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I personally think it is just symbolic to introduce a speed limit. It seems to be mostly about hurting people with expensive cars, so they cannot have fun with

I personally think it is just symbolic to introduce a speed limit. It seems to be mostly about hurting people with expensive cars, so they cannot have fun with them anymore. It does nothing. 0.3% does not help. It is optimizing towards a local maximum and does not bring us closer to the global maximum. We need to get rid of the whole concept of commuting to work via car. We need to reduce commutes altogether significantly. We need to reduce ICEs and use electric vehicels fueled by renewable energy instead. If we accomplish those three, the speed of the remaining vehicles will not matter at all. If we do not accomplish those things, we are screwed anyway. Introducing a speed limit will just give people the same warm feeling of a reusable shopping bag full of products with plastic packaging. People just want to do something, even if they know, it will not save them. And if it hurts the "enemy" and makes them seem like the good guys, all the better.

lucb1e 5y ago
> It seems to be mostly about hurting people with expensive cars, so they cannot have fun with them anymore. Absolutely not. Every car can go well above the speed limits of every European country except Germany's unlimited stretches for obvious reasons. I can perfectly well drive 160km/h to work in a median/average car, it's just not efficient. And enjoying your sports car is something you should really do on a race track. It can be safe to drive fast when it's totally empty, but you don't need a sports car to drive the kinds of speed where you want it to be empty. This affects everyone roughly equally. Heck, it might even hit the average person worse because they wouldn't take random time off work to drive to and pay entrance and insurance for a race track. At least for me it's not about spite; I'm a rich person myself. If someone wants to do sports on a public road when it's safe, go ahead, but also clean your fumes back out of the air when you're done please. It just turns out that we can't do attribution to atmospheric gasses, and historically we just conveniently ignored exhausts, so it feels weird to suddenly start requiring that you clean up after yourself.
freemint 5y ago
0.3% of German emissions or 0.007% of Global emissions is the emission of half a million of people with average emissions or more than 20 million africans. As for your comment on local vs global maxima i don't see any reason why optimizing a number should be non convex, such that local optima and global optima differ. > People just want to do something, even if they know, it will not save them. And if it hurts the "enemy" and makes them seem like the good guys, all the better. Maybe it is about boiling the frog and showing that German poltics can prioritize climate over perpetuating the current state of industry. Rail is helped by a top speed. Electrical cars are also made more efficient and less environmentally damaging when their top speed is lowered.

lucb1e 5y ago

> It seems to be mostly about hurting people with expensive cars, so they cannot have fun with them anymore. Absolutely not. Every car can go well above the speed limits of every European country except Germany's unlimited stretches for obvious reasons. I can perfectly well drive 160km/h to work in a median/average car, it's just not efficient. And enjoying your sports car is something you should really do on a race track. It can be safe to drive fast when it's totally empty, but you don't need a sports car to drive the kinds of speed where you want it to be empty. This affects everyone roughly equally. Heck, it might even hit the average person worse because they wouldn't take random time off work to drive to and pay entrance and insurance for a race track. At least for me it's not about spite; I'm a rich person myself. If someone wants to do sports on a public road when it's safe, go ahead, but also clean your fumes back out of the air when you're done please. It just turns out that we can't do attribution to atmospheric gasses, and historically we just conveniently ignored exhausts, so it feels weird to suddenly start requiring that you clean up after yourself.

freemint 5y ago

0.3% of German emissions or 0.007% of Global emissions is the emission of half a million of people with average emissions or more than 20 million africans. As for your comment on local vs global maxima i don't see any reason why optimizing a number should be non convex, such that local optima and global optima differ. > People just want to do something, even if they know, it will not save them. And if it hurts the "enemy" and makes them seem like the good guys, all the better. Maybe it is about boiling the frog and showing that German poltics can prioritize climate over perpetuating the current state of industry. Rail is helped by a top speed. Electrical cars are also made more efficient and less environmentally damaging when their top speed is lowered.