tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post6159631131197637542..comments2023-10-31T03:18:26.963-07:00Comments on Great Guys Weblog: Epic Construction ProjectsBrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15063508651955739056noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-23901299750219517382019-10-23T16:52:30.838-07:002019-10-23T16:52:30.838-07:00[Peter:] Probably the biggest force behind this em...<i>[Peter:] Probably the biggest force behind this emerging ethos is the environmental movement.</i><br /><br />I am completely baffled that anyone ever gave communism any credence whatsoever, yet they did. And adding to the bafflement, there are plenty who continue to do so. Okay, maybe at one time, its utopian claims must have been compelling. But now?<br /><br />Same with the Church of the Ever Warming Globe. Dr. Hansen made apocalyptic claims in 1985. The UN IPCC followed up with more of the same. Those who decided those claims were baseless were held up to ridicule.<br /><br />In assessing those claims in the here and now, skepticism was completely warranted. Despite that, those claims have been recycled unchanged, except for sending the sell-by date forward yet another forty years. Left unanswered, because it is never asked, is what climate scientists have learned over the last forty years to make these latest predictions believable?<br /><br />One would think abject failure an excellent reason to reassess one's religion. I keep hoping that St. Greta represents peak credulity.<br /><br /><i>... it can't be denied man has shown himself quite capable of causing severe environmental damage, wrecking communities, imperiling forests and farmlands, etc.</i><br /><br />I recently read Pinker's Enlightenment Now. Aside from sullying the book a bit with contemporary politics, it is quite good. One point he successfully makes, not that you will ever hear the Gretins admit it, is that computational power has allowed the rapid de-materialization of our economies. <br /><br />Back in the day, say 20 years ago, my music weighed several hundred pounds (stereo with large speakers, cassette and reel-reel tape decks, tapes and CDs.) Now, much more music (in fact, all I could ever hope to listen to) weighs <i>maybe</i> 80 pounds. Aluminum cans used to weigh three ounces, now a third of an ounce. <br /><br />I could go on, but an undeniable consequence of capitalism is lessening the impact on the environment.<br /><br />Whoda thunk.<br /><br />Hey Skipperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10798930502187234974noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-16051814413579135262019-10-23T16:34:29.315-07:002019-10-23T16:34:29.315-07:00[Bret:] So what construction mega-project do you t...<i>[Bret:] So what construction mega-project do you think people generally think ought to be undertaken that isn't.</i><br /><br />I was responding to this: <i>... VDH glosses over the fact that working with modern technology very often creates more value than building yet another road.</i><br /><br />First, that is a debatable proposition. Spending money to maintain the Oro Valley Dam (my memory is vague on the name) spillway properly, or PG&E confining itself to its core mission, rather than being sent after every political whim, are both examples of institutional barriers to achievement. Whether modern technology creates more value is beside the point, and creates a false dichotomy.<br /><br />As for a mega-project that was undertaken, and was from the outset an epic money fire, look no further than California's high speed rail project, the epitome of the inability to complete a project that should never have been started in the first place.<br />Hey Skipperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10798930502187234974noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-18773069275921340262019-10-23T09:05:27.413-07:002019-10-23T09:05:27.413-07:00Hey Skipper wrote: "As I noted above, the iss...Hey Skipper wrote: "<i>As I noted above, the issue isn't relative value, but rather institutional barriers to achievement.</i>"<br /><br />So what construction mega-project do you think people generally think ought to be undertaken that isn't?Brethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15063508651955739056noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-40433090348219809312019-10-23T00:20:51.328-07:002019-10-23T00:20:51.328-07:00Skipper, but those "institutional barriers&qu...Skipper, but those "institutional barriers" of which you speak don't exist in splendid isolation from the political <i>zeitgeist</i> underneath them. This is not just a political-legal issue to be resolved by putting the right party into office. There is something about general prosperity that brings with it the seeds of its own, if not decline, at least a kind of fatigue and a questioning of what "it's all about". I agree with Clovis that the word decadence is of limited use and can be overly-inflammatory (although I still treasure David Cohen's quip from years ago during a debate about whether the West was decadent: "If we're not, who is?"). Nonetheless the old idea that we are collectively building something materially grand to bequeath to our children is being widely replaced with a worry that we need to protect them from excess and destruction.<br /><br />Probably the biggest force behind this emerging ethos is the environmental movement. I have noticed how it waxes and wanes in inverse proportion to economic stress. We went through a period of fevered concern over climate change in the mid-oughts (remember Al Gore and <i>An Inconvenient Truth</i>?), but it went down everybody's list of priorities after the financial crisis. Now it's back as the good times roll, with a rhetorical emphasis on consumption excesses--second SUV's, monster homes, private jets, etc. The faithful don't seem to be worried about driving anybody into penury. Plus as we are of course all fellow passengers on Spaceship Earth, it turns every proposed mega-infrastructure or resource extraction project into a national, if not global, concern. Hey, Clovis, if you are listening, you keep your hands off my Amazon forest, do you hear?! Maybe Californians will have to wait for the next market crash to get that high-speed rail line completed.<br /><br />Bringing common sense and rationalism to what has become an almost metaphysical force (viz. Ste. Greta) is tough because there are lots of past infrastructure projects that were indeed wasteful and destructive. The climate change religion angers and frustrates me, but it can't be denied man has shown himself quite capable of causing severe environmental damage, wrecking communities, imperiling forests and farmlands, etc. The fact that so much of the scientific community has sold its soul to political activism doesn't make it any easier.Peterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15836910211382887430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-25815352288059473622019-10-21T10:21:03.950-07:002019-10-21T10:21:03.950-07:00[OP:] However, VDH did leave out a few details tha...<i>[OP:] However, VDH did leave out a few details that I think are important. First, the working conditions were really, really bad for most of those epic projects. Around 1,200 people died building the Transcontinental Railroad. The construction of the Golden Gate Bridge was noted for how "safe" it was - only 11 people died. Things are much, much more comfortable now. Almost nobody would be willing to work in those conditions and take those risks (especially for what they were paid) and even fewer in power are willing to let them take those risks.</i><br /><br />You pose a false dichotomy.<br /><br />Yes, it is true that both working conditions and hazards were bad for those projects. And it is almost certainly true that the conditions and hazards were about as good as they could be at the time.<br /><br />But that past doesn't confine us now. There is no reason to believe that to get those things done in the same time now as then would require trading time for working conditions or risks. The issues that Hanson talks about have nothing to do with either of those things. There is no reason to believe that, absent nearly malevolent bureaucratic incompetence, we couldn't build another Golden Gate bridge or transcontinental railroad faster, safer, and in comparative luxury for the workers.<br /><br /><i>Second, though he does grudgingly admit it, VDH glosses over the fact that working with modern technology very often creates more value than building yet another road. Instead of concrete, we build most of our roads with glass fiber and electrons and both the market and the taxpayer think that's more valuable.</i><br /><br />So we can do without the Golden Gate bridge, on account of fiber optics?<br /><br />As I noted above, the issue isn't relative value, but rather institutional barriers to achievement.Hey Skipperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10798930502187234974noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-22002264169653044412019-10-18T12:43:44.891-07:002019-10-18T12:43:44.891-07:00Yes I agree our tendency to delay, idle and gripe ...Yes I agree our tendency to delay, idle and gripe may become a big problem over time. Thinking of that reminded me of a quote that I've put in a separate post.Brethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15063508651955739056noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-73199739609588124982019-10-18T06:57:12.581-07:002019-10-18T06:57:12.581-07:00Bret,
Good post, thank you.
The narrative of dec...Bret,<br /><br />Good post, thank you.<br /><br />The narrative of decadence is too often an easy temptation. Every generation thinks the next one will blunder it all, since immemorial times. So I guess your final lines make justice here.<br /><br />That said, I would add that our tendence to "delay, idle and gripe", even if done because we can, may very well lead to consequences integrated over time. Mainly, the next generations inherit the material wealth but lose bit per bit of the "immaterial wealth". That's one of the reasons many civilizations eventutally descend to its dark ages.<br /><br /><br />Clovishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08921327103613284595noreply@blogger.com