5 ms·
Let's call it the monkey defense. If you don't like something the majority supports, scream and fling as much shit at it for as long as possible until no one is
by Apes 8y ago
Let's call it the monkey defense. If you don't like something the majority supports, scream and fling as much shit at it for as long as possible until no one is left that can bear the stench or the spectacle. Then claim you were right about it being a failure all along.
- AndrewBissell 8y agoThe people who said this would be a massive boondoggle and voted against the bond in the first place were right all along.
- jessaustin 8y agoEvery big public project is a massive boondoggle. Should we just stop doing things?
- AndrewBissell 8y agoWe should at least prioritize the things we actually need. A fifth of what's been spent on the high speed rail line could go a long way to upgrade California's water infrastructure.
- basementcat 8y agoThe Golden Gate Bridge was finished ahead of schedule and under budget.
- Patrick_Devine 8y agoMaybe, but the Bay Bridge wasn't, and they were built around the same time. http://www.americanmanufacturing.org/blog/entry/dont-forget-the-bay-bridge-project-was-a-boondoggle http://www.americanmanufacturing.org/blog/entry/dont-forget-...
- jessaustin 8y agoThat link discusses the renovation of the eastern section that took place since 2000? Hardly comparable to the original construction of either bridge...
- DrScump 8y agoIt had the benefit of cheap Depression-era labor and vastly inferior worker safety constraints (12 died). The disastrous new Bay Bridge project was more representative of modern California infrastructure projects.
- mikeash 8y agoNo, we should stop fucking up public projects. Nothing says we have to.
- jessaustin 8y agoThere are massive vested interests saying just that. They have the ear of all the relevant public officials, because they pay for that ear. Boondoggle public works projects are a transfer of wealth from the public to those interests. We might as well say, "let's spend less on the military!" Yes that would be great, but what we have is what the system produces. The easy way to do this better would be to pick out a firm who had done a good job on a similar project overseas, and tell them to do the same thing under the same rules with the same workers, except over here, and we'll pay a 25% premium to cover relocation expenses. Hell we could pay a 50% premium and still come out way ahead. This would never happen, but it's instructive to think about all of the different levers the system would pull to prevent it.
- Apes 8y agoThe people who said it would be a massive boondoggle then went out of their way to make it a massive boondoggle. I guess the mistake California made was not realizing they weren't making a prediction, but a threat.
- AndrewBissell 8y agoYes, it was quite nefarious of them to alter the laws of physics and geology to make tunneling through the mountains outside LA into a nigh-impossible engineering task.
- AFNobody 8y agoCorrect, there is no freeway that passes through those impassable mountains. /s
- Gargoyle 8y agoHave you been on that freeway? It's not really a bullet train-friendly route.
- AFNobody 8y agoHave you bothered to look around when you drove through it? The amount of tunneling/demolition involved is quite viable. lol.
- mmt 8y agoUmm.. I'd say that merely looking, especially by a non-expert, is more than just a little naive. A famous civil engineer, no less than William Mulholland, had his career ended by the geology of those hills.
- AFNobody 8y agoA dam built on a 1920s understanding of geology and dam construction is your argument. And you are ignoring the fact they are trying to tunnel through something with very similar geology. Okay.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]