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Our roads suck and they were created 100 years ago. Can we talk about effective use of government money from the past half century at least? And can we at least

Our roads suck and they were created 100 years ago. Can we talk about effective use of government money from the past half century at least? And can we at least show a pattern of competency rather than a pattern of waste?

afavour 3y ago
You’re obviously coming into this discussion with a pre-existing viewpoint and have no actual interest in hearing alternatives. Why does it matter when roads were created? They require near constant maintenance, something public funds do. And “our roads suck” is just an absurd generalisation and is obviously not true. Of course parts of the road system suck but it’s an integral part of keeping the country running and by and large works fine.
- brigadier132 3y ago
  > Why does it matter when roads were created? Because we are talking about how our money will be spent now. > And “our roads suck” is just an absurd generalisation and is obviously not true. I disagree and I believe that "terrible roads" is public sentiment. I've never heard anyone praise our roads. > You’re obviously coming here with a perspective and you have no actual interest in hearing counterpoints I have a very strong opinion obviously and am open to being proven wrong but I am not going to just accept terrible arguments. The political class of this country is just completely inept. Everyone thinks in terms of "taxing the rich" as if some billionaires are going to be fund all these public mega projects. The billionaires do not have enough cash, the people that will get hammered with taxes are the middle and upper middle class.
  - afavour 3y ago
    > Because we are talking about how our money will be spent now. Again: how do you think maintenance happens? > I’ve never heard anyone praise our roads Which is a great example of why public sentiment isn’t really worth a whole lot of anything. People love to complain. If we stopped maintaining our highways people would very quickly learn to appreciate how it used to enable full grocery store shelves, receiving packages and so on. Absurd generalisations are absurd. If I said “I worked at Google, they waste so much money, every private corporation is a total waste of money and should be gotten rid of” would you think my perspective was a sensible, measured one?
    - brigadier132 3y ago
      > Again: how do you think maintenance happens? Good point, let's get rid of all public programs except social security and road maintenance and lower everyone's taxes 20%. I'm not actually suggesting that but it's absurd to use road maintenance as the reason why the government needs more money.
      - afavour 3y ago
        Was that your way of admitting that road maintenance is an example of competent public spending while avoiding actually saying those words?
        brigadier132 3y ago
        I mean, your argument seems to be that since the government does some good we should give them complete access to our bank account
        afavour 3y ago
        In what way is that my argument? You said: > Can you actually give examples of competent public spending? I gave you an example of competent public spending and you’ve somehow transformed that in your head into “we should give government unfettered access to our wallets”. Absurd generalisations are absurd. You’re very obviously not coming to this discussion in good faith. Feel free to argue against straw men in your own time but I won’t be wasting my time joining you.
        brigadier132 3y ago
        Ok cool, you won the school house debate with the arbitrary rules. I win the actual debate that largely the government is incompetent and should not be given more money. > You’re very obviously not coming to this discussion in good faith I'm not but this is the second time you've stooped to questioning my credibility (which is against the rules of hackernews). For some reason you've fixated on this one phrase of "giving actual examples" when I'm obviously pointing to a wider trend of extreme waste.
amatecha 3y ago
Uhhhhh.... what? New roads are being constructed literally every single day. I think you'd have an impossibly difficult time finding a single road in NA that is actually 100 years old and hasn't received repeated expensive maintenance.

afavour 3y ago

You’re obviously coming into this discussion with a pre-existing viewpoint and have no actual interest in hearing alternatives. Why does it matter when roads were created? They require near constant maintenance, something public funds do. And “our roads suck” is just an absurd generalisation and is obviously not true. Of course parts of the road system suck but it’s an integral part of keeping the country running and by and large works fine.

brigadier132 3y ago
> Why does it matter when roads were created? Because we are talking about how our money will be spent now. > And “our roads suck” is just an absurd generalisation and is obviously not true. I disagree and I believe that "terrible roads" is public sentiment. I've never heard anyone praise our roads. > You’re obviously coming here with a perspective and you have no actual interest in hearing counterpoints I have a very strong opinion obviously and am open to being proven wrong but I am not going to just accept terrible arguments. The political class of this country is just completely inept. Everyone thinks in terms of "taxing the rich" as if some billionaires are going to be fund all these public mega projects. The billionaires do not have enough cash, the people that will get hammered with taxes are the middle and upper middle class.
- afavour 3y ago
  > Because we are talking about how our money will be spent now. Again: how do you think maintenance happens? > I’ve never heard anyone praise our roads Which is a great example of why public sentiment isn’t really worth a whole lot of anything. People love to complain. If we stopped maintaining our highways people would very quickly learn to appreciate how it used to enable full grocery store shelves, receiving packages and so on. Absurd generalisations are absurd. If I said “I worked at Google, they waste so much money, every private corporation is a total waste of money and should be gotten rid of” would you think my perspective was a sensible, measured one?
  - brigadier132 3y ago
    > Again: how do you think maintenance happens? Good point, let's get rid of all public programs except social security and road maintenance and lower everyone's taxes 20%. I'm not actually suggesting that but it's absurd to use road maintenance as the reason why the government needs more money.
    - afavour 3y ago
      Was that your way of admitting that road maintenance is an example of competent public spending while avoiding actually saying those words?
      - brigadier132 3y ago
        I mean, your argument seems to be that since the government does some good we should give them complete access to our bank account
        afavour 3y ago
        In what way is that my argument? You said: > Can you actually give examples of competent public spending? I gave you an example of competent public spending and you’ve somehow transformed that in your head into “we should give government unfettered access to our wallets”. Absurd generalisations are absurd. You’re very obviously not coming to this discussion in good faith. Feel free to argue against straw men in your own time but I won’t be wasting my time joining you.
        brigadier132 3y ago
        Ok cool, you won the school house debate with the arbitrary rules. I win the actual debate that largely the government is incompetent and should not be given more money. > You’re very obviously not coming to this discussion in good faith I'm not but this is the second time you've stooped to questioning my credibility (which is against the rules of hackernews). For some reason you've fixated on this one phrase of "giving actual examples" when I'm obviously pointing to a wider trend of extreme waste.

amatecha 3y ago

Uhhhhh.... what? New roads are being constructed literally every single day. I think you'd have an impossibly difficult time finding a single road in NA that is actually 100 years old and hasn't received repeated expensive maintenance.