what_a_maroon
No bio...
User ID: 644
what_a_maroon
11mo ago
I can do that, but when are you going to make the same point to nybbler ?
what_a_maroon
8mo ago
They are, but even in cold American cities it's rare that it's so cold that walking or cycling become impractical. Like, a few days a year rare--certainly similar to the frequency with which snowfall makes cars impractical in those same cities.
what_a_maroon
11mo ago
The comment I replied to is low-effort sneer that contains claims but no arguments.
what_a_maroon
11mo ago
You seem to have fallen for the “induced demand” meme
It's not a meme; it's basic economics which is also backed up by fairly overwhelming empirical evidence.
People want to live in the suburbs and work downtown.
Given Austin's zoning map, a correct statement would be "Austinites are largely prohibited from living anywhere except a suburb or right in the middle of downtown." Also, people may "want"* to live in the suburbs and drive into downtown, but that's not possible. Doubling freeway capacity would not change that, because it is literally impossible to fit the whole population into cars. They simply take up too much space.
*I put "want" in scare quotes because rarely do such people want to pay all of the costs associated with doing so.
The welfare of the area would be increased.
No, it would be a net decrease, because the cost of doing so would be very high, and those resources could be more efficiently used elsewhere. It would suck for anyone who currently lives in the area and has to deal with additional car traffic, construction, and possibly have their property sized to make room. It would separate downtown from East Austin even more, etc.
People hate driving through Austin. Other Texas cities with functional freeway systems are objectively easier to get around.
There's no reason to have the only interstate go straight through downtown. Lots of cities have interstates that go around the core. San Antonio has 410. Houston has 610 and I think others I don't recall the number of. DFW has 635, 20, and again I think others. Elsewhere, 95 goes totally around Boston, while 90 and 93 go into the city. Austin only has 45, which isn't an interstate and is a toll road, so all the trucks and other thru traffic go through the city even though it's slower.
what_a_maroon
8mo ago
The 2020 election was closer than the 2016 election.
Measured how?
It came down to a judge in any of 5 states allowing a filed election contest to be heard or even a slight peek at those definitely legitimate ballot signatures.
Ah, I see. Since literally every attempt on /r/TheMotte and here to provide a shred of solid evidence of fraud has been thoroughly debunked every single time, we've come back around to "just repeat things a bunch and they'll become true."
Could Trump run and lose? Sure, and it will take another vast and more ridiculous fraud campaign.
Or, you know, Trump not being that popular. Which, if you look at the 2016 results, was actually always the case--Clinton was just an unusually bad candidate (combined 2 party vote share of only 94% in 2016).
what_a_maroon
11mo ago
A "reign of terror"? Are you deliberately taking the piss? He's not Jack the Ripper (the marine, however, did kill someone).
what_a_maroon
11mo ago
I would certainly not accepted an argument along the lines of "mini super helicopters are bad because they let people's live in single family homes outside of the urban core". Just as I don't expect the government to had out free helicopters. I'm not asking for the government to buy me an SUV.
Sure, and this all sounds good. But cars are very heavily subsidized. I know people don't like to accept this fact, because they see how much they are paying and assume that it can't be that much after subsidies. The fact is simply that driving is very expensive, and costs aside, is a terrible way to have everyone get around inside a city.
I am going to vote for a very small portion of my taxes being used on basic infrastructure such as light rail in the urban core and a robust freeway network.
Austin has almost no light rail, and what little there is, isn't near I-35. If it did, this wouldn't be such an issue!
I don't think road costs up being "a very small portion" of taxes. This one project is estimated to cost 7.5 billion; Austin's population is about a million. That's $7,500 per resident. Obviously the state is spending the money in this case, and some of the people impacted don't live in the area, but again it's only one project in one small part of the city.
what_a_maroon
11mo ago
...what? I have no idea what you're trying to say. This is just a non sequitur.
what_a_maroon
11mo ago
Why stop there? Why not buy everyone their own helicopter? It's not the responsibility of government to try to satisfy everyone's preference on everything at no cost to them. That's not economically efficient.
what_a_maroon
8mo ago
No, I mean places like Chicago, Denver, and New York. Like I said, snowfall sometimes makes driving impractical in those places as well.
what_a_maroon
9mo ago
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/08/20/key-findings-about-u-s-immigrants/
So we might set a new record soon, but it's only recently (last 10 years) gotten close to the level that was maintained pretty consistently from 1870 to 1920 (although this is also affected by the native reproduction rate--I think "we have more immigrants" may be less useful than "existing residents are having fewer kids"). So it's still not really accurate to say "There were never as many Italians or Irish then as there are Mexicans and assorted CA hispanics now." If this trend continues it might be true at some point in the future.
what_a_maroon
11mo ago
This is your 3rd comment and you have yet to say anything that is clearly related to the thread topic. There is no market in roads, which are all built by the government. That roads allow some people to live further out (at the cost of preventing other people from living closer in) does not change this fact.
what_a_maroon
11mo ago
What trades are you talking about? What does any of this have to do with the subject at hand? I'm well aware of what utility is and the fact that people have preferences, but you haven't explained how any of it relates to roads.
what_a_maroon
11mo ago
I missed some of these comments from before.
That's ... not a net decrease. That's a 'suboptimal policy'. It's only a net decrease if those resources would be used more efficiently elsewhere absent the highway. Which, I think you would agree when looking at the rest of the city budget, they're not likely to be any time soon.
"Don't tax people as much" is pretty efficient. You can make any project at all seem good by comparing it to something even worse, but this isn't a high standard.
A net decrease would require comparing that 'dealing with additional traffic' to the new jobs or new activities the people the additional traffic brings, or the economic benefits from the businesses employing / serving the additional traffic. And ... I can't see how that comes out net negative. Having your property sized does suck, yeah, and I'm not sure how to factor that cost in - but that's basically a universal cost of development, so it doesn't obviously bring the total negative.
You're not counting any of the money spent as part of the net negative. If we could teleport roads in for free, then yeah, that be a different calculation. But the roads are free to drive on, which means they are being used above the level which is economically efficient, and building more lanes would just exacerbate the problem. This is what I mean by net negative: We're spending more and more money for what is, yes, a fairly marginal benefit. You know what would let a lot more people commute faster, with fewer externalities? A train.
Let me ask you this: Is there any domain where this argument doesn't apply? Should the government supply every good at 0 cost to the consumer? Because I'm pretty sure that communism doesn't work very well.
what_a_maroon
11mo ago
Is this a failure?
If your goal is to reduce congestion, which is typically a major stated goal of these projects, then yes, it's clearly a failure.
And the market makes more money!
I don't think this statement means anything, but also there is no "market" here. The state government just wants to build more highway, regardless of costs or benefits.
a separate goal of 'more people getting to where they want to'
I don't know why every time I end up in a discussion about roads on here, all of the car enthusiasts use the same analogy as if I don't understand that more people driving means that more people are going places. That's not the question. The question is how this particular use of space, money, and time compares to alternatives. It's like offering starving people 1,000-dollar truffle mushrooms as food, and then when someone points out that 98% of them are still starving because you could only afford to feed 2%, you pat yourself on the back because, well, you fed some people, right?
Plus, you can't just completely ignore everyone except for the group who benefits. What about the businesses and homes that would be subsumed by the wider freeway? Are they better off? What about people who live in East Austin and would like to be able to get into downtown without driving? What about people who can't or don't want to drive?
what_a_maroon
9mo ago
What pressure are you referring to? And what do you mean by "native" here? Rich old money families descended from Mayflower passengers aside, my point is that the great-grandchildren of Italian immigrants from the late 1800s are not pretty much completely indistinguishable from the grandchildren of Polish immigrants in the 1920s or from the great great grandchildren of a German immigrant from 1850 or from the 5x great grandchildren of English immigrants from the 1700s.
what_a_maroon
11mo ago
...what?
what_a_maroon
11mo ago
If paying for something, but not proportionately to its use, makes it be used above its economically efficient level, that argument also applies to other things paid for in such a fashion.
A salaried employee is, at least for now, an actual human, and thus capable of affecting how much work it actually does. But, this argument absolutely applies to other things. Education and health care are 2 notable examples--the consumer rarely pays anything close to the actual cost, which results in overconsumption and inefficiency (for some reason I feel like I would get way less pushback on The Motte if I made the same argument for these domains...).
(Actually, gas taxes pay for roads and they are proportional to miles driven, but ignore that for now.)
Gas taxes only pay for a fraction of road costs and gas consumed is only roughly related to road cost imposed. It also has very little to do with any externalities, like noise.
what_a_maroon
11mo ago
It's not a perfect substitute for I-35 because it doesn't parallel it
Yes, it's not nearby for most of its length, and even the closest stops to where it crosses aren't very close to the highway (except for the very last one, I think).
2.5M, if you include the whole metro area
That definition requires you to go halfway to San Antonio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Austin
The plans I've seen are divided into an 8 mile stretch in the center of the city
It may stretch along a large distance, but it's still a small portion of the total area--or road mileage, but those are roughly proportional.
Also, if you're going to use the whole Metro area for population to split the cost of a road, you should then also use the whole metro area for the number of roads that have to be paid for.
you slog through I-35.
It will still be a slog, that's the whole point of induced demand! Those other cities, as I've pointed out in this thread, have much better loops. If your primary concern is thru traffic, then look at the loops on the edge of the city.
The expensive new lanes are slated to be HOV-only
That's an improvement; we'll see if it turns out that way.
which you might interpret as "non-car-users are heavily subsidized", to be fair
Depends on the details. Probably yes, in practice, but it is possible to have transit pay for itself--Japan, most notably, has private train lines, and NYC used to have private subways. But if you're going to subsidize one form of transportation, transit has fewer externalities and higher capacity.
what_a_maroon
11mo ago
Restraining a person sometimes causes their death, as it did in this case.
If Perry does get convicted of manslaughter, it is false that it would be for restraining someone. Death is an essential component. There is absolutely no reason to describe the events this way except to make it seem like Perry didn't do anything wrong, without addressing any of the relevant facts.
Our prior for Penny acting violently or in a threatening way on the train should indeed be affected by his previous arrests.
"Our" prior does not justify your claim that he was violent. This is at best extremely weak evidence; the only witness statement I saw claimed he was not violent, which while obviously far from perfect is better evidence.
The question is whether Neely's behavior justified Penny's actions, not whether they justified the result.
This is just bizarre. Are you of the opinion that the consequences (or at least, expected consequences) of an action, have nothing to do with whether they are justified? I suppose this would be consistent with your idea that drivers shouldn't be held responsible for driving recklessly.
what_a_maroon
9mo ago
Yes, at which point their language and culture were brutally suppressed, and they were forcibly assimilated into the WASP culture of whiteness.
But what problems did this actually cause prior to 1914?
No need to wait, just look around you.
Ok, what am I looking at? Is it that the children of those immigrants from the 80s and earlier have started using American names and speaking English? Is it that these 3rd generation immigrants are more likely to describe themselves as American (also more data on language)? What? Or do you not actually have a justification for anything you've written, and are expecting me to just agree because something seems obvious to you?
still carry with them a dagger with which to plunge into the back of the nation that welcomes them
That's a completely wild sort of accusation to make. Do you have any evidence for such a strong claim?
what_a_maroon
9mo ago
No, they were actively proclaiming for assimilation and suppression of foreign cultures and foreign tongues, if not explicitly foreign people.
Some people certainly wanted this, but did it actually happen? Or rather, did it actually happen any faster than it does now, or would have happened anyway? German was actually a very popular language in the US, with German newspapers in many towns, until the world wars. Lots of other diaspora communities persisted as well, like Celtish in the Carolina lowlands. My impression is actually that a lot of nativists did the opposite, and wanted the immigrants to remain separate in their own enclaves indefinitely--"No Irish need apply" doesn't seem like it encourages assimilation.
There were never as many Italians or Irish then as there are Mexicans and assorted CA hispanics now.
Do you have data to support this claim? Raw immigration numbers peaked in 1990, with the second peak being 1900-1920:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_immigration_to_the_United_States#/media/File:Immigration_to_the_United_States_over_time.svg
Adjusting for population, it's clear that we're in a pretty low spot historically (excepting the Depression and WW2)--adjusted for the 4.3x population difference, even the low point in 1900 is equivalent to well over 800,000 today. In fact, even going purely by raw numbers, "the last 60 years" is largely not that high!
Things have changed, and those changes have destroyed the mechanism for the assimilation that you take for granted. Hence the sneering. That machine's broken, it's not going to be rebuilt, and anyone who wants to do so is pilloried.
I don't see much in the way of evidence for any these things. I think people who say this don't sufficiently grapple with the history of assimilation, which I only know a little bit about, but I know enough to know that it's complicated.
This won't happen, because that goose is cooked.
Well, this is a testable prediction, at least. I think it's rather early to conclude it won't happen, when large-scale hispanic immigration is, what, 30 or 40 years old? German language newspapers existed as far back as the Revolution and was quite popular throughout the 1800s, only really declining because of WW1. Do you think that, say, the grandchildren of early hispanic immigrants (so, the children of people born in the US) don't speak substantially more English than their grandparents?
what_a_maroon
10mo ago
This is more questionable
I can only assume that you don't consider Egypt to be "Africa" if you are questioning the impressiveness of African art and architecture.
It takes a lot of organization and manpower to extract rents from the poor.
Rulers have been extracting wealth probably since rulers and concentrated societies existed. This review agrees with you that it is difficult, but it seems an exaggeration to say that Africans couldn't figure it out until the past few centuries. Unless I'm wrong, but if Africa also lacks anything worth anything worth stealing, maybe that contributes to its lack of developed nations?
what_a_maroon
11mo ago
According to this video, to be in the clear in most jurisdictions, you should... just not be there when he comes back.
The way I understand it is that if you want to be as sure as you can in all jurisdictions then yes. It doesn't mean you'll definitely be found guilty if you don't leave. But if you can't leave, as in the subway car, I'm not sure how relevant it is?
In the case of Neely... did he have a history of causing grave bodily harm to anyone?
I don't think his criminal history can generally be admitted as evidence unless Penny or someone else involved knew it. The really relevant facts are "what was he doing in the moment?"
This doctrine seems to let you do a lot of dickery before anyone is actually permitted 'deadly force'.
I mean, yes? I have to admit I'm confused by the statement. We're talking about killing a person, regardless of whether some people think that being mentally hill or on drugs or a petty criminal means you're subhuman. This is very much something we as a society should be taking seriously, and not permitting for minor annoyances or slights.
Man, that's an awful lot of euphemism, nonsense, and irrelevance crammed into such a short post.
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