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> There is a 3rd option - do a custom design that considers site-specific issues. And this option is extremely rare. > What I'm giving you is a sketch at how

by troupo 3y ago

> There is a 3rd option - do a custom design that considers site-specific issues. And this option is extremely rare. > What I'm giving you is a sketch at how advanced environmental laws actually conflict with the idea of using cookie cutter designs. No. What you're giving me is a lie that these are applicable everywhere all the time. You're also trying to sell a lie that the US is so distinct and special and unique that it can't have cookie cutter designs (unlike other countries) because only in the US this applies everywhere all the time. > Not after a typical infrastructure project. Usually a bunch of habitat gets killed off and it isn't unusual to lose a population of something exotic. That is, of course, not as true and not as common as you make it out to be. BTW. I live in Stockholm, in a country obsessed with ecology and pollution etc. Most stations are cookie cutter designs (of course). There's exactly one subway station that never got built precisely because there was endangered wildlife in the area.

mercutio2 3y ago
You are really aggressively arguing that you understand US law while demonstrating repeatedly that you don’t. Why? The core of the argument roenxi is making is that the legal system in the US is *very very different* from that which adheres in Sweden. roenxi at no point argues that the legal system in play in the US is good, or better. They are just saying that because of legal barriers, what you seem to imply is incompetence at the planning level is, in fact, evidence of a poorly designed legal system.
- troupo 3y ago
  No, what roenxi, and now you are arguing, quite literally, that somehow cookie cutter designs for infrastructure are impossible because somehow laws are so extremely different and impossible to go around for every single one of the infastructure projects that for every single one you will need a bespoke design because environmental protection or something. Which is absolutely blatantly false. BTW, as far as environment protection goes, there's a sibling comment addressing the same: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39511375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39511375 Infrastructure always relies on cookie-cutter designs and/or modular designs, and there's nothing special about the US in this regard except its insistence that it is somehow excluded from common sense.
  - mercutio2 3y ago
    I agree that that comment summarizes what appears to be your argument “you can build infrastructure cheaper even with restrictive environmental protections”. The response from rayiner explains why this argument misses the point. It’s not about terminal goals being more or less virtuous in the US. It’s about the *process* for building in the US having many points of potential legal interaction that lead to delays and redesign requirements. And that legal system is quite different from how large projects are able to be executed in the rest of the developed world. The US used to build large projects this way, but there was a large populist movement that pushed to add more local veto opportunities. Those vetoes are extremely expensive at the macro level.
    - troupo 3y ago
      Funnily enough how you can build cookie-cutter parking lots everywhere. Cookie-cutter roads everywhere. Cookie-cutter shopping malls and gas stations everywhere. But any other bit of infrastructure? "oh no, local laws would not permit it because difficult legal landscape". So this let me get this straight. This https://maps.app.goo.gl/Y7cvszoFfzxmAG6Q8 https://maps.app.goo.gl/Y7cvszoFfzxmAG6Q8 (Aurora, CO) and this https://maps.app.goo.gl/ByZfS93g82C1NkjdA https://maps.app.goo.gl/ByZfS93g82C1NkjdA (Derry, NH) and this https://maps.app.goo.gl/uUEdDNtcK5MfHZUW8 https://maps.app.goo.gl/uUEdDNtcK5MfHZUW8 (Ankeny, IA) and literally hundreds if not thousands of these can be built from cookie-cutter designs so that they are really indistinguishable from each other. But when we talk about anything else, it's "impossible because US is like no other and also you have to make sure there's site-specific design because advanced environment laws actually conflict with the idea of using cookie cutter designs" or something
      - mercutio2 3y ago
        You keep arguing with a strawman. I’m not sure why. No one is saying “advanced” environmental laws directly conflict with building specific projects. First, I would never call these laws advanced. They’re bad laws, in my opinion. Second, what they do is not forbid specific designs. Instead, they allow many different entities to exercise fairly arbitrary veto power over large projects, unless their idiosyncratic demands are met. To first order approximation, it is the idiosyncratic demands of unpredictable groups of complainants with the power to use lawsuits to delay projects, that lead to large bespoke projects. The core of the argument is that the folks planning and designing those projects are responding to the threat of lawsuits. Most other countries have one feedback period, rather than allowing an arbitrary number of unknown groups to embroil projects in delaying lawsuits at many different points during planning and construction.

by troupo 3y ago

mercutio2 3y ago

You are really aggressively arguing that you understand US law while demonstrating repeatedly that you don’t. Why? The core of the argument roenxi is making is that the legal system in the US is *very very different* from that which adheres in Sweden. roenxi at no point argues that the legal system in play in the US is good, or better. They are just saying that because of legal barriers, what you seem to imply is incompetence at the planning level is, in fact, evidence of a poorly designed legal system.

troupo 3y ago
No, what roenxi, and now you are arguing, quite literally, that somehow cookie cutter designs for infrastructure are impossible because somehow laws are so extremely different and impossible to go around for every single one of the infastructure projects that for every single one you will need a bespoke design because environmental protection or something. Which is absolutely blatantly false. BTW, as far as environment protection goes, there's a sibling comment addressing the same: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39511375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39511375 Infrastructure always relies on cookie-cutter designs and/or modular designs, and there's nothing special about the US in this regard except its insistence that it is somehow excluded from common sense.
- mercutio2 3y ago
  I agree that that comment summarizes what appears to be your argument “you can build infrastructure cheaper even with restrictive environmental protections”. The response from rayiner explains why this argument misses the point. It’s not about terminal goals being more or less virtuous in the US. It’s about the *process* for building in the US having many points of potential legal interaction that lead to delays and redesign requirements. And that legal system is quite different from how large projects are able to be executed in the rest of the developed world. The US used to build large projects this way, but there was a large populist movement that pushed to add more local veto opportunities. Those vetoes are extremely expensive at the macro level.
  - troupo 3y ago
    Funnily enough how you can build cookie-cutter parking lots everywhere. Cookie-cutter roads everywhere. Cookie-cutter shopping malls and gas stations everywhere. But any other bit of infrastructure? "oh no, local laws would not permit it because difficult legal landscape". So this let me get this straight. This https://maps.app.goo.gl/Y7cvszoFfzxmAG6Q8 https://maps.app.goo.gl/Y7cvszoFfzxmAG6Q8 (Aurora, CO) and this https://maps.app.goo.gl/ByZfS93g82C1NkjdA https://maps.app.goo.gl/ByZfS93g82C1NkjdA (Derry, NH) and this https://maps.app.goo.gl/uUEdDNtcK5MfHZUW8 https://maps.app.goo.gl/uUEdDNtcK5MfHZUW8 (Ankeny, IA) and literally hundreds if not thousands of these can be built from cookie-cutter designs so that they are really indistinguishable from each other. But when we talk about anything else, it's "impossible because US is like no other and also you have to make sure there's site-specific design because advanced environment laws actually conflict with the idea of using cookie cutter designs" or something
    - mercutio2 3y ago
      You keep arguing with a strawman. I’m not sure why. No one is saying “advanced” environmental laws directly conflict with building specific projects. First, I would never call these laws advanced. They’re bad laws, in my opinion. Second, what they do is not forbid specific designs. Instead, they allow many different entities to exercise fairly arbitrary veto power over large projects, unless their idiosyncratic demands are met. To first order approximation, it is the idiosyncratic demands of unpredictable groups of complainants with the power to use lawsuits to delay projects, that lead to large bespoke projects. The core of the argument is that the folks planning and designing those projects are responding to the threat of lawsuits. Most other countries have one feedback period, rather than allowing an arbitrary number of unknown groups to embroil projects in delaying lawsuits at many different points during planning and construction.