Random Thoughts.....What Are You Thinking?

Even I can spell ruin better than that.

Paged again!

At this point, it doesnt even surprise me you falling for the paging trap, but how easily you did.

Good morning you who are a veteran no lifer with dozen primes and years of playtime. You who have more REMA than sex in your life.

Also good morning you who are a stinking zoomer that cant do a single thing without someone holding your hand.

Also good morning you who transcend time and dimension, then look at the millenials vs zoomers bickering and say:

“Those filthy little monkeys”.

Its all a matter of perspective i guess.

A random thought i have been having is when i see some chicks with hm…. questionable cloths choice.

Generally walking in street, probably going to gym or coming back from it.

The shorts they have been using nowadays…. It feels like the exact same piece of cloth that is my trunks!

Dang someone need to tell them none that has reached the stage of civilization should walk in the street only using underwear.

Specially using underwear so tightied between the buttcheeks!

Even the poor *** need some room to breath!

Hah.

Clearly someone has not been to a gym in the past decade.

Underwear for "exercising" is the new norm.

Is it like that?

We largely don't even get the luxury of being allowed to have passenger trains.

You'll spend your whole paycheck on gas insurance and repairs, and be grateful for the freedom to (not) have a choice about it.

I hate flying. I wanted to take the train about the equiv of a 2 1/2 hour flight or 16 hour drive. It would've taken 47 hours by train

High speed rail between megaregions would be cost-prohibitive. When you try to compare the US to other countries with extensive passenger rail, consider the distance covered by those systems.

The entire Shinkansen network in Japan is 1834 miles. If you could do a reasonably straight rail line from the north end of ME to the south end of FL, you've already exceeded that. Add another line from FL to TX and you've doubled it. Link in CA, add some lines across the midwest.. it becomes an astronomically large project and you've still left most of the country[by area not population] hundreds of miles from a track.

Local rail is decent enough in NY and CA. It's unpleasant to ride compared to the Japanese local rail, but that's mostly because Americans are rude, selfish and disgusting people compared to Japanese.

I'm not even talking about interstate rail. Just county subways and/or lightrails.

There are definitely some cities where they could be beneficial, but I think far too many Americans would balk at walking between stations to get to work. We are not a healthy culture, and it's going to be hard to convince people to add a mile of walking, an extra 20 min of transport, and the unpleasantness of being around average city dwellers to their morning and afternoon routine.

Personally, I just don't see it. I love the concept of walkable cities and great public transport, but in practice the quality of the population has too great an impact on actual enjoyability.

Doesn't matter how anyone feels about, won't ever get the choice to decide how you would feel about it.

It matters to an extent, our democracy is ****ed for sure, but there's no reason to invest tens of billions into a public transport system that's going to run at a loss and eventually turn into a homeless refuge / trash dump.

It's obviously going to be different in every case, because implementations will require immense amounts of property acquisition/eminent domain, ongoing construction for decades, tax hikes, etc. I don't really suspect we'd pass it very many places even if we had the ability to directly vote on it.

Edit: In a way, the reasons we won't have it mirror the reasons we wouldn't like it. Constructing something like that in an existing city requires a degree of collectivism and willingness to invest in the future. A country of high-IQ people who value collective goals like Japan can handle this sort of construction and treat it with respect so it is a pleasant place to travel. Here, everyone is only concerned about their immediate gratification and **** everyone else.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_high-speed_railway_lines

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangzhou%E2%80%93Hong_Kong_high-speed_train

There are a lot of high speed rail in the world that's way shorter than that. If Guangzhou to Hong Kong can can have a 88 mile high speed rail, then it should work anywhere really.

I think it's mostly just people's preference on transportation. Asia has higher population density so there are higher need to fast travel between cities.

Collective goal has nothing to do with IQ. It's just cultural difference.

NA is FAR more diversed than Japan in terms of race, background and culture. Of course NA people will have wider opinions on different matters.

I don't think it's fair to say it is low IQ to have a more diverse opinion on public matters. Grass is greener on the other side I guess, I often feel jealous that NA people can have all sorts of different opinions.

Pretty sure this is the key takeaway here. We have relatively high population density areas with huge gaps between them:


This has created a culture where people see travel between megaregions as an occasional thing, and very few will regularly need to go to another megaregion. I can see how high speed rail from say, new jersey to NYC to Ct/MA would be useful at times. But, the type of travel that Iamaman was referencing would require high speed rail between megaregions. That is simply far too much track to lay for the amount of usage it would get.

I can get behind this line of thinking, there is also a greater inherent predisposition to collectivism in a less diverse society. But, the fact remains that the US is both lower average IQ and much higher diversity. These play a part in the less collective attitude we have, and that attitude is very detrimental to concepts like public transport.

Specifically in regards to this, I would say the higher IQ take is to realize how much potential energy[both fuel and human exertion] is saved if people abandon cars for public transport. This requires a degree of foresight beyond the immediate personal desire to get somewhere slightly faster. The arguments against it are not rooted in theoretical efficiency, but in assessment of population behavior and ability to utilize it to it's best potential.

I actually had this discussion with Zeig some time ago. I couldn't understand why east Asian countries often ended up having higher IQ in IQ tests, despite most of the best innovations and technology advancement all came from the US.

I suspect the way IQ test is designed only test specific kind of intelligence, such as the ability to identify logic between images.

But those intelligence doesn't represent every aspect of intelligence.

Either way, I still don't think it's fair to look down on a more diversed society, just based on what the US has accomplished in the field of technology.

I think the issue is comparing arithmetic mean to variance. US has a much higher level of variance. It is a fact that many african-americans are descendants of a eugenics program intended to select for physical labor capability and subserviance. We have more multi-racial citizens, creating greater genetic diversity, which gives more opportunity for upper bound standouts. Innovations and advancements are not representative of the entire population, they are only representative of the top couple % who actually contribute to those innovations and advancement.

So, an oversimplification may be that while IQ in the US has a lower arithmetic mean, it has a much greater variance. This gives us more of the breakthroughs provided by our top minds, and our best universities underscore this concept. State universities are little more than day cares compared to MIT.

But, when you bring this concept into politics, you have to contend with the greater amount of people who are well below average as well as the positive standouts. A country with less variance may have less positive standouts, but it also has less bad actors. I see our crime and poverty statistics as reflective of this theory.

Anecdotally, I just plain don't want to be on American transport surrounded by unwashed people eating loudly, leaving trash everywhere, etc. Urination and defecation on American subways is not even uncommon. The lack of respect for others makes it an experience ranging from unpleasant to downright disgusting. Japanese public transport is clean and respectful, and while there are downsides(rush hour train being shoulder to shoulder is not great), they are far milder than what you see in the US.

Even bigger issue than the amount of track not being feasible is just the fact that foundationally, we're a cars and highway nation. Unless the option to have a car becomes completely unavailable, people will try their best to get one and use the roads, over using any train, however awesome.

That, and due to the way businesses are situated and can be situated anywhere now, the introduction of high speed rail would be an inconvenience to business locations. Won't matter how much you wanna use the train, if you still have to drive to work.

Say we eliminate all these issues somehow, then there will still be blow back from the businesses that deal in selling cars and automotive parts, as well as from people and companies who've made bank through car maintenance.

We would need massive societal upheaval in the States to make high speed rail feasible and desired by the populace.

Look at the struggle nuclear power faces against oil and other energy companies. It's clearly the superior option that we should be investing in heavily, but for every ounce of support nuclear gets, a pound of opposition piles on.

I have trouble supporting nuclear for many of the same reasons I have trouble supporting rail. If every worker in the facility were of the highest quality, it is perfectly safe and incredibly efficient. But, it only takes a few cut corners to make it far more devastating than the other options. Historically, if you look at the damage done relative to the energy produced, nuclear is the most devastating power option.

Arguments in favor of it's efficacy are absolutely sound, but arguments in favor of it's safety hinge on the premise that we can uphold standards of conduct that exceed past levels. I do not believe we are able to do that if we upsize considerably, as there are only so many qualified people to staff the plants.

I like distributed solar. The efficiency is going up quite rapidly, and it has very low risks. It does not reduce carbon emissions as much as nuclear, but it is still an order of magnitude better than traditional combustion by most estimates.

That's mostly preference from the old habit I think. I have a car but if I am going to another city, it's always high speed rail for me. For $35-$40, It cuts down the 5-5.5 hr driving time to 1.5 hr-2hr, the time and energy saved is well worth the price. My time is way more valuable than that.

It even saves me the hotel money for needing to stay overnight.

By the time I arrive in another city I call a taxi/Uber for the destination. No car, no problem.

But I know car culture is a thing in the US so people probably prefer that way because of the culture. We also have wayyyyy cheaper train tickets than the NA probably, which also makes the train worth it.

Yea, even in the US I suspect this would be accepted very easily. When you're talking about city-to-city high speed rail (like example I gave earlier of NJ-NY-CT-MA), it would be very popular. But, the difficulty of establishing lines for it and economic proposition make it unlikely.

It's more of an issue for local transport, when subway takes 20 minutes longer and requires walking, while car travel is faster and less physical energy expenditure. That requires considerable change in culture.

Horse manure. Chernobyl continued to supply electricity until the year 2000. Three Mile Island continued operation until 2019.

Safety with regards to reactors starts at plant design. It is entirely possible to make plants run by humans that account for operator error/doing nothing, and keep things safe. I will gesture towards the USN and its fleet of Aircraft Carriers and Submarines, all powered by nuclear, and mostly operated by intellects on par with my own (many smarter, many less so).

The "devastation" of nuclear is often overblown, because it's something the general public does not understand.

Oil spills from supertankers and oil rig drill mishaps are unarguably far worse for the world at large, but they go on largely uncared about, because the effects are not immediate to people. Much the same as wildfires the world over. Ever heard of the Siberian Taiga fires? Dozens of times larger than those had in Australia a few years back that turned the sky there red. Anyone care about the Siberian Taiga fires? Nope.

https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2016.1145910

You can logically make a plant safe in ideal operating conditions, but you cannot account for all possible circumstances (sabotage, natural disaster, human incompetency, grid outage are all considerations). Safety protocols that account for a degree of operator error still need to be enforced by an operator(or code written by an operator). The more electronic it is, the less direct error comes into play and the more impact subtle failures have. There are people smarter than both of us that theorize accidents are inevitable, and the potential of those accidents is severe.

I am absolutely not arguing for using traditional combustion over nuclear. I specifically stated that I prefer distributed solar. But, the relative fuel used to produce solar panels is quite low. Distributed solar gives the potential for more grid resilience, and there is no catastrophic failure element anywhere in the process.

Yea, I get the issues with cost, eminent domain, distance, technology, regulations, and safety, but it's frustrating still. It seems like every high speed rail project I hear about gets derailed into bureaucracy, even shorter ones like the TN to ATL project proposed almost two decades ago.

It also seems like railways around the US are being decommissioned, when instead they could be put to use. Maybe there are issues with the corridors or they are too expensive to maintain, but the issue seems to be getting worse rather than better.

Rail is just a more pleasant way to travel than the other options, but it's massively slower here unless it's within the same region like the NE.

Mildly interesting read, but somewhat easy to dismiss. They don't have any real data, and present less data than you can find on wikpedia articles for the associated reactors. Example: The 1967 "fuel rod failure" was at the Chapelcross nuclear power plant. Chapelcross uses a liquid graphite moderator, which is already a design mistake (see: Chernobyl), but it is an older 1959 reactor. In the same reactor that experienced the fuel element failure and melted the cladding on the core, it was able to be cleaned out and refueled and then used safely until decommissioning in 2004. (though you can find a slew of minor incidents on Chapelcross's wikipedia page)

So the list of 10 accidents they have isn't even comparable to what they lead in with, in Fukushima or Chernobyl.

I mean, I agree. Statistically, there will be more nuclear accidents in the future. There will also be more oil spills. More wildfires. More earthquakes. More landslides. More wars. But it's impossible to say how bad they will be, because they will all have different variables and circumstances. I don't think we should deny the advantage of building new and better reactors.

I also think their paragraph for "did operators learn?" was kind of babbly. Obviously, operators and plant designers learn. Any serious nuclear training program teaches potential operators about every major nuclear meltdown, fast fission event, or steam explosion and the reasons for why they occurred. Sometimes the learning goes hand in hand with a plant refit, and years of shutdown.

But by this article's own admission, what constitutes a major accident actually has a pretty low bar. Theoretically, an operator could trip and fall and die in a nuclear power plant from a loose ladder rung, and it would get classed as a major accident due to loss of human life. I don't think we should restrict nuclear based on the fears of people who haven't worked with it.

One thing I did take from the article though, and it's something I've wished for, for a long while. I think we should make nuclear operations more transparent for the public. In this way we would dispel fear and gain trust. In this way, an article like this could mean more and have the data the writer knows it needs to mean more. Of course, I think a bit more is available these days, but there's a lot of jargon for people to get past, so that might not be effective either.

Also, I don't want you to think I'm disregarding your stance on being in favor of solar or other renewables. I have nothing against any form of power generation, honestly. For the regions where it works, solar is a miracle. Wind, kinda sorta. Hydroelectric is good eating. It's just that the power demands our society has come to rely on can only be met by juggernauts. And solar can't be that everywhere, and I hate seeing the one known power source that can, be hamstrung by the un and misinformed.

I think a bigger takeaway, and one not mentioned in the article, is that we are approaching what appears to be a critical juncture in global warming by many standards. If you are one to believe immediate action is necessary, then transition must be accomplished by any means possible.

Solar plants can be commissioned in less than 2 years, and require comparatively little engineering as most of the infrastructure required is simply to distribute the power loads generated. Distributed solar can be installed in less than 24 hours by everyday contractors with a couple of trivial licenses. Nuclear plants frequently take over 10 years to begin operation, and that is at the scale we are currently building them. If average output per plant remained the same, meeting our energy needs through just nuclear would require approximately 1200 new plants.

Since nuclear plants are designed uniquely around the available cooling for the proposed site, universal plans are not particularly viable. This means any large scale effort to adopt nuclear will require far more engineers than a small scale effort. When you increase the amount of required engineers, you by definition have to reduce the threshold for what qualifies as a capable engineer or the timespan over which the project is done. You can only get so much work out of each person. The same is true of the eventual operating staff.

What is safe with ~450 operating plants may not be as safe with the quality of construction and labor available for a goal of 600 plants, or 1200, or 1600+(amount needed to go all nuclear). It is hard to assume that you can commence large scale construction like this while retaining the same quality of engineering and safety standards in current plants, because we have a clear lack of skilled talent to accomplish it.

Ehh, people have been saying we're at a critical juncture for global warming or climate change longer than I've been alive. Predictions so far have all been wrong. I don't think there's a need for scrambling to build the 1200.

I also think there's no way solar meets that demand by itself, either. What we need is a spearheaded steady development on as much nuclear as possible, but also as many other types of energy production as well.

We need to make as many advancements in energy production as possible, because fossil fuels do run dry.

The primary take away for energy, is no matter how much we make, we'll just use more.

We'll never meet "need" because use will always increase and just match output. Traffic paradox.