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> India has the ability to organize men and get the job done, the US does not. Sure, by not giving much of a shit about the conditions that labourers have to e

> India has the ability to organize men and get the job done, the US does not. Sure, by not giving much of a shit about the conditions that labourers have to endure. You can call it social technology if you want.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
Labor conditions are actually not a major factor. Hardhats are pretty cheap. American construction costs are unique in the world. No other country is even in the same ballpark - this includes wealthy countries (Spain, Singapore, Hong Kong, Italy) with plenty of safety rules. Delhi's construction costs are typical, they are not exceptionally low. https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/comparative-subway-construction-costs-revised/ https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/comp... https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/us-rail-construction-costs/ https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/us-r... I just bring up Delhi because a) the article is discussing an Indian solar project and b) I have a Delhi metro card in my wallet and am pretty familiar with it.
- throwaway-hn123 10y ago
  Hardhats may be 'cheap'. Go to most construction projects in India and see how many wear them. Then control for costs of permits and bribes to arrive at an actual cost for the labour. We can then discuss social technology some more. I bring all this up as my family has handled many construction projects in India, and so I am pretty familiar with it.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    For Delhi metro construction (which I pass by often), hardhats aren't uncommon. In any case, see above links; safety rules are NOT what drives up US costs. I'm measuring the effectiveness of social technology by the outputs, not the frustrations of the people involved. Except in a few backward places like Bombay (c.f. Salman Khan campaigning against raising FAR restrictions), projects get done. In the US they don't.
    - onli 10y ago
      I think you are wrong, and what you say does not follow from the links you provide. There can be a loss in the ability of a society to organize stuff. Berlin is incapable to finish an airport, and a big reasons are batshit-crazy fire protection regulations which changed multiple times over the duration of the project (plus a bit of corruption, but in fact probably not the reason for the failure). In Stuttgart they are trying to construct a train station and are incapable to finish it with their budget and don't even have an idea why. But: At least in Berlin, regulations are part of the problem. Safety regulations are also regulations. It is totally logical that costs for a project do rise when taking the proper safety measures. One can argue where the balance should be, but just saying "safety regulations are not a problem" when comparing the USA and a third-world country is pretty removed from reality.
      - yummyfajitas 10y ago
        ...what you say does not follow from the links you provide....when comparing the USA and a third-world country is pretty removed from reality. If only I thought of that before you wrote this comment. Then several comments up I'd have written this: "No other country is even in the same ballpark - this includes wealthy countries (Spain, Singapore, Hong Kong, Italy) with plenty of safety rules. Delhi's construction costs are typical, they are not exceptionally low." I'm not comparing the US solely to third world countries. I'm comparing the US to every other country in the world. You pretty clearly didn't read the links, or even this comment thread. I agree that safety regulations might raise costs, but they demonstrably do not raise costs to US levels. If they did, then trains in Spain would cost the same as trains in the US. In fact, trains in Spain cost about the same as trains in India.
        onli 10y ago
        Spain is not a third world country, but Spain is still on a very different level than core Europe or the USA. That argument does not hold. You'd have to show something that reasonably compares the different working and security conditions of projects in different countries, budgets them, and then shows that they are not the relevant factor. Which would not work in Germany in similar failing projects as they are the factor there, so I don't think it will not hold for the USA either. Edit: It would not work in Germany, because it would be hard to decide whether the ever increasing fire-regulations are indeed batshit-crazy and thus a sign of a failing capabiltiy to organize, or just a security regulation raising costs. In a way they are both. The links you provided don't do that calculation properly, as far as I saw. And I did have a look at them and read the comment thread here, it is useless to attack me on that grounds. Doing so only disqualifies you.
- denzil_correa 10y ago
  > I just bring up Delhi because a) the article is discussing an Indian solar project and b) I have a Delhi metro card in my wallet and am pretty familiar with it. And amongst all projects in India, Delhi Metro project is pretty unique. It is more an exception than a norm. Primarily, because it was driven by E Sreedharan [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Sreedharan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Sreedharan
linuxkerneldev 10y ago
> Sure, by not giving much of a shit about the conditions that labourers have to endure Lets look at ourselves then. Do our own labourers have a good work environment? Or do we ignore toxic/poisoned conditions [1]? Do we let our corporations knowingly outsource the toxic/contaminated processes to countries with lax labour/environmental laws? Do we use slavery [2]? There are many reasonable people that say we're guilty of all these things. [1] https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/05/14/us-child-workers-danger-tobacco-farms https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/05/14/us-child-workers-danger-... [2] http://returntonow.net/2016/06/13/prison-labor-is-the-new-american-slavery/ http://returntonow.net/2016/06/13/prison-labor-is-the-new-am...
- throwaway-hn123 10y ago
  Who is this "we" that you're referring to?

yummyfajitas 10y ago

Labor conditions are actually not a major factor. Hardhats are pretty cheap. American construction costs are unique in the world. No other country is even in the same ballpark - this includes wealthy countries (Spain, Singapore, Hong Kong, Italy) with plenty of safety rules. Delhi's construction costs are typical, they are not exceptionally low. https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/comparative-subway-construction-costs-revised/ https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/comp... https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/us-rail-construction-costs/ https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/us-r... I just bring up Delhi because a) the article is discussing an Indian solar project and b) I have a Delhi metro card in my wallet and am pretty familiar with it.

throwaway-hn123 10y ago
Hardhats may be 'cheap'. Go to most construction projects in India and see how many wear them. Then control for costs of permits and bribes to arrive at an actual cost for the labour. We can then discuss social technology some more. I bring all this up as my family has handled many construction projects in India, and so I am pretty familiar with it.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  For Delhi metro construction (which I pass by often), hardhats aren't uncommon. In any case, see above links; safety rules are NOT what drives up US costs. I'm measuring the effectiveness of social technology by the outputs, not the frustrations of the people involved. Except in a few backward places like Bombay (c.f. Salman Khan campaigning against raising FAR restrictions), projects get done. In the US they don't.
  - onli 10y ago
    I think you are wrong, and what you say does not follow from the links you provide. There can be a loss in the ability of a society to organize stuff. Berlin is incapable to finish an airport, and a big reasons are batshit-crazy fire protection regulations which changed multiple times over the duration of the project (plus a bit of corruption, but in fact probably not the reason for the failure). In Stuttgart they are trying to construct a train station and are incapable to finish it with their budget and don't even have an idea why. But: At least in Berlin, regulations are part of the problem. Safety regulations are also regulations. It is totally logical that costs for a project do rise when taking the proper safety measures. One can argue where the balance should be, but just saying "safety regulations are not a problem" when comparing the USA and a third-world country is pretty removed from reality.
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      ...what you say does not follow from the links you provide....when comparing the USA and a third-world country is pretty removed from reality. If only I thought of that before you wrote this comment. Then several comments up I'd have written this: "No other country is even in the same ballpark - this includes wealthy countries (Spain, Singapore, Hong Kong, Italy) with plenty of safety rules. Delhi's construction costs are typical, they are not exceptionally low." I'm not comparing the US solely to third world countries. I'm comparing the US to every other country in the world. You pretty clearly didn't read the links, or even this comment thread. I agree that safety regulations might raise costs, but they demonstrably do not raise costs to US levels. If they did, then trains in Spain would cost the same as trains in the US. In fact, trains in Spain cost about the same as trains in India.
      - onli 10y ago
        Spain is not a third world country, but Spain is still on a very different level than core Europe or the USA. That argument does not hold. You'd have to show something that reasonably compares the different working and security conditions of projects in different countries, budgets them, and then shows that they are not the relevant factor. Which would not work in Germany in similar failing projects as they are the factor there, so I don't think it will not hold for the USA either. Edit: It would not work in Germany, because it would be hard to decide whether the ever increasing fire-regulations are indeed batshit-crazy and thus a sign of a failing capabiltiy to organize, or just a security regulation raising costs. In a way they are both. The links you provided don't do that calculation properly, as far as I saw. And I did have a look at them and read the comment thread here, it is useless to attack me on that grounds. Doing so only disqualifies you.
denzil_correa 10y ago
> I just bring up Delhi because a) the article is discussing an Indian solar project and b) I have a Delhi metro card in my wallet and am pretty familiar with it. And amongst all projects in India, Delhi Metro project is pretty unique. It is more an exception than a norm. Primarily, because it was driven by E Sreedharan [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Sreedharan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Sreedharan

linuxkerneldev 10y ago

> Sure, by not giving much of a shit about the conditions that labourers have to endure Lets look at ourselves then. Do our own labourers have a good work environment? Or do we ignore toxic/poisoned conditions [1]? Do we let our corporations knowingly outsource the toxic/contaminated processes to countries with lax labour/environmental laws? Do we use slavery [2]? There are many reasonable people that say we're guilty of all these things. [1] https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/05/14/us-child-workers-danger-tobacco-farms https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/05/14/us-child-workers-danger-... [2] http://returntonow.net/2016/06/13/prison-labor-is-the-new-american-slavery/ http://returntonow.net/2016/06/13/prison-labor-is-the-new-am...

throwaway-hn123 10y ago
Who is this "we" that you're referring to?