4 ms·

How would the economy function without infrastructure and affordable transportation?

pas 4y ago
denser residential (or godforbid! mixed use) areas would require less capex and opex, so they would require less public funding
- ElevenLathe 4y ago
  Indeed, basically the entire built environment is one giant fossil fuel subsidy. Almost all construction in the past ~200 years, certainly since WW2, has been malinvestment based on artificially cheap fossil energy. Really, you can say that the industrial revolution is defined by energy getting exponentially and artificially cheaper as we got better at digging up burnable stuff, burning it, and using the resulting energy to do stuff, including digging up more burnable stuff even faster.
ElevenLathe 4y ago
There wouldn't be no infrastructure, it would just have to be scaled back to a level where it could be paid for with real surpluses rather than the fake surplus created by pretending that only digging up oil and coal have a cost, while burning it is free.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
We should have infrasteucture, but uts about who is paying for it. As a non-user of cars, I still pay for highways. But a non-user of trains doesn't pay for railways. Buyers of electric cars get more cash subsidy than my ebike costs to build! Why don't we give out same subsidy to people who want yo buy a bike or to spend on railway tickets? I am a user of Cycles, and I don't get shit - I dont even get space to ride - there are almost no dedicated roads for bikes. For the ampunt we spend on fixing roads, we could give everyone a new ebike every two years. Airplabes are even worse. Ebikes, Cars and trains pay taxes on fuel and electricity, but airplanes don't. So why are subsidies distributed so unfairly? At least make them equal
- riazrizvi 4y ago
  Everyone uses transport. Theoretically if you owned your own land and lived like a stone age person, making everything from scratch, using nothing in a modern economy then I guess yes the argument could be made you shouldn’t pay as much, but it’s such an unlikely situation it’s not worth legislating for. Actually even then, you need to be defended by your State from people who would take your land by force. So everyone uses transport whether they realize it or not.
  - munk-a 4y ago
    This statement does nothing to address the unevenness of how transportation is funded. Train service in America is a joke and at the same time we've decided this[1] highway was somehow worth building. America has been investing immense amounts of capital into highway construction for decades and that investment has come at the expense of mass transit that could actually handle the transportation of millions of people up and down the eastern seaboard. Cars are an extremely space and energy inefficient method of transportation, we definitely need them for some purposes - but the fact that they're the default option for people's daily commute is bonkers. Everyone may use transport, and everyone may benefit from transport - but that does very little to address the extreme imbalance in transport funding we've seen in America. 1. (The Katy Freeway) https://img1.wsimg.com/isteam/ip/b856accd-c3e3-4d97-8365-32787160559c/IMG_6682.jpg/:/rs=w:1280 https://img1.wsimg.com/isteam/ip/b856accd-c3e3-4d97-8365-327...
    - pwpw 4y ago
      Agree with your general sentiment but want to point out that is not the Katy Freeway. This is: https://s.hdnux.com/photos/30/10/14/6325030/32/450x0.jpg https://s.hdnux.com/photos/30/10/14/6325030/32/450x0.jpg
      - specialist 4y ago
        Holy shit.
    - riazrizvi 4y ago

pas 4y ago

denser residential (or godforbid! mixed use) areas would require less capex and opex, so they would require less public funding

ElevenLathe 4y ago
Indeed, basically the entire built environment is one giant fossil fuel subsidy. Almost all construction in the past ~200 years, certainly since WW2, has been malinvestment based on artificially cheap fossil energy. Really, you can say that the industrial revolution is defined by energy getting exponentially and artificially cheaper as we got better at digging up burnable stuff, burning it, and using the resulting energy to do stuff, including digging up more burnable stuff even faster.

ElevenLathe 4y ago

There wouldn't be no infrastructure, it would just have to be scaled back to a level where it could be paid for with real surpluses rather than the fake surplus created by pretending that only digging up oil and coal have a cost, while burning it is free.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago

We should have infrasteucture, but uts about who is paying for it. As a non-user of cars, I still pay for highways. But a non-user of trains doesn't pay for railways. Buyers of electric cars get more cash subsidy than my ebike costs to build! Why don't we give out same subsidy to people who want yo buy a bike or to spend on railway tickets? I am a user of Cycles, and I don't get shit - I dont even get space to ride - there are almost no dedicated roads for bikes. For the ampunt we spend on fixing roads, we could give everyone a new ebike every two years. Airplabes are even worse. Ebikes, Cars and trains pay taxes on fuel and electricity, but airplanes don't. So why are subsidies distributed so unfairly? At least make them equal

riazrizvi 4y ago
Everyone uses transport. Theoretically if you owned your own land and lived like a stone age person, making everything from scratch, using nothing in a modern economy then I guess yes the argument could be made you shouldn’t pay as much, but it’s such an unlikely situation it’s not worth legislating for. Actually even then, you need to be defended by your State from people who would take your land by force. So everyone uses transport whether they realize it or not.
- munk-a 4y ago
  This statement does nothing to address the unevenness of how transportation is funded. Train service in America is a joke and at the same time we've decided this[1] highway was somehow worth building. America has been investing immense amounts of capital into highway construction for decades and that investment has come at the expense of mass transit that could actually handle the transportation of millions of people up and down the eastern seaboard. Cars are an extremely space and energy inefficient method of transportation, we definitely need them for some purposes - but the fact that they're the default option for people's daily commute is bonkers. Everyone may use transport, and everyone may benefit from transport - but that does very little to address the extreme imbalance in transport funding we've seen in America. 1. (The Katy Freeway) https://img1.wsimg.com/isteam/ip/b856accd-c3e3-4d97-8365-32787160559c/IMG_6682.jpg/:/rs=w:1280 https://img1.wsimg.com/isteam/ip/b856accd-c3e3-4d97-8365-327...
  - pwpw 4y ago
    Agree with your general sentiment but want to point out that is not the Katy Freeway. This is: https://s.hdnux.com/photos/30/10/14/6325030/32/450x0.jpg https://s.hdnux.com/photos/30/10/14/6325030/32/450x0.jpg
    - specialist 4y ago
      Holy shit.
  - riazrizvi 4y ago