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Comment by exporectomy | Hacker News Reader

As someone who knows nothing about that issue, what you said is neither here nor there. That makes it look like you're just repeating a political talking point without understanding why it matters or what it means.

There's nothing inherently wrong with making building wind turbines harder. Maybe it's for safety reasons, or to protect the environment or workers rights or property rights or whatever. It's absolutely the government's job to make some activities more difficult when necessary.

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There would be nothing inherently wrong with making building wind turbines harder if you actually presented an alternative means of reaching carbon neutrality fast.

Not sure you understand my point. Imagine, for example, the industry was poorly regulated and filled with cowboys. Lots of workers were getting killed in accidents and the government made stricter safety regulations to protect them but it also increased the difficulty of building wind turbines. Is that really a bad thing? Should they sacrifice human life to get maximum speed towards carbon neutrality?

imaginary scenarios are relevant to actual politics being criticized how?

That's exactly the point the grandparent made - as long as we don't know the actual circumstances, we can only imagine scenarios (that can go either way) and these do not matter.

so the point is that a short throwaway comment in an online forum didn't contain the full context for people who know nothing about the situation? And instead of asking for context we rather go "oh but there are theoretical situations where your statement is bad!"?

exporectomy asked for the context in his first comment [0]. adrianN (the OP) replied by saying that he thinks there is no scenario where this might be a good thing, so exporectomy provided one. This shows that simply filling in an imaginary scenario is not sufficient, as you can spin the story either way - making imaginary scenarios useless, as you correctly pointed out.

So the overall this subthread is asking for context and then clarifying why it's needed.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27709355

Yes. Without the details, the information says neither good or bad about the politician so what's the point of saying anything more than "I don't like him"? It's the type of fact that people repeat because it fits their prejudice and they forget that it lacks meaning. Great for talking past people with and helping no-one understand anything.

I see your point. However, this is not what's happening in Germany. Last year the Netherlands managed to build more wind turbines than Germany. I don't think you need reckless endangerment of anybody or anything to beat that number.

I live in a German community considering building wind turbines in our nearby forest. The installations in our region usually use Siemens Gamesa turbines and are part of a coalition between industry and academia, and it ain't their first rodeo. The industry is neither dangerous nor amateur, but it IS plagued by a ton of special interest resistance and disinformation.

Two details, lawsuits and safety:

The lawsuits filed for every single turbine project are a major pain. The anti-windmill crowd is a perfect example of German efficiency. They inject their opinions and objections from every reach of the country into every local community's discussion. Most of it is pseudoscience, like noise effects. I can hear the Autobahn from nearly every part of my town and its surrounding nature trails. Getting the legal roadblocks to green energy out of the way would be a victory for the climate. (From what I've witnessed, Germans are fairly resistant to change and very eager to protest: Stuttgart 21, Cyber Valley, Tesla, Berlin Airport, Querdenker, Fridays for Future)

If the German government wanted more regulation in the name of safety, there are easier pickings than the [likely completely unionized] wind turbine industry: ban traditional Maibaum raising, implement an Autobahn speed limit, limit fireworks during New Years Eve, change public policy and security stance toward football (soccer) matches, more aggressively surveil fringe movements.

Limiting fireworks: check

Football: partially checked

surveillance of perceived 'fringes': checked

speed limit: in discussion for autobahn, rolled out in more and more parts of cities, so partially checked

wtf is/was cyber valley? silicon saxony?

Nuclear power plants ?

No. For whatever reason, basically all political parties in Germany are anti-nuclear, and the country is phasing out their last working reactors next year.

Not quite. AfD is pro-nuclear, CDU/CSU is opportunistically pro/con, FDP the same (i guess). Only the left is firmly opposed. The thing is that the anti-nuclear public sentiment is strong enough that any pro-nuclear movement or politics is doomed to fail. Any pro-nuclear move is political suicide.

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