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Comment by runarberg | Hacker News Reader

This is a true and an important concern. Municipalities and counties in California really need to step up their game and provide a viable and cheap to use alternative.

Everybody deserves to be able to go where they want within their community when they want to. And we should provide these without relying on private companies with questionable labor practices.

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Americans spent $1 TRILLION on personal transport (cars + car insurance, mainly) in 2017 [1]. Imagine if just half that went to building local subway networks / high-speed rail across the country / expanding bus options.

[1]: https://www.itdp.org/2019/05/23/high-cost-transportation-uni...

Yeah, that'd be great when they shut it all down for the next pandemic

This is a dishonest argument. Compared to the United States, countries like Japan, Germany, and others in Europe have been much more successful at containing the pandemic, even with their extensive public transport systems.

Our transportation system is entirely based on individual travel, and yet we cannot keep cases under control.

Besides, this situation is not permanent. We should not live in complete isolation out of fear for the next pandemic. Instead, we should learn from our mistakes this time around, and agree on an appropriate course of action to protect against future contagions.

I live outside of the USA. I used to take our electric rail system all the time. Haven't touched it since January and won't go back till next year. Have fallen in love with driving and the personal convenience of it all over again.

Even when the pandemic is over, I might end up driving more often than before. It's so nice to know that I can just stay somewhere until I want to leave, to know that I can go wherever I want at whatever time, without having to worry about coordinating it with anyone else. Profoundly enabling, even as it is sickeningly individualist.

You might reconsider when the pandemic is actually over and more people start carrying this mindset that will increase traffic.

But that is besides the point, what you personally feel doesn’t really matter. Your previous comment is still incredibly dishonest. Functioning frequent and convenient mass transit system is enabling for far more people then personal transports. Even during a pandemic there are ways to mitigate the risk of spreading the virus. And even if not, a pandemic is a temporary situation, and after it is over the infrastructure is still there to enable much more people to transport them self, in varying physical conditions, without sacrificing the working conditions and benefits of the transportation workers.

> But that is besides the point, what you personally feel doesn’t really matter. Your previous comment is still incredibly dishonest.

If I say what I believe, it's not dishonest. It might be _wrong_, but it's not a lie.

It is a lie by obfuscation. Americans do need better public transpiration options. Mentioning the pandemic serves no purpose other then to obfuscate this fact. The fact that the current pandemic is causing some of the existing options to be more limited does in no way take a way from this need.

Yeah, this is a pattern I see a lot. Rather than discussing solutions to an problem, there is a tendency from some people to just throw their hands up in the air and say "it is what it is, can't do anything about it!". When it comes to...

> Public Transportation... if future pandemics pose a danger, what can we do to implement transport options that will be safe during future pandemics? How can we better design our cities to make individual transport by bike/foot more possible, rather than by car? etc etc. Let's listen to urban planners and public policy experts.

> Election Security... if voter fraud is an issue, what security measures can we take to ensure that every citizen can safely and securely exercise their right to vote? Let's listen to cryptographers.

> Wealth Inequality... how can we ensure that all children have a safe and nurturing home environment, along with the opportunities for school and work that they need to achieve upward social mobility? Let's listen to educators and economists.

> Healthcare... how can we reform hospitals and private/public insurance to provide both urgent and preventative medical care at a fair price? Let's listen to medical health professionals and economists.

There are many possible answers to these questions. I would love love love to debate actual solutions. But it's hard to even agree there is a problem! Often, the reason is that national+local news networks are all fed their talking points by wealthy individuals who personally profit from a broken system.

> Americans do need better public transpiration options

No-one has mentioned transpiration until now. This is a lie by changing the subject completely.

but I have all this water vapor that I need to exhale through my stomata!

haha, I rely too much on my spell checker. If I misspell a word I’ll too often click on the first word in the context menu without actually reading it and seeing if it is the word I want.

> Compared to the United States, countries like Japan, Germany, and others in Europe have been much more successful at containing the pandemic, even with their extensive public transport systems

UK here. We contained it by mostly stopping using public transport. The efficiency case for public transport (in its current form) is inversely correlated with social distancing.

California proved that $100B won't even build you a high speed rail between SF and LA. The cost of convincing people to change their mind, is still cost.

At least we know now that a $100B will get you a high speed train from Bakersfield to Merced in 10 years behind schedule.

I think though that California has an extreme case of NIMBY-ism which makes much needed projects like these so much harder then then should be. I’m sure similar projects in Texas between Houston and Dallas would be far easier to complete on schedule. Similar with the Cascadian corridor between Portland OR, and Vancouver BC. Although I see the Pacific North Western politicians capitalizing on this project for a few decades to win a few more election before this projects gets a go-ahead.

Why step up and provide a viable and cheap alternative when you can just step down and not kill the existing cheap alternative?

Because these cheap alternatives rely on questionable labor practices.

People with limited mobility deserve the same freedom of movement as fully abled people, however that cannot come at the cost of the workers who provide it. We should be asking for both adequate transportation and fully compensated and decently paid workers.

If only there could be an efficient method for connecting those who need to travel with those who can provide them with transportation.

Wait a sec - this efficient method doesn't involve abusing contractor status to not pay employees benefits, does it? If it does, I'd rather come up with another idea, thanks.

You're right, we'll make it completely voluntary for the transportation providers to participate.

This myth of voluntary participation in capitalism has been debunked many time. When you need to sell you labor in order to feed and house you and your family, it isn’t voluntary by a long shot. It is not a free market because the employer has a significant advantage. This is why we need labor regulations and protections. When a workplace fills out their labor needs with contractors, it is an obvious way to circumvent these necessary labor regulations and protections.

So you are wrong—as California is proofing—unregulated gig-capitalism is not a system that can provide fair working conditions and cheap accessible transportation at the same time.

So your assertion is that unless a person has all of their basic needs met, they are providing labor compulsorily? If we're just starting from Marxist axioms, whereby all relations between classes are best understood as power struggles, then sure everything you said follows.

We're not, however, so you have quite the circular argument going on here. By any reasonable definition, I am not compelled to work -- despite laboring in order to myself and my family fed and housed. Power struggles are a poor lens for understanding this dynamic.

So your refutation of my argument is: “Because Marx said so, it must be false”? Note that I’ve never mentioned classes or power struggle in my arguments, so you are putting words in my mouth.

I don’t understand how my argument is circular. If you strip away any ways for a person to provide for them self except selling their own labor, you are basically saying to them: “work or perish!” Technically perishing is an option, but it is not an option most people will consider (including my self; and demonstrably Uber drivers).

The argument is not "Marx therefore bad," it's that this is a useless observation. You've selected axioms that necessitate your conclusion. It's like me saying "the most moral thing anyone can do is preventing a human death, and therefore everyone here is immoral because they're writing comments on a message board instead of flying to an impoverished country to feed a starving child."

That's true, given the predicate. I don't know why it would be relevant, since -- just like with your comment -- nobody has conceded this definition of morality. The conver preceding is not obviously rooted in Marxist class struggle, so I'm not sure why you're framing it thus (whether you use the words or not.)

Your argument depends on everyone agreeing that, unless a person's basic need for house and food are totally met first, anything they do in pursuit of those needs is compelled and not voluntary. This is not an agreed upon predicate.

I think you'll find that few, if any, "economic predicates" are universally agreed upon. Certainly, in your original post, you're accepting some premises that allow for your own claims to be true, and which are not universally agreed upon. So why can't he?

I think you'll find that most, if not all, human conversations are embedded in a context, which carries assumptions, so that participants can understand each other without iterating all of their definitions. That's why, for example, I don't have to start every conversation in my life by clarifying that I will not be explaining everything in terms of Xenu and thetans.

And if I did want to explain things in those terms, I should first explain why that's a valuable frame to adopt.

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