/bottom-up solutions.
However, that lack of responsiveness is a critical part of why rail was displaced by automobiles and air travel in many applications over the past 100 years. You're trying to rewind history and reverse "progress".
Everyone says trains are expensive because you have to build the train tracks, whereas with cars, people buy their own cars, totally ignoring all of the costs associated with building roads, repairing roads, paying traffic cops to police the roads, dealing with the damage from car accidents, dealing with the loss of anywhere between 30,000 and 55,000 deaths per year. Let's not forget about the hospital bills of the survivers of car accidents. Oh, then there are things like running the DMV paying for drivers ed, paying for court cases for various traffic incidents. There's really no end to it.
Do the roads and supporting infrastructure exist? Yes. Sunk cost.
Do equivalent rail lines exist? No. New cost.
Yes, there are ongoing costs associated with the status quo. Perhaps the ongoing costs for your idealized rail system would be lower than the current system - but that's not enough - there needs to be compelling reasons to incur the transition costs.
It's immensely more complicated.
No, it's quite simple. Basic engineering principle is that you don't throw away the working solution for a theoretically better solution. Yeah, you think you can rewrite the software from scratch - but that's not something to bet the farm on. Manage the risks, prove out the concepts.
If the only possible way to find out if your solution works is to overhaul an entire nation's transportation system in one go, your solution sucks.
The world is not built on ideal solutions, but practical ones. If you can implement the ideal solution practically, all the power to you. Otherwise, the practical solution is the ideal solution - even if it doesn't look like it on paper.
I'm always confused by this objection to "central planning". For example, I've argued that the US should build up the train system, and have been told that it's a terrible idea because it's an example of "central planning". The government building up the train system requires that it assumes to know what's good for us, where we will want to travel, and it can't possibly know with perfect forethought.
It did. In the 1800s. Interestingly, the companies that were subsidized to span the country with rail later went bankrupt, whereas the rail lines that were built up to serve market needs survived.
Rail has since been sidelined because it has been replaced by the automobile and airplane technology. Those may not have the same energy efficiency, but the other benefits make them more desirable.
Meanwhile, some of these same people will support the building an maintenance of the highway system, government support of the American auto industry, and gasoline subsidies. Somehow all of those things represent "freedom" because it means I get to feel good about myself when I buy a cool car.
This is legacy support. We have an extensive road system that supports people traveling where they want on their own schedule. No such thing exists for rail.
Building up rail to have the same capability requires a huge payment up front to build track where it's needed. And even after that, you don't get the same capability - rail is inherently less flexible than personal automobile transport, since you need scale (many passengers) to make it economical.
Central planning is involved with both forms of transportation, but you make an error to treat them as if they use an equal amount of central planning.
Sources: https://github.com/GamerGateOP...
Heads up, they censored github.
One? One dozen? Twenty? What's "quite a few"? And example of one is an example of one.
You sure demand a lot of evidence who believes that one side is wrong "Because" no reasons at all.
Just yesterday, you said you had no idea who the "gaters" were. I gave you a link to do research. You don't want to do research at all - you want to attack and disqualify, attack and disqualify.
It's clear you already made up your mind - but your veneer of rationality is slipping.
We're not talking about Farmville here. Your anecdote doesn't match actual studies of female harassment in gaming (see links above).
Sure, misogyny is so endemic to gaming that I've not noticed it in my decades of gaming. It's that blatant AND subtle. All those guys lining up to be helpful and nice and hit on the ladies - women-haters all. How dare they not act like human beings as they shower women with positive attention.
I'm not saying it does. I'm saying misogynistic gamers equal misogynistic. And they are too common.
How many? One? One dozen? Twenty? What's "common"? Live up to the evidential standards you demand of others.
This is getting circular. The point is that the people in the gaming industry who are tired of misogynists do not care if they're angry. They do not want them around any more if they're not going to behave like human beings.
You seem to be confused.
The gaming industry is the people who build gaming hardware, like Intel. The gaming industry is the people who develop games, like Brad Wardell. The gaming industry lives off the people who pay for said games and gaming platforms, the gamers.
Gaming journalists merely talk about these things. They contribute publicity and marketing to the gaming industry - but only after other people actually produce the games. Don't confuse a small clique of people pushing a social agenda for the entire gaming industry.
And quit trying to deflect from the faults of gaming journalists by attacking a nebulous "misogynist" gamer culture. But then why should I expect honesty and integrity from an extreme leftist? What's a little shit-flinging if it gets you what you want?
"Many" female gamers who support #GamerGate? How many?
Many. Look up #GamerGate on twitter, and scan the pictures/names of supporters. You'll find quite a few.
Here's one to start with, you can look for more from her twitter feed. https://twitter.com/jayd3fox
Yeah, it's a bad thing. It's why so many people in the gaming computer (especially the press) have said they've had enough.
Funny. My last MMO gaming group had a huge number of females. They were hardly the subject of misogyny. In fact, the general trend was that they'll get a lot of favorable treatment and attention, cause zomg, it's a girl!
If you're trying to accuse me, tell me where I was fantasizing.
I'm really surprised at the extent to which some men will go to rationalize misogyny.
You think people deserve to be killed for "misogyny". You think it's endemic to gamer culture, meaning you think large numbers of gamers deserve to be killed.
That you keep trying to frame "#GamerGate" as pro-"misogyny" is part of the journalistic malpractice that #GamerGate is outraged over. Gamer does not equal misogynistic. You want to tar a large number of people with a "bad person" label, even though it over-generalizes and doesn't even apply to most.
That's "shitslinging", and you shouldn't be surprised when people get offended. They're not angry because they want to defend "misogynists", they're angry because they're covered in the shit you flung at them.