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I don't know where you live, but I'm used to power outages a lot more than gasoline outages. As evidence that is not just a delusion, I notice that you can buy

I don't know where you live, but I'm used to power outages a lot more than gasoline outages. As evidence that is not just a delusion, I notice that you can buy gas powered electric generators in the stores. Do you see electric powered gasoline generators anywhere? It would certainly be possible in theory.

dzhiurgis 5y ago
I don't know where you live, but I've seen less than 10 outages in 35 years of my life and they never lasted more than 1 or 2 hours.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  I can't remember a longer outage than that offhand, but in ~40 years, I'm sure there have been some. Causes of power outages I can think of that might happen in my area: - wind storm - ice storm - tornado - squirrel got in a transformer - car hit a pole I'm sure there have been more unusual things in several decades, but those are what come to mind. One thing to keep in mind is if you are in a position where only your home lost power, or only your apartment building, you may be a low priority and have to wait longer for the power company than if there are a bunch of customers without power.
WorldMaker 5y ago
Your electricity runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, you are in a position to notice power outages much more easily than gasoline "outages". Gasoline supply is hidden behind a logistics dance of shifting prices and for the most part "outages" (really "shortages") usually get swept under the rug of economics and you won't notice them. (Until you do, such as the panic runs we've been seeing in the US South after a single pipeline hiccup.) It's a fun false equivalency, but thanks for trying.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  >It's a fun false equivalency My comment was about how they are different, not equivalent. You sound angry, but also I don't see any disagreement buried in your negative words.
  - WorldMaker 5y ago
    I don't know how personal attacks help your argument. There's no anger in my comment. Eyerolling, perhaps. If you don't understand how I am disagreeing with you then we are probably done with this conversation.
    - perl4ever 5y ago
      >I don't know how personal attacks help your argument Saying you sound angry isn't a personal attack, nor is it saying you are angry. It's just saying you sound angry and hostile, which led me to genuinely do my best to understand what you were disagreeing about. I couldn't find it. "Sweeping under the rug" appeared to me to be a metaphor with negative connotations, but not a denial of gas being less of an issue. You seemed to be saying "yeah, it's less of an issue, but that's bad".
      - WorldMaker 5y ago
        > Saying you sound angry isn't a personal attack, nor is it saying you are angry. Saying I brought emotion to the argument is Tone Policing, which is a form of an ad hominem (personal attack), in that it implies that I shouldn't bring emotion to the discussion, or maybe should have used differently emotional wording "to better support my argument". Rather than arguing the content of my argument it argues the surface of my argument, if not also the substance of my character. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_policing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_policing "Sweeping under the rug" may have a negative connotation sometimes, but the bigger implication/connotation is one of "hidden information". Gas companies want consumers to think that gas gets to pumps like magic and have a lot of vested interests in people not generally questioning gas supply logistics. So they have a lot of ways to "hide" that "dirt" under the rug (of their economics model). As a consumer we have no idea how many gas shortages there are in a given period in any given region because gas companies aren't going to tell us and generally work very hard to make sure that we don't know. Sure from some consumer perspectives it is "less of an issue" because ignorance is bliss, but from the other perspective it is far "more of an issue" in that it is harder to prepare for it. Panics like this snowball precisely because people have no idea a shortage is happening until it feels "too late" and they feel as consumers they have lost control. Electricity outages while inconvenient rarely cause panic in and of themselves, and areas prone to more outages generally have more preparedness for them. At the end of the day it is entirely apples and oranges to compare electricity outages and gas shortages, though. One is a simple, ubiquitous, extremely fungible utility with a wide variety of suppliers and used for a wide variety of applications/appliances/needs and the other an extremely complex, less fungible (a car that needs gas generally can't substitute for diesel and vice versa) supply chain with fewer overall suppliers and for the most part only a single (intended) use. Electricity is used immediately at the time of demand (so outages have a real time effect) and gas has a time shift of several weeks or more between purchase and usage (further blurring the time sensitivity to shortages and adding more reason how short term shortages can easily be hidden).

dzhiurgis 5y ago

I don't know where you live, but I've seen less than 10 outages in 35 years of my life and they never lasted more than 1 or 2 hours.

perl4ever 5y ago
I can't remember a longer outage than that offhand, but in ~40 years, I'm sure there have been some. Causes of power outages I can think of that might happen in my area: - wind storm - ice storm - tornado - squirrel got in a transformer - car hit a pole I'm sure there have been more unusual things in several decades, but those are what come to mind. One thing to keep in mind is if you are in a position where only your home lost power, or only your apartment building, you may be a low priority and have to wait longer for the power company than if there are a bunch of customers without power.

WorldMaker 5y ago

Your electricity runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, you are in a position to notice power outages much more easily than gasoline "outages". Gasoline supply is hidden behind a logistics dance of shifting prices and for the most part "outages" (really "shortages") usually get swept under the rug of economics and you won't notice them. (Until you do, such as the panic runs we've been seeing in the US South after a single pipeline hiccup.) It's a fun false equivalency, but thanks for trying.

perl4ever 5y ago
>It's a fun false equivalency My comment was about how they are different, not equivalent. You sound angry, but also I don't see any disagreement buried in your negative words.
- WorldMaker 5y ago
  I don't know how personal attacks help your argument. There's no anger in my comment. Eyerolling, perhaps. If you don't understand how I am disagreeing with you then we are probably done with this conversation.
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    >I don't know how personal attacks help your argument Saying you sound angry isn't a personal attack, nor is it saying you are angry. It's just saying you sound angry and hostile, which led me to genuinely do my best to understand what you were disagreeing about. I couldn't find it. "Sweeping under the rug" appeared to me to be a metaphor with negative connotations, but not a denial of gas being less of an issue. You seemed to be saying "yeah, it's less of an issue, but that's bad".
    - WorldMaker 5y ago
      > Saying you sound angry isn't a personal attack, nor is it saying you are angry. Saying I brought emotion to the argument is Tone Policing, which is a form of an ad hominem (personal attack), in that it implies that I shouldn't bring emotion to the discussion, or maybe should have used differently emotional wording "to better support my argument". Rather than arguing the content of my argument it argues the surface of my argument, if not also the substance of my character. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_policing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_policing "Sweeping under the rug" may have a negative connotation sometimes, but the bigger implication/connotation is one of "hidden information". Gas companies want consumers to think that gas gets to pumps like magic and have a lot of vested interests in people not generally questioning gas supply logistics. So they have a lot of ways to "hide" that "dirt" under the rug (of their economics model). As a consumer we have no idea how many gas shortages there are in a given period in any given region because gas companies aren't going to tell us and generally work very hard to make sure that we don't know. Sure from some consumer perspectives it is "less of an issue" because ignorance is bliss, but from the other perspective it is far "more of an issue" in that it is harder to prepare for it. Panics like this snowball precisely because people have no idea a shortage is happening until it feels "too late" and they feel as consumers they have lost control. Electricity outages while inconvenient rarely cause panic in and of themselves, and areas prone to more outages generally have more preparedness for them. At the end of the day it is entirely apples and oranges to compare electricity outages and gas shortages, though. One is a simple, ubiquitous, extremely fungible utility with a wide variety of suppliers and used for a wide variety of applications/appliances/needs and the other an extremely complex, less fungible (a car that needs gas generally can't substitute for diesel and vice versa) supply chain with fewer overall suppliers and for the most part only a single (intended) use. Electricity is used immediately at the time of demand (so outages have a real time effect) and gas has a time shift of several weeks or more between purchase and usage (further blurring the time sensitivity to shortages and adding more reason how short term shortages can easily be hidden).