Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Well, to be honest there are areas where he's right. Big businesses hire lobbyists. They hire lobbyists to make sure that the government doesn't do things that will hurt them--and sometimes to make sure that the government doesn't do things to help upstart competitors.

Not sure why he then wants to give more power to government, considering big business puts legislators in their own pocket... Seems like bigger government would just give MORE power to big business [as has happened in Europe].

But in general, I agree. OAM has an ultra simplistic view.

That's what happens when you look at the world through a prism of simply wanting certain things, without any thought given to the economics or logistics involved.

Big gov't vs small gov't seems like a pretty simplistic dichotomy to me.
I don't have an ultra simplistic view of things, I simply either converse as ifa - I'm ignoring the economics or logistics on purpose, as in a thought experiment, or
b - I'm acknowledging the economics or logistics are a given and don't want to waste time mired in that and not the larger idea

I fully acknowledge I skip some steps, which is purely for brevity's sake.  It's like modern philosophy.....it's slowed to a crawl the past 60 years because it got bogged down in the words of the idea rather than the ideas themselves.  Philosophy is an untenable bore now, thanks to that.  

No, I'm not going to take the time to fill in all the steps along the way so that someone who is going to disagree with me anyway can think me less simplistic.  I don't see the point.

its not the purpose of a company to be innovative

their purpose is to make money

This is all I was saying.  You agree with me.

Big gov't vs small gov't seems like a pretty simplistic dichotomy to me.
I don't have an ultra simplistic view of things, I simply either converse as ifa - I'm ignoring the economics or logistics on purpose, as in a thought experiment, or
b - I'm acknowledging the economics or logistics are a given and don't want to waste time mired in that and not the larger idea

I fully acknowledge I skip some steps, which is purely for brevity's sake.  It's like modern philosophy.....it's slowed to a crawl the past 60 years because it got bogged down in the words of the idea rather than the ideas themselves.  Philosophy is an untenable bore now, thanks to that. 

No, I'm not going to take the time to fill in all the steps along the way so that someone who is going to disagree with me anyway can think me less simplistic.  I don't see the point.

It's fair to have a thought experiment and disregard economics or logistics... 

But as it relates to two of the topics here [autonomous cars and HSR], you're advocating for things that simply cannot be discussed without an understanding of economics and logistics--and in the case of autonomous cars, cannot be discussed without a thorough understanding of current technology.

So there's no point in a thought experiment.

You say "we can do this today" re: autonomous driving and one of us points out all the myriad reasons that no, we realistically cannot.

You say "HSR seems like a good idea" and we point out all the economic reasons why it solves a problem nobody has, why it's not going to be economically competitive with air or car travel, and therefore why it will be doomed to low ridership and hemorrhaging tax money.

And you ignore it completely. 

It's kinda like a thought experiment... But without much thought. 

The battery swap idea comes to mind also.  After a number of issues were noted, OAM concluded he just thinks it's a good idea.

When I finally belatedly understood why my two battery approach doesn't work, I admitted it doesn't work.  I didn't insist it was a good idea anyway.

It's not.  Sounded good though.  To me.

I mean, they allow for much, much more efficent transit space-wise in high-usage routes? (I was thinking more of light/commuter rail, which it seemed like you also took issue with)

If you're going to a place that's dense, car storage and mobility are a nightmare. I have family that worked in SF. To go to work cost $25 a day before factoring in gas and wear and tear. And I lived about 7.4 miles from the close end of the bridge. Some folks come from farther than that. Light rail is a tremendous advantage there. In some spots it's just a park-and-ride arrangement that skips traffic and fosters growth.

I don't totally know the full ins and outs of HSR, so I can't speak on it directly. It seems like there are certain spots it would make sense if the geography allowed. Something like Madison to Milwaukee (that might be too hilly). The kind of thing where 75 miles or so to expand commuting range. SF to San Jose is I think not geographically feasible (too much in the way maybe?).

Public transit is effectively a density problem. If the density is high enough, public transit makes a great deal of sense. 

I find that "light rail" tends to be pushed in tons of places that it makes no sense, though, and actually causes economic harm. Light rail is tremendously expensive, and once it's built it needs to be maintained. That takes a lot of money. Ridership on most light rail systems does not cover the cost of building/maintaining/operating the infrastructure, so it has to come from somewhere.

You know where that money often comes from? Buses. Bus lines are pared back to save money that can be used to keep the light rail afloat. 

Which means that in a lot of places, you end up hurting the people who need transit the most (those who can't afford anything else) and ride the bus, in order to provide rich suburbanites subsidized light rail. 

The other argument to me is that flexible infrastructure is better than fixed infrastructure in a lot of ways. Let's say we build HSR from SoCal to NorCal. But because of the taxes needed to operate that HSR, more and more tech companies--as is being predicted here--leave Silicon Valley for places like Austin. Daily weekday trips between SoCal and San Jose drop by 15%, and daily trips between SoCal and Austin go up 10%. 

For airlines, that's an easy problem to solve. Just fly less planes daily to San Jose and more planes to Austin. For rail, there's no answer. You just lose more money. 

Airplanes and buses are flexible infrastructure. HSR and light rail are fixed infrastructure. We seem to keep wanting to build the latter hoping that the economics will work out, but hope ain't a winning strategy. 

The battery swap idea comes to mind also.  After a number of issues were noted, OAM concluded he just thinks it's a good idea.

When I finally belatedly understood why my two battery approach doesn't work, I admitted it doesn't work.  I didn't insist it was a good idea anyway.

It's not.  Sounded good though.  To me.

I believe I said it was the most likely outcome.  Even given the issues.  And I said time will tell.  
I don't mind being wrong.  But time hasn't told us anything yet.  You're wearing out your "jump to conclusions" mat over there.

The point on that was that if today's tech was magically instilled country-wide tomorrow, we'd still have far less deaths than with people behind the wheel.  OF COURSE we couldn't make it happen literally overnight.  It's absurd to even call that a hurdle.  It's not about actually implementing it tomorrow.  DUH!

But my detractors cling on to that ?mistake? instead of the actual point being made.  It's super fun. 

As I pointed out, neither Waymo nor Tesla is ready for fully autonomous technology. 

Waymo can probably do it safely, but so far I believe everything they do is very limited in scope. Maybe we'd have less deaths, but only because Waymo vehicles never exceeded 35 mph on the freeway lol...

Tesla or GM Supercruise might be something we could roll out for freeway driving, but it's not fully autonomous either. And so far I don't think either is capable of operating on surface streets. 

But... You claimed the hurdle was that people wouldn't accept safer technology even if we COULD magically install it country-wide, if it wasn't safe *enough*. 

So it was just your way of sh!tting on unenlightened rubes who can't see things as clearly as you... As usual.