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Comment by thrwawy74 | Hacker News Reader

I know it's not this company's focus, but I wish we had coast-to-coast and Mexico-to-Canada tunnels for travel and defense. Just imagine having no street-level highways, and what that would means for animal migrations in more rural areas. Has me thinking of some iRobot scenes. :)

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The U.S. is too bought into security theaterism for this to happen. The border especially the southern border should feel like a state border. Border towns already have probably half their commuters playing this stupid "heres my papers sir" fascist border crossing game to go work their retail job in El Paso or wherever. It's a performance for politics at the end of the day which means its not going away any time soon as long as it continues to have political utility. San diego transit would run into TJ if this world had any logic, but instead you exit the train from san diego a few feet from the border and have to cross by foot into tj, because security theater.

Meanwhile the cartel just reacts by opening more labs and grow operations stateside or digging tunnels themselves instead of having their business be at all affected by this security theater.

While I do understand 'security theater' and think we could do better, I have to wonder what it's like crossing from an EU country to a non-EU country. People abroad look at our border crossings and react strongly, but I think most of the time they're going from France to Germany (example).

I'd love to see tunnels like this for easy transit that doesn't waste surface area/acreage.

> but I wish we had coast-to-coast and Mexico-to-Canada tunnels

Like the Alameda-Weehawken burrito tunnel?

https://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda_weehawken_burrito_...

It would be great to have a global version of this for some extremely quick delivery of goods from the other side of the world. Obviously with a price to match.

I believed this thing existed for a non-trivial amount of time

In other countries animal bridges connect habitats split by highways.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=animal+bridge&t=h_&iax=images&ia=i...

There are over 1,000 wildlife overpasses and underpasses in America as well: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/31/climate/wildl...

So that's enough for one national highway.

What about the others?

that’s not practical for cross-country travel, but it’s imminently possible in cities. think how much greener and human scale cities would be if all cars were underground, including parking.

Don't need to imagine. Just go to Oslo.

i was actually reading a bit about oslo the other day. i'd wanted to see maps and pictures of the underground roads/parking but the article i was reading didn't have any.

The US has a construction cost problem. The Big Dig cost $24B. East Side Access cost $12B. Gateway Program will cost $30B, and every time you blink the cost goes up. It’s a miracle we actually build anything.

yes, and it's dismaying to say the least. we also do high-speed rail to nowhere for political not civic aims. ~85% of californians live near the coast, and/or wants to visit the coast, and we put rail through the central valley. even worse, the service is not going to be cost/time competitive with flying, not only because of the route but also inflated real estate and construction costs lining the pockets of all the favored rentiers with hats in hand.

At this point we probably need coast-to-coast tunnels / pipelines for moving water around

Why? There is plenty of water in the west. It's just mismanaged by entrenched agrarian business interests.

20+ year drought, all reservoirs at record low levels does not indicate "plenty of water"

Sure the mismanaged water is a problem but I am not sure baring the use for "agrarian business interests" aka Food production, is the solution either.

What is your solution or idea of proper management? Only Potable uses?

Switching from flood based irrigation to spot watering. Selecting different crops than cotton for mattresses and pistachios or alfalfa and hay used for export. Farmers in the West use a lot of water because they can due to their water rights agreement, then they say "given this water allocation, what crop will maximize my return on my dollar" and they end up doing stuff like growing pistachios as a result because that's where the incentives have pushed them. Adjust the incentives and the crop choices and practices in the west will change. We don't need the cotton fit for mattresses or $10 bags of pistacios to feed us. The midwest alone produces plenty enough biomass for this country. Much of it there as well is exported elsewhere for individualized profit.

It puts the whole country at risk. Because the desert has almost a perpetual growing season, everywhere else is out of business or at least sustainable business.

Growing perpetually in a greenhouse setting is probably vastly more efficient than out in the desert where you are subject to constant losses to evaporation

> "given this water allocation, what crop will maximize my return on my dollar"

It has traditionally been "given this water allocation, if I don’t use it I will lose it so what thirsty crop can I grow to keep it" so they grow alfalfa and cotton in the desert.

Though, apparently, this has been changed recently to conserve water for the golf courses in the desert.

We probably have to rethink growing the thirstiest crops in a semi-arid environment.

It is indeed asinine IMO that we irrigate the southwest to grow alfalfa, almonds etc when those crops grow perfectly in the grade A farmland of Iowa, while Iowa is subsidized to grow mainly number 2 yellow corn for animal fodder. "Corn Subsidies in Iowa totaled $19.7 billion from 1995-2020" [0]. What is wrong with this picture?

[0] https://farm.ewg.org/progdetail.php?fips=19000&progcode=corn

> What is wrong with this picture?

The federal primary election system…

That would be too funny if it wasn't so true.

>What is wrong with this picture?

America's desire for cheap beef. It is what is for dinner after all.

Corn subsidies are specifically used to keep feed prices down, and thus beef prices down.

Food prices due to inflation are going to play a HUGE role in the midterms, agree or disagree you are not going to get any elected official to vote to increase the price of the hamburger.

Iowa finishing pigs were the largest class of livestock consuming corn, approximately 340 million bushels, which is about 16.6% of the Iowa corn crop, or 55% of all the corn fed to livestock in Iowa [0]. Iowa is the number one pork producing state in the U.S. raising nearly one-third of the nation's hogs, and the top state for pork exports [1]. In 2021, exports accounted for 29.4 percent of total U.S. pork and pork variety meat production [2].

[0] https://www.iastatedigitalpress.com/air/article/id/6168/down...

[1] https://www.iowapork.org/news-from-the-iowa-pork-producers-a...

[2] https://www.porkcheckoff.org/markets/us-pork-exports/

I think the key word there is "in Iowa" these reports are about Corn use in the state, not about Corn Subsidies nationwide or even the over all use of Corn from Iowa in other states.

as you said Iowa has high pork production so it is obvious that would be the main use of Corn Feed IN Iowa, but that would not track to other states like say Texas where there is less pig and more Cow

I don’t think almond trees will grow in Iowa. I’m not an arborist though.

Pistachios certainly don't. They are desert trees native to Iran.

Nuts that can be grown in Iowa include black walnuts, Persian (so-called “English”) walnuts, heartnuts, pecans and other hickory nuts, hazels, almonds, chestnuts, and perhaps a few other minor species. [0]

[0] https://practicalfarmers.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Tom-...

Almonds can be grown in Iowa, according to the document you cited, but in the next section (Which ones should I grow, or should I grow them all?) after your quote one finds:

"Almonds—Unreliable in bearing due to susceptibility to late frosts and numerous diseases"

So I would say no to commercial production of almonds on Iowa. The California central valley is probably the best place on Earth to grow almonds, so it's a good place to do that. The US needs to trade something for those Chinese goods. Deserts are good places to grow things, if you have the water, because the mentioned diseases are much less prone to develop and spread.

> Sure the mismanaged water is a problem but I am not sure baring the use for "agrarian business interests" aka Food production, is the solution either.

It really is though. They're using over 90% of the water in the state, so where else do you suggest cutting it from? Further, if you look into the state of California's water rights, you will come to understand that the problem is, in fact, a group of reactionary agri-barons who jealously protect their ability to freeload off the State's natural resources.

This would be great for vampires. Also incredibly expensive.

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