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Yes I agree state's legislatures did not prepare. But maybe that shows why a body of politicians is not prepped for engineering nuances. Maybe they should have

Yes I agree state's legislatures did not prepare. But maybe that shows why a body of politicians is not prepped for engineering nuances. Maybe they should have adequately applied leverage to the power companies to "push" them to better practices rather than trying to fine and inspect and regulate which is an inherently "pulling" option which the companies will always try to weasel out of. This argument to incentivize rather than punish applies to many issues with legislative bodies across all complex industries like Big Tech and other Engineering fields. You pass a law that drinking water cannot have over 10ppm of XXX carcinogen? There is most likely going to be 9.99ppm because that's the bare minimum. We really need to move from stick to carrot.

newacct583 6y ago
> Yes I agree state's legislatures did not prepare. But maybe that shows why a body of politicians is not prepped for engineering nuances. The problem is that Texas is an outlier. Other governments, broadly, get this right. Those FERC recommendations mentioned upthread? They're the work of the government (hell, NERC is even a multinational globalist thing). That argues less that "governments are bad" than it does for "THIS government was bad".
mikepurvis 6y ago
Can you clarify what the distinction is that you see here? Ultimately, whether it's fines/regulations ("stick") or bonuses/incentives ("carrot"), you're still going to have a bunch of budget-focused politicians pulling the levers. Their incentive structure rewards short term budget savings at the expense of long term preparedness. The real fix is to have a non-partisan body staffed by actual engineers setting this kind of policy, isn't it?
ianai 6y ago
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting a different outcome. When another option works and the current implementation fails, then it's time to change to the workable option.
confidantlake 6y ago
Under 10 ppm you get a carrot. Then drinking water will still be 9.99. How is it any different?
- Dylan16807 6y ago
  > Under 10 ppm you get a carrot. Then drinking water will still be 9.99. But also the company decides that they're okay with only getting that carrot 95% of the time because filtering costs money. So 5% of the time it's much worse. The real power of a stick over a carrot is the incentives can be much bigger. If you're selling widgets, and 1% catching on fire just means you're paid 1% less, you don't care very much. If you're fined 50 times the purchase price for each widget that catches fire, you care a lot.

newacct583 6y ago

> Yes I agree state's legislatures did not prepare. But maybe that shows why a body of politicians is not prepped for engineering nuances. The problem is that Texas is an outlier. Other governments, broadly, get this right. Those FERC recommendations mentioned upthread? They're the work of the government (hell, NERC is even a multinational globalist thing). That argues less that "governments are bad" than it does for "THIS government was bad".

mikepurvis 6y ago

Can you clarify what the distinction is that you see here? Ultimately, whether it's fines/regulations ("stick") or bonuses/incentives ("carrot"), you're still going to have a bunch of budget-focused politicians pulling the levers. Their incentive structure rewards short term budget savings at the expense of long term preparedness. The real fix is to have a non-partisan body staffed by actual engineers setting this kind of policy, isn't it?

ianai 6y ago

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting a different outcome. When another option works and the current implementation fails, then it's time to change to the workable option.

confidantlake 6y ago

Under 10 ppm you get a carrot. Then drinking water will still be 9.99. How is it any different?

Dylan16807 6y ago
> Under 10 ppm you get a carrot. Then drinking water will still be 9.99. But also the company decides that they're okay with only getting that carrot 95% of the time because filtering costs money. So 5% of the time it's much worse. The real power of a stick over a carrot is the incentives can be much bigger. If you're selling widgets, and 1% catching on fire just means you're paid 1% less, you don't care very much. If you're fined 50 times the purchase price for each widget that catches fire, you care a lot.