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This is not a fair reading of the article. It actually discusses national winterization versus those of Texas, and points out both that other southern states ha
by solidsnack9000 6y ago
This is not a fair reading of the article. It actually discusses national winterization versus those of Texas, and points out both that other southern states have experienced power disruptions due to the cold, and that the national winterization standards are neither stricter than those of Texas nor strict enough to address the events of recent days.
- mannykannot 6y agoThat is a reasonable point, but it is only half the story when it leaves out regulatory capture (which certainly is not confined to Texas), the deliberate adoption or rejection of policies on the basis of whether they conform to a counterfactual ideology (climate-change denial), and the brazen attempt to shift blame for the problem onto policies that actually attempt to mitigate problems that really are happening.
- solidsnack9000 6y agoTexas's separate grid dates back decades, and was driven by a conscious desire to optimize for the needs of manufacturing. It doesn't have anything to do with climate-change denial or the current governor. By allowing your evaluation of the situation to be influenced by that sort of thing, you are engaging in a kind of recency bias -- imagining that the future can cause the past.
- mannykannot 6y agoAll of today's grids started with smaller, less-connected entities. That is not an adequate justification for the current situation. The idea that Texas alone is somehow constrained, by forces beyond its control, from changing with the times, is absurd. Is Texas doomed by its history to live with the cold-vulnerable infrastructure that led up to these problems, on account of the way things were decades ago? Of course not - things will be fixed.
- solidsnack9000 6y agoTexas's policy decision, to remain separate from the other grids, dates to the 1930s. It's not about being constrained, it's about this policy choice. ERCOT, the current organization that manages Texas's electricity, dates from the 1970s. Trying to explain this policy choice in terms of the current political climate is ahistorical and a little strange. How could an informed person believe the current governor has anything to do with decision dating to the 1930s? However, that's the kind of explanation you were offering, and that's what I'm objecting to: this curious recency bias, so prevalent in tech forums, where everything that happened more than 10 years ago is not real.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mannykannot 6y agoI see you are still pusuing the ridiculous idea that Texas, unlike literally everywhere else on Earth, has been constrained* from upgrading its infrastructure on account of decisions made nearly a century ago. *Denying that it is a constraint does not alter the fact that your argument, such as it is, depends on it being one.
- solidsnack9000 6y agoWhat you posted earlier is ridiculous because you're trying to explain the Texas grid in terms of current political trends, like the decision was made in the last few years.
- mannykannot 6y agoSo, despite your argument being in tatters, you insist that something I wrote must be illogical, somehow? well, you are at least doggedly wrong, I'll give you that. If you are tempted to post further (I am sure you are), I suggest that you first read what I actually wrote in my original post in this thread.
- 542354234235 6y ago> was driven by a conscious desire to optimize for the needs of manufacturing. Wasn't it so Texans could continue to live in the fantasy world that they could secede from the US any time they wanted?
- krapp 6y agoSurprisingly, Texas' pathological urge to secede every time a Democrat wins the White House seems to have been abated by recent events[0]. [0]https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-02-17/texas-severe-weather-power-crisis-secession https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-02-17/texas-seve...