4 ms·

It appears you need to learn what it means to move a goalpost.

CamperBob2 10y ago
"Yeah, well, people keep saying we'll have flying cars in 10 more years, too." "BigCorp, Inc. has been actively developing flying cars. They've logged around two million miles so far." "Yeah, well, those flying cars don't count, because they aren't perfect." Sounds like an excellent reason to spend thirty billion dollars on trains.
- saosebastiao 10y ago
  They don't count. They aren't even close to good enough to replace human drivers yet, let alone optimize traffic enough to make trains obsolete. And the fact that there is some very solid physics evidence that they won't ever be able to make trains obsolete seems like a perfect reason to invest in them. But sure, lets not invest in big things that we really need now and in the future because AGI is only 10 years away and it will solve all of our problems this time for sure.
  - CamperBob2 10y ago
    The funny thing is, you may end up losing both the original argument and the one based on the straw man we've been batting back and forth: https://www.engadget.com/2016/06/09/googles-larry-page-is-secretly-developing-a-flying-car/ https://www.engadget.com/2016/06/09/googles-larry-page-is-se... I had never heard of that before I saw a reference to it in the Seattle Times a few minutes ago. Believe me, there is nothing in "physics" that says that fixed-rail tracks are optimal for anything except transferring people from one place where they don't want to be to another place where they don't want to be, and for transferring large sums of tax money from one set of pockets to another. But sure, lets not invest in big things that we really need now and in the future because AGI is only 10 years away and it will solve all of our problems this time for sure. The best time to start building a good light-rail infrastructure was 30 years ago. Not much question about that. The worst time is now.
    - saosebastiao 10y ago
      > Believe me, there is nothing in "physics" that says that fixed-rail tracks are optimal for anything except transferring people from one place where they don't want to be to another place where they don't want to be, and for transferring large sums of tax money from one set of pockets to another. Now that is a goalpost shift. An incredibly bad argument with an entire planet's worth of falsifying evidence, but it was an excellent goalpost shift.
      - CamperBob2 10y ago
        Now that is a goalpost shift. No, it was a bare assertion. Different fallacy altogether. :-P An incredibly bad argument with an entire planet's worth of falsifying evidence Wait, I thought you were saying that networked self-driving vehicles on surface streets not only weren't ready for prime time, but won't be able to compete with multi-decade fixed rail projects that haven't even been approved for construction yet. Now you're saying that there's already an "entire planet's worth" of evidence that proves they can't? What planet are we talking about, exactly? Certainly no such evidence exists on this one, unless you put all kinds of constraints on the problem that aren't necessary in real life. Obviously self-driving cars can't replace rail transit if we do what most critics in this thread seem to think we'll do, which is simply replace our existing personally-owned vehicles with them. Transit is a system-level problem that requires system-level thinking, no matter the modality. For instance, take half the surface streets in the city and turn them into boarding platforms. These are the only places where the self-driving cars ever stop. On the other half of the streets, they never stop moving. Cars merge seamlessly in and out of these lanes. Routes and following distances are adjusted on a centralized basis to accommodate entrance and exit schedules. There are no human drivers to hesitate or misjudge speeds and distances. It's simply unthinkable that a system like this couldn't move as many people from their actual point of origin to their ultimate destination than fixed rail. Only by artificially constraining the problem can you make "physics"-based capacity arguments that support rail transit. Fixed rail is literally all about constraints. We need fewer of those, not more. IMHO we should spend $30-$50 billion doing something radically different in this transit-planning cycle, instead of building more of the same old trains for the same limited population of users.

"Yeah, well, people keep saying we'll have flying cars in 10 more years, too." "BigCorp, Inc. has been actively developing flying cars. They've logged around two million miles so far." "Yeah, well, those flying cars don't count, because they aren't perfect." Sounds like an excellent reason to spend thirty billion dollars on trains.

saosebastiao 10y ago
They don't count. They aren't even close to good enough to replace human drivers yet, let alone optimize traffic enough to make trains obsolete. And the fact that there is some very solid physics evidence that they won't ever be able to make trains obsolete seems like a perfect reason to invest in them. But sure, lets not invest in big things that we really need now and in the future because AGI is only 10 years away and it will solve all of our problems this time for sure.
- CamperBob2 10y ago
  The funny thing is, you may end up losing both the original argument and the one based on the straw man we've been batting back and forth: https://www.engadget.com/2016/06/09/googles-larry-page-is-secretly-developing-a-flying-car/ https://www.engadget.com/2016/06/09/googles-larry-page-is-se... I had never heard of that before I saw a reference to it in the Seattle Times a few minutes ago. Believe me, there is nothing in "physics" that says that fixed-rail tracks are optimal for anything except transferring people from one place where they don't want to be to another place where they don't want to be, and for transferring large sums of tax money from one set of pockets to another. But sure, lets not invest in big things that we really need now and in the future because AGI is only 10 years away and it will solve all of our problems this time for sure. The best time to start building a good light-rail infrastructure was 30 years ago. Not much question about that. The worst time is now.
  - saosebastiao 10y ago
    > Believe me, there is nothing in "physics" that says that fixed-rail tracks are optimal for anything except transferring people from one place where they don't want to be to another place where they don't want to be, and for transferring large sums of tax money from one set of pockets to another. Now that is a goalpost shift. An incredibly bad argument with an entire planet's worth of falsifying evidence, but it was an excellent goalpost shift.
    - CamperBob2 10y ago
      Now that is a goalpost shift. No, it was a bare assertion. Different fallacy altogether. :-P An incredibly bad argument with an entire planet's worth of falsifying evidence Wait, I thought you were saying that networked self-driving vehicles on surface streets not only weren't ready for prime time, but won't be able to compete with multi-decade fixed rail projects that haven't even been approved for construction yet. Now you're saying that there's already an "entire planet's worth" of evidence that proves they can't? What planet are we talking about, exactly? Certainly no such evidence exists on this one, unless you put all kinds of constraints on the problem that aren't necessary in real life. Obviously self-driving cars can't replace rail transit if we do what most critics in this thread seem to think we'll do, which is simply replace our existing personally-owned vehicles with them. Transit is a system-level problem that requires system-level thinking, no matter the modality. For instance, take half the surface streets in the city and turn them into boarding platforms. These are the only places where the self-driving cars ever stop. On the other half of the streets, they never stop moving. Cars merge seamlessly in and out of these lanes. Routes and following distances are adjusted on a centralized basis to accommodate entrance and exit schedules. There are no human drivers to hesitate or misjudge speeds and distances. It's simply unthinkable that a system like this couldn't move as many people from their actual point of origin to their ultimate destination than fixed rail. Only by artificially constraining the problem can you make "physics"-based capacity arguments that support rail transit. Fixed rail is literally all about constraints. We need fewer of those, not more. IMHO we should spend $30-$50 billion doing something radically different in this transit-planning cycle, instead of building more of the same old trains for the same limited population of users.