Comment by alex_c | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alex_c | Hacker News Reader

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I agree with your points about what is and isn't "better", but that is not what I am arguing.

Are you saying there are no lessons the West can learn from China's infrastructure projects without resorting to authoritarianism, IP theft, or environmental harm? That there is no way to pick apart and separate some positive learnings from the negatives?

Are you saying THIS is the best we can do as a Western democracy?

https://torontolife.com/city/transportation/tortured-history...

To me, this kind of paralysis on infrastructure projects is not "better" by any definition you use. It's not an intentional tradeoff between infrastructure and environmental protection, or between public development and property rights. It's just indecision, waste, and stagnation.

Every time a comparison to China's infrastructure comes up, the knee jerk reaction is to point out that it's an authoritarian regime so of course they can force through any infrastructure project they want. Which is fair enough, but it drowns out any discussion asking "Hey, CAN we do any better in the West than we are doing right now? Is what we have good enough?"

> Are you saying there are no lessons the West can learn from China's infrastructure projects without resorting to authoritarianism, IP theft, or environmental harm? That there is no way to pick apart and separate some positive learnings from the negatives?

Not at all. Every nation can always learn from others, or at least be motivated by the accomplishments of others to improve internally.

> Are you saying THIS is the best we can do as a Western democracy?

Maybe? Again, it depends on what your definition of "best" is. If not enough people in Toronto think it's important enough to have a robust public transit system, then it doesn't happen. I'm very confident Toronto has the resources required to complete an ambitious project if desired.

> To me, this kind of paralysis on infrastructure projects is not "better" by any definition you use. It's not an intentional tradeoff between infrastructure and environmental protection, or between public development and property rights. It's just indecision, waste, and stagnation.

If the project isn't a good use of resources, indecision and inaction is the better outcome.

> Every time a comparison to China's infrastructure comes up, the knee jerk reaction is to point out that it's an authoritarian regime so of course they can force through any infrastructure project they want. Which is fair enough, but it drowns out any discussion asking "Hey, CAN we do any better in the West than we are doing right now? Is what we have good enough?"

Unlike in China, these discussions already happen regularly, and the key difference between the status quo in China and the West is the decision making process, so that's where the conversation is focused.

>Maybe? Again, it depends on what your definition of "best" is. If not enough people in Toronto think it's important enough to have a robust public transit system, then it doesn't happen. I'm very confident Toronto has the resources required to complete an ambitious project if desired. >If the project isn't a good use of resources, indecision and inaction is the better outcome.

I wish I shared your confidence, but this suggests otherwise:

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2018/09/26/transit-the-number-1-...

I find it difficult to accept that this is the best outcome by any metric I can think of.

>Unlike in China, these discussions already happen regularly, and the key difference between the status quo in China and the West is the decision making process, so that's where the conversation is focused.

Is it? The conversation is focused on how China is authoritarian, not on how the Western (I really should say North American) decision-making process often leads to poor outcomes and stagnation when it comes to public projects.

This IS getting pretty far off-topic from the actual article, so I'll stop here.

> I wish I shared your confidence, but this suggests otherwise:

That's a pretty recent poll (on the timeline you provided in the earlier article), so maybe it's a sign that a more comprehensive transit system will be built soon.

> I find it difficult to accept that this is the best outcome by any metric I can think of.

It's definitely not optimal if you support public transit. The western model is more concerned with preventing tyranny than efficiency or optimal outcomes, for better or worse. This could very easily be one of the times where "worse" is the case. I'd still prefer it over an authoritarian system.

> Is it? The conversation is focused on how China is authoritarian, not on how the Western (I really should say North American) decision-making process often leads to poor outcomes and stagnation when it comes to public projects.

It seems to have expanded quite a bit beyond that (not between you and I, just generally), which seems pretty common for these types of topics.

> This IS getting pretty far off-topic from the actual article, so I'll stop here.

Fair enough, thanks for the discussion.

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