William Gibson Books www.williamgibsonboard.com www.williamgibsonboard.com Random Thoughts What if there's a draft?
www.williamgibsonboard.com www.williamgibsonboard.com Random Thoughts What if there's a draft? Topic Closed|
Go
|
New
|
Find
|
Notify
|
Tools
|
Member |
Sorry, couldn't resist this one from April 4 NY Times:
"Regime change starts at home" |
|||
|
Member |
I think John Kerry said something along those lines, too. He's running for prez, of course. Just think, my fellow americans, only another year and a half of barbequed foreign policy.
|
|||
|
Member |
quote: You're implying the US actually had a foreign policy. Ok, maybe we did, but I never considered "Coerce them to give us what we want" to be acceptable foreign policy. |
|||
|
Member |
Hell the man dosent even have a viable domestic policy...
|
|||
|
|
Member |
Just returned from another exciting trek to Target! Couldn't help but notice the amazing array of giants parked on the tarmac. We're talking SUVs lined up like 747s at Hartsfield International.
Makes ya wonder whether Americans have any tolerance for sacrifice (well, besides sacrificing others). What would happen to U.S. foreign policy if we suddenly quit throwing oil down like it was Bud Lite? Not saying oil is the sole factor behind Iraq (only D. Cheney could answer that); but it's certainly a factor that ties in with entire Mid-East/Central Asian policy. What's weird is to see a Alabama housewife toodling around in a new Humvee. One hand on the wheel, one on the phone.... |
|||
|
|
Member |
Man, don't get me started on breeders and their moo-mobiles. Ah, very little I hate more than the convoys of entitled american families hauling around in bloatmobiles, swerving around in my lane because little Travisty in the back wants a cookie. ARGH!
|
|||
|
|
Member |
What would happen to our forigen policy if a corageous leader made it a priority to convert our economy from oil driven to hydrogen or other alternative energy resources? I mean it would be tough the first 5 yrs or so but think of the pay off. Less pollution, we wont depend on outside sources for energy and as a extra bonus , a drastic reduction in those costly trips to convience stores.
|
|||
|
|
Member |
quote: I've been thinking alot about former U.S. conflicts. In so many recent conflicts since Vietnam (and even before), the U.S. has used others as the cannon fodder, and withdrawn at the first sign of U.S. casualties, a luxery that the local people don't have. Obviously this is a huge part of the resentment against Americans that exist. Examples: Hungarian Uprising 1956--U.S. encouraged the students to rise against communists, then did nothing when the Soviets massacared them with Tanks. Cuba Bay of Pigs--U.S. trainined Cuban nationals to invade, then did nothing when they were massacared by Castro. (Even though their warships were just over the horizon). Gulf War I--Told the Shiia to rise up, then let them be massacared. Mogadishu--Withdrew and left the place to the warlords after killing 1000 and losing (was it 11? I forget the exact number). Israel--Sure the U.S. gives them billions, but its not U.S. citizens that are being killed by suicide bombers. They are basically saying "Go Israel" from across the Atlantic. I'm sure there are more, but this is off the top of my head. The difference in this conflict is that Americans *are* dying, and are actually doing what they said they would do. I believe that this will, in the long run, increase the level of respect for the U.S. in the (non-fundamentalist) Arab world. The next step is obviously to complete a 2-state solution or find some peaceful and mutually agreeable solution in Israel/Palestine. I am a Canadian who has lived in the U.S. for 6 years now, and I was thinking this morning that the U.S. just can't seem to win: In WWII, we always joke about how they came late to the war. In this war, they are the first to step forward, and they still can't get respect. Just some observations/opinions. |
|||
|
|
Member |
quote: I've seen some good arguments about why we shouldn't go to a hydrogen system. I think a better solution, at least for automobiles, is to go the plug-in hybrid route. Of course, that has it's problems too, but it is, imo, the best solution. |
|||
|
|
Member |
Iceland is spiraling towards complete removal of all fossil fuels. I don't have in front of me what their solutions are...wait, I'm remembering stuff. They're using volcanic vents to power hydrogen extraction plants, I think. They've already starting switching all their public transportation to hydrogen and I believe there's a plan in place to force conversion of private automobiles in the next two years. They're being funded by the EU and Shell Hydrogen, and the entire switchover is supposed to be completed by 2005. Whatever method they're using for bottling hydrogen, there seems to be a belief that they'll be the major supplier of the stuff to the world. Iceland will be the new saudi arabia. That's good. Iceland is a lot more stable place, politically.
|
|||
|
|
Member |
quote: Actually, it runs against the way American zoning works. America is the land of sprawl, in a way that you don't really see in most other countries. Due to the way much of american retail works (condensing it into large sprawl-marts which keep a very large inventory and cater to large numbers of people), the average distance from one's home to a commercial center is far from walking distance. So lets say you take a bus, or a train, or a subway, or whatever (and one must ask if this is even a possibility considering the way American suburbia surrounds any urban center). You still need to get from store to store, and thanks to the sheer size of these sprawl-marts and their parking lots, this can be quite a walk, especially if you're carrying something big and heavy. Additionally, there are plenty of things you cannot bring home in a bus or train. If you food-shop by buying everything you'll need for the upcoming week, you cannot possibly take that number of groceries home by yourself. Either you need to bring a bunch of people to help you, or you need a car. If you are buying lumber, or pipes, or something else that's very large, you cannot take this on a bus. Same goes for anything else that's big and bulky. The simple fact is, unlike in many other countries, you don't live where you work, or shop, or anything else. People generally live in suburban areas, and then commute to work, and drive to commercial districts. Now consider the sheer number of people who would have to commute via public transportation if you eliminated or even reduced private vehicles. I don't think you'd be able to create an infrastructure that could support that many people in that amount of distance. There are other issues you ignore, as well. When all transport is based on public transport, strikes can be absolutely fatal. In my town, we nearly had a complete strike in our public transport which would have frozen all buses. I had a flight I needed to catch and no car to drive to the airport. And I live in a relatively small town. What would happen if a large city that was totally reliant on public transport had a strike by public transport workers? You could potentially have a complete standstill of all industry and commerce in that city until the strike was ended. So either you have to eliminate unions and make laws against strikes for public transport, or you need to maintain private transportation. An additional consideration is that our present form of public transportation is very time-inefficient. Because the buses are on routes and pick up passengers at every stop, a relatively short ride can be significantly lengthened. I used to live in Pittsburgh, PA, and I'd work downtown and lived in the suburbs. I took the bus in and out, and each way was somewhere between an hour and an hour and a quarter. When I finally got access to a car, I could drive the same distance home in 15-20 minutes. In a society where many people commute long distances to and from work, taking a bus or other public transportation vehicle significantly lengthens your commute. Now all those people who were getting up at 6 to get ready and drive to work are getting up closer to 4 or 5, and are getting home around 7 or 8 as opposed to around 6. This leads to more stress, less free time, and a LOT less time with family. I am all for searching for alternative energy sources, be it bio-fuel, or hydrogen, or fuel cells, or whatever. However, creating a reliance on public transportation is NOT the way to fix this problem. It may make the international scene more attractive (to you, at least) but it would cause American industry and commerce to litterally collapse in on itself. Or maybe that's your point. |
|||
|
| <Alex>
|
quote: This is the result of widespread use of cars, not a cause of it. And suburbs will only benefit if reduced use of cars made it necessary to make more smaller stores. quote: People buy food for a week because they don't want to waste fuel in their car. Any other explanation of this would be irrational -- storage of large amounts of food at home is inconvenient. People only do that in suburbia anyway. quote: People don't buy lumber often, and when they do, they usually have to bring something that will justify something much larger than what an average car can carry. And oh please don't tell me that this is what SUVs are used for. quote: Just the opposite -- the more people travel in predictable pattern, the easier is to put infrastructure in place to cover those patterns first, the less fluctuations will decrease its inefficiency, compensating fluctuations on less-used routes. One of things where economy of scale works -- and all public transit systems I have seen in US are nowhere close to the scale where they get cheap and efficient. quote: Can't be worse than a strike of, say, highway servicemen after a major snowfall. I guess, if that does not happen, one can prevent a public transit strike (unless, of course, public transit will be in such a horrible shape that workers will rather prefer to strike than to work). quote: San Francisco relies on public transit to get people across the Bay Bridge. So far no significant damage to the economy. quote: Same thing with highway, oil, and all other kinds of services necessary to maintain existing modes of transportation. Some cities (like SF, SJ, etc.) simply have different transportation services, so one being unusable creates merely an inconvenience. In any case, it's the weirdest argument ever -- don't create something vital because workers may strike. quote: This is precisely because the economy of scale does not work with puny public transit systems that are built in US. When I lived in Moscow the subway trains intervals were below two minutes on all lines except one. Buses have little chance achieving that, but buses with 5-10 minutes intervals and trains with 3-5 minutes between them can serve any densely-populated urban area. quote: What industry? One that rebuilds highways every few years (on tax money)? That sells oil? That services cars or sells them at unjustified prices? That builds huge number of houses made of mostly cardboard and plastic, that will turn into rubble even before energy crisis will become noticeable? Or you mean that silly argument "what if they will strike"? There is nothing magical about US -- if things are screwed up, it's better to fix them rather than make excuses to do something that is already known that is not sustainable and has to end one way or another. |
||
|
Member |
quote: It's certainly true that we encouraged Hungary to rise up against the Coms, and offered them help if they did so. BUT, the '56 rebellion was a little more complicated than how you portray it here. First off, it wasn't a 'student uprising,' it was an uprising from within the Party itself. When Westerners looked at the Cold War, they saw Democracy vs. Communism. When East Europeans looked at it, they saw Us vs. Russians. Hungary wasn't trying to shuck Communism and join up with the West. Nagy explicitly rejected that idea. The conflict in '56 was the same as the conflict in '89. It was nationalist, not democratic. It was a rebellion, not a revolution. The Hungarians just wanted to toss out the Russians. Naturally, it took the US a good long while to understand that would have been a good thing anyway, so we didn't step in. Plus there was the minor consideration of thermonuclear war. Interestingly, in about 1996, a whole boatload of new information came out on the '56 rebellion. One new fact was this: It had always been said that the Hungarian Army came into the fray on the side of the people right from the start. History cast it as a spontaneous mass uprising. But very good evidence now suggests that the Army SWITCHED allegiance to side with the people only after the secret police pissed them off. The turning point was when a large crowd outside a radio station in Budapest was demonstrating. Both the Army and the secret police moved in to disperse them. Always paranoid, the secret police believed the Army was there to get them, so they opened fire on the Army. The Army backed off for a minute, got severely pissed off, then announced to everyone that if they would kindly get out of the way, the Army would take care of the secret police for them. From that moment on, the Hungarian Army was on the people's side. Pretty cool, eh? ----------------- "That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code, does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code." --Major Napier, Stephenson's THE DIAMOND AGE |
|||
|
Member |
The fact that our current US prez is surrounded by so many smart people - Powell really struck me as bright during a pre-BushII speech I sat though - almost makes one hope for the a-word (asparagus!), although Cheney would have to have the h/a word first.
PS: Well, I guess Carnivore's latched on to me now. That's what we are - realists with the glasses of dreamers. Christian As. Kirtchev |
|||
|
|
Member |
quote: Result or cause, it does not matter. At this point, the two are completely intertwined. And if you reduce the use of cars, you're still going to need a significant amount of commercial zoning that's well-embedded in residential zones. However, that simply isn't possible. quote: ...or in a world where you have refrigeration and nonperishable foods, it's more convenient to go to the market once a week and get everything you need, rather than go daily and get what you need for the rest of the day. People aren't constantly keeping their eyes on their fuel gauge...they're keeping their eyes on their watches. And you shrug this off as being "only in suburbia." However, you ignore that quite a large number of people DO live in suburbia. You're ignoring the simple fact that your "solution" only works for a certain percentage of the populace...the percentage that doesn't need it, anyways. quote: This isn't a justification for SUVs, because I know plenty of people who simply strap things to the roof of their small cars. And no, people do not regularly buy large things, but at the same time, they do buy and need to transport them. Public transportation cannot work for this because frankly, people need to transport these large items directly to their house...they can't walk them 5 blocks from the bus stop. If you want to establish a society which has no need for personal vehicles, you damned well better find a way to fill this need, be it u-Haul type rentals or whatever. Simply saying "people don't do that often" doesn't work. People don't need medical treatment often....does that mean we shouldn't have any hospitals? quote: How do you build up that scale? You need money to develop large scale public transit. A lot of money. And people will not start using it en masse until it appears as a viable alternative to private transportation. That means a good deal of investment with a very meager return for several years. quote: Generally, when you have heavy snow and the highway servicemen strike, no one can get to work, so things just freeze up until the snow melts. If you have a public transportation strike, it's different. There are enough people who can get to work that those who cannot are discriminated against and soon find themselves out of a job if the strike continues and they can't find an alternative way to get to work. Thanks to large centralized businesses, industries, and commerce, most of our economy is based on transportation. Relying solely on a public transport system is putting all your eggs in one basket. If it screws up (and it inevitably will), there's a very big mess to clean up afterwards. quote: San Francisco still has a well-developed system for private vehicles. And I'd bet money that most people who do not live inside the city, but rather in suburbs and such DO rely almost completely on private vehicles. quote: If highway workers strike, the highway is still there. If oil workers strike, there's always a different oil company to buy from. A public transport system is different because it actively requires the employees to be there at all times. A weeklong public transportation strike immediately stops all commuting that would have occurred using public transportation. My argument is not "Don't create something vital because the workers might strike" but rather "Don't make a vital function rely on a single thing without a backup plan." Presently, if I drive a car and my car breaks down, I can take the bus. If I generally take the bus somewhere but I still have a car, I can drive if the bus breaks down. However, if you eliminate the car, there is no backup plan when the public transportation system fails. quote: No, no, no. I'm not talking about intervals between bus stops. I'm talking about the time it takes for a bus to get from point A to point B. Because a bus has to follow a route, rather than taking the fastest route from point A to point B, it takes a much longer amount of time to get from point A to point B. If you are commuting long distances from home to work (like quite a few people do right now), the amount of time that would be spent on a bus is nearly twice to three times the time that would be spent in the car (on average. Sometimes it would be significantly more. Seldom would it be less). This is not because the bus system is "inefficient" but will get better...it's because the way that buses work means that it will always take longer than a car drive. And because most Americans want to conserve time (so they can have more free time or family time), convincing them to take a bus ride that will take them twice as long as a car ride will be quite a feat. quote: How about the large-scale industry, commerce, and businesses which have a very large number of employees, many of whom commute long distances to work? How about large companies, such as medical or pharmaceutical companies, which have to do things at incredibly large scales to justify the expensive R&D costs? How about large universities that have a majority of their professors commute because the student housing neighborhoods directly surrounding the campus are generally in very bad condition? How about ANY large company which needs to hire large numbers of skilled workers? How about any large industries which survive on the large-inventory policies of larger "sprawl-marts"? Whether or not you like any of these, you need to accept that this is an incredibly large and presently very important part of our economy. If you make transportation more difficult over long distances (as public transportation invariably does) you will have a lot less people commuting to work and instead settling for jobs they may not like as much that are closer to home so that they are not wasting time on public transit. quote: I said it before and I'll say it again. I'm not saying we need to stay on oil. I'm saying that we should look for alterntive energy sources that will be able to sustain private transportation. I'd say it's YOU who is making excuses for something that is not compatible with the present social and economic structure. |
|||
|
|
Member |
Splitcoil--I stand corrected. Most of what I remember about all of the events I listed comes from my memory of Social Studies class 15 years ago, so I'm sure I'm more wrong than right on alot of the interpretations/facts. I was just trying to make a generalization, which I know can be pretty dangerous anyway....
 Thanks for the insight, though, that is pretty interesting about Hungary. |
|||
|
| <A;ex>
|
quote: It is possible. Also there are other benefits from that. quote:quote: Most of quality food is perishable, and refrigerators capacity is limited. If people could go to the store on their way home from work, they would. quote: Then maybe suburbia has to change into something more habitable. It's not hard considering that there will be a place for more conveniently located stores -- the density of strip malls is slowly increasing anyway, making them more balanced will only improve things. quote:quote: U-Haul and delivery service in every half-decent home improvement and materials stores exist already. And I don't see too many people driving around in the cities and suburbs in vehicles that are capable of transporting lumber. quote:quote: Government has no problems throwing amounts of money that can build such a system in every major city and surrounding area at various military things that end up providing no benefit whatsoever, or, at best, are good for keeping oil flowing for a little while. Again, highway system , at a scale comparable with this, was built pretty easily. quote: Isn't it one of the reasons why government has any money at all -- that it can use them for large-scale long-term investment that no private company would? And this "long-term" is long-term only at the scale of transportation industry, it all can be done within a decade, what is not really a long term for any government planning. quote:quote: And what is wrong with that? The overall damage will be less than from completely paralyzed highways now. "Discrimination" or not, large pieces of infrastructure depend on certain services, so whoever handles them should better not piss off people who work there. New concept, isn't it? quote: And relying on a single highway passing through an urban area for some reason does not? quote: You lose. People who live to the south from the city use cars because of a notoriously bad Caltrain line -- I used it, and had to buy a car after 30-60-minutes intervals and not a single train on time finally exceeded my patience. People who live across the bay mostly use a single subway line (BART) because whoever doesn't do that creates a giant mess right in front of the entrance to the bridge. A single bottleneck determines behavior of people who live in a large area to tht northeast from SF, and all that happens while BART is far from being well-planned or run efficiently, the layout of BART lines within the city is atrocious. After I have left SF, a BART line was extended to the south and reached the airport, however it continues further to the south. I guess, they expect that they will get at least a comparable number of people who will want to avoid bottlenecks at the 101/280 highways intersection to the people who want to avoid the bridge on 80. quote:quote: The more reasons not to piss them off. Certainly they can't be as bad as pissed off Arab terrorists. quote: You can have any backup plan you want. Even cars still waiting in a garage in every home. The point is, not to make the only system that works as inefficient as what we have now -- in emergency you can have whatever you want, from rikshas to personal helicopters for all I care. quote: Did I propose to ban the cars? quote:quote: This is just a case of poor planning. If you look at, say, Moscow subway map in the outer part of the city, you will see that wherever a person lives and works, he uses a bus for a very minor part of the commute -- all buses' routes pass through subway stops, and subway lines, with their speed incomparably higher than buses, go across the city, all intersecting in multiple points, and with the circle line across all of them, circling the usually congested center of the city. A bus waddling around a twisted route with infrequent stops is something that I have first seen in US. quote:quote: The whole point is to have things optimized in a way that there will be no additional delays. Wherever such a system will become efficient enough, people will switch to it, it's just for this to happen it must be done on a larger scale than what we see now. Wherever it will not work, people will still continue to use cars, it's just the goal should be to make it superior to cars. Again, I don't propose to ban cars, I propose to make something that will be more efficient than them, so cars will be an unnecessary luxury for most of people. quote: Huh? Those are unrelated problems, and again, everyone still has a choice to use a car, it's just there should be some balance between convenience and efficiency that people can choose. Right now it's either nothing, or unsustainable luxury for everyone, that ends up not so luxurious when everyone has to use it anyway. quote: Same thing. If lower resulted number of cars will drive the prices of oil up, companies that rely on this should be more than happy to compensate it with higher salaries. Otherwise don't build only horrible slums around anything remotely industrial-looking in the first place. quote: I think, the "problem" in that case is the solution -- don't build giant things so people will save money yet waste "cheap" energy trying to get there in the first place. Externalizing the problem goes only that far. quote: So is cocaine trade. Not everything has to be encouraged at someone's else expense. Mind you, I am not for banning th |