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The problem with the Hyper-loop and Elon Musk in general, isn't that Elon Musk is wrong or that the Hyper-loop won't work. The problem is that he engages in a n

• stale2002 9y ago
  Huh? Transportation technology massively benefits the poor more than it does the rich. The biggest expense that the working class pay is rent. If you can cut long distance commute times in half, then that means that someone who works in the city is able to save 50% or more on rent by living outside the extremely expensive city. Transportation and housing (2 sides of the same coin) is arguably the single most important issue facing the working class.
  • _delirium 9y ago
    Isn't the hyperloop focused on fast city-center-to-city-center transportation between major commercial districts? I don't see how making it fast to go nonstop between Manhattan and D.C. (the current proposal) helps the working class with affordable housing.
    • methodin 9y ago
      Well I suppose it would open up job opportunities assuming the price to go city-to-city is comparable to say, driving multiple hours each way in order to get to work. Of course that assumes you live near one city in order to get to another. Wouldn't help rural folks I'm afraid but there really isn't a transportation solution that can function on sparsely populated areas. Even the trains in London, for example, go through suburban areas that are still relatively densely populated.
    • isostatic 9y ago
      Where in manhattan? Travel from battery park to DC involves can take 50 minutes to get from the office to the platform at Penn station. Now if hyperloop has stations at various NY locations (JFK, downtown, midtown, uptown) and a couple of Washington locations, that will save a fair amount of time. I'll believe it when I see it, and when it can cope with 3000 people an hour in each direction
  • ethn 9y ago
    If it really is beneficial, then Elon Musk and the share holders, should use their same influence they have on the government, on the financial institutions that exist to acquire low interest loans. There is of no reason, that the tax payers should be forced to support the risk or even a project that few people under the upper-middle class will benefit from. There is no reason that Elon Musk should be subsidized to create a private monopoly of transportation––quite contrary, he should be paying the government for the externality caused by being privileged to the exclusive right of the vast common land underneath the states; a common land that other tax payers are now deprived from. Most citizens of the USA don't even live in the city, especially the ones who you claim would benefit from it. They already live in cheap housing in New Jersey 30 minutes away.
    • stale2002 9y ago
      What in the world are you talking about? Their shareholders are spending their own money to finance this. They are not being subsidized. Lobbying the government to pay for this instead, would be doing the thing that you are arguing against. Why should the taxpayers pay for this when other people are perfectly willing to spend their money instead? Not only that, but it would take decades for the government to do it, AND if they were to do it then it would be 10 times more expensive.
  • Tloewald 9y ago
    Explain how the Concorde (an example in the article) benefited the poor more than the rich.
    • isostatic 9y ago
      Concorde failed financially, partly due to USian "not invented here" policy, but mainly because not enough rich people were willing to pay for the speed. However Ryanair was very successful by targettk f "poor" people
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
• methodin 9y ago
  Can you elaborate on what you mean when you say "at the expense of the taxpayer"?
  • ethn 9y ago
    Taxpayer money is being diverted from services that are in dire need presently. That money is being used to privilege Musk and company to vast commonly owned underground land. In the past, fortunately still in some cases, companies were forced to pay the government for the externalities caused by the exclusive right to common land which deprives other tax payers of the same opportunity.
    • methodin 9y ago
      Diverted through what means? Are they somehow subsidizing his ventures apart from the electric vehicle subsidy?
      • ethn 9y ago
        Through avoiding externality payment due to the cost of "the tragedy of the commons" to the tax payer, as well as the massive subsidies to SolarCity, Tesla, and Space X. It is suspect to believe Hyperloop won't be massively subsidized as well, given his track record.
        • angstrom 9y ago
          A subsidy, a tax cut, and an MLP walk into a bar. Each pays $5 for a draft beer. Each saved $1. The only difference is when they receive that $1. The punchline is thinking they're different.
        • erikpukinskis 9y ago
          Tesla doesn't benefit financially from the tax credits, they mostly benefit other automakers. SpaceX doesn't have subsidies, it has contracts. Elon Musk isn't any more reliant on subsidies than anyone else. How do you feel about the Koch brothers? They receive far more government assistance than Musk. Look anywhere else in the energy industry and you'll find more government assistance than what Elon receives.
• dalbasal 9y ago
  I suppose you can make some variant of this argument about the modern economy, but I don't see why you're singling out Musk for this. Is it because transport infrastructure tends to be subsidized? If so, could we not make the same argument for roads, trains & such?
  • ethn 9y ago
    Roads aren't a speculative technology, they are proven to work, and are not owned by a private enterprise. Elon Musk is being subsidized to create a monopoly of transportation on commonly owned land. But yes, this isn't just a problem with Elon Musk, the political-industrial complex is a newer but persistent problem thats become exacerbated with age. Elon Musk is just a master at exploiting this hole.
    • dalbasal 9y ago
      Ok... a bunch of things in here. One is investment into speculative vs proven ideas. I don't have a single/principled answer to that. Another is subsidization, though that is fairly common (almost universal) in transport . A third is monopoly. Again, almost unavoidable in transport. I guess if you put the last two together, publicly subsidized private monopoly than you get to some "political-industrial complex" issues. If you object to these arrangement entirely in principle, than that's effectively an objection to privately built/run transport infrastructure in general. Public only. That's not that unusual a position. I think that's fine, but I still don't see the hostility towards the idea of hyperloop or Elon Musk. Hyperloop is a concept/design. You could build it without Musk. You could build it without private money.
      • ethn 9y ago
        The entire point is that there is no problem with private transportation, as that's on the risk of private individuals instead of the common tax payer. You can have a system like the Hong Kong rail, operated and owned by MTR Corporation Limited. A monopoly that is profitable without subsidy by government but instead by companies; it remains one of the cheapest transportation services in the world. It pays for the privilege of being a monopoly to the government of Hong Kong. But yes, a publicly subsidized private enterprise is the political-industrial complex; and it's becoming more rampant at the expense of competition, along with the tax payers. The Hong-Kong MTR demonstrates that there is no reason why tax payers need to subsidize significant private risk, when private individuals can do it alone, especially in cases where they stand to benefit the most. If Elon Musk was so sure of his technology, he wouldn't hesitate in taking a loan. Refer to my initial comment. Elon Musk is using massive subsidies to support his businesses, and Hyper-loop will be no different (even escaping externality costs). A mag-lev train is not speculative, a subway system is not speculative. There are many cheaper ways to create a transportation system for similar performance. Musk's isn't particularly needed at all, he is solving a problem that doesn't really exist. There would be no problem if the technology is proven to be significantly beneficial to everyone. There would be no problem with a private company paying and taking the risk on a large-scale Hyper-loop. But in Musk's current attempts, he is creating a redundant enterprise that only benefits the rich, at the expense of the common tax payer, which is money that could be used in any other government branch that has proven benefits. In general, the government should not subsidize unproven technology being implemented at large-scale with unknown real benefits to the common tax payer.
• adventured 9y ago
  > The same tax payers who know if they get sick, they won't be able to pay for it. You've made a grave mistake in your appeal. The top 40% of income tax payers are paying more than 100% of the total income tax base. The people that specifically do pay a massive share of the tax base, can overwhelmingly afford great health coverage. They're why we still have the health system we have, precisely because the system works well for them (short wait times, great coverage, and they can afford the cost of the insurance, most of which is paid for by their employers as part of their total compensation). The bottom 25% have their health needs paid for by that top 40% income block, via Medicaid and other assistance programs. It's in fact the slightly sub middle block of 35% that are struggling greatly with health costs, and they barely pay any income taxes (they do pay FICA related taxes, which they get back in theory via late life entitlement programs). Here's the actual fact of the matter: if your premise is the tax payers are getting ripped off, what you're talking about is the top 1/3 of US income earners getting ripped off. That top 1/3 is extraordinarily well off, in fact they're among the best off people on the planet in nearly every possible regard (average income, median income, net wealth, unemployment, health coverage, education, etc), and they pay modest tax rates compared to most developed nations.
  • Tloewald 9y ago
    I think you're ignoring payroll tax and public subsidy of private sector by allowing them to hire people at below subsistence (because medicaid and food stamps are a subsidy to Walmart)
    • adventured 9y ago
      No, I'm not. Income taxes carry the extreme burden of the tax regime in the US. The only alternative to partial subsidies for poor workers, is total subsidy (which is what happens if you try to make Walmart pay workers $20 / hour, tax payers end up paying for a total subsidy as those workers lose their jobs). That is your only choice. Highly developed nations in eg Europe also follow that exact model, despite their very advanced welfare state systems. Do you think the bottom 1/3 of workers in Britain - given how much lower Britain's median income is versus the US - are paying their full way in terms of costs via their very low incomes? No, they're being subsidized. Their healthcare and numerous other government benefits are being subsidized by richer people via taxation. The same is true in France and Germany as well, and essentially all developed nations. The Medicaid and food stamp programs you reference (the part that are partial subsidies to Walmart), are overwhelmingly paid for by the top 1/3 in the US via taxation, just as in most developed nations. What exactly is your argument against that? You'd rather force Walmart to fire a million people courtesy of aggressive automation, by raising wages on them, just so the very well off top 1/3 aren't put in the position of having to subsidize that labor (to the benefit of Walmart shareholders, which are overwhelmingly made up of the tax payers footing that subsidy bill to begin with)?
• kakarot 9y ago
  Excuse me, but I'm willing to pay for the kind of advances to society Musk is attempting. Musk using tax credits is not why we don't have a good healthcare or education system. Blame defense spending an lobbying for that one. But don't try this false dichotomy crap, where our choices are either 'food and healthcare' or 'subsidizing earnest technological advancements'
• lisper 9y ago
  > The problem ... isn't ... that the Hyper-loop won't work. Actually, that is the problem. The thermal expansion problem has not yet been solved, or even seriously addressed. Hyperloop proponents are completely ignoring it, giddily betting that a solution will somehow magically present itself because technological optimism always wins. Well, no, it doesn't. The only thing that always wins is the laws of physics.
  • kurthr 9y ago
    I thank you for bringing this up and the chance to read about this issue elsewhere, but no it isn't a problem. We have 2000km long gas pipelines. They dont worry about it (on the surface where temperatures actually change). Serpentines work... there are so many solutions that one could be accidentally introduced. I think we're discussing a bikeshed.
    • lisper 9y ago
      > Serpentines work Yes, for gas pipelines. Not for a track that carries passenger vehicles at 700 MPH.
      • kpil 9y ago
        Introducing The Vomit Comet for the (reasonably wealthy) masses!
    • eesmith 9y ago
      Gases don't care about g-forces going through an expansion loop/bend. We still haven't solved the thermal expansion problem for railroads. Hot weather can cause tracks to buckle. It can also cause roadways to buckle.
      • deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      • kurthr 9y ago
        So you expect this to be above ground? I'd expect that it would be bored since (in states where mineral rights aren't held by the land owner) it's cheaper than above ground right of way. At boring depths (greater than 60ft or 20m) temperature change is less than 0.1c and thermal expansion ~10ppm. Serpentines 100km in diameter could easily be used with radial deflections of only 10cm. The g-load at 1080km/hr=300m/s with 100km radius is less than 1/10th of a g. You should be designing with much larger margins than 10cm and 0.1g for anything carrying humans. Shock absorbers in the pod to deal with short range ripples (100um/100m) would be a much bigger issue. That's what I mean by accidental serpentine that makes the problem completely secondary. If you've got calculations, then show them... otherwise please find a different bike shed.
• specialist 9y ago
  Government is the source of all wealth. https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Democracy-Political-History-American/dp/0767905342 https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Democracy-Political-History-Am... Hate the game, not the player.