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Comment by cdoxsey | Hacker News Reader

> we have a political system in which the federal government, having devolved virtually all decision-making power to states

That's definitely not true. Just look at the ACA.

> California's high-speed rail progress—its proposed San Francisco-to-Los Angeles line remains the only truly fast train project in the country—is the exception that proves the rule; that state's size makes it no example for the rest of the nation.

Yeah let's just pretend that California's train to nowhere is an example other states should emulate.

We can't build high speed trains because: (1) the government is corrupt, incompetent and beholden to interest groups and (2) the public doesn't really want them.

The best example of public transportation the US has is probably NYC and it really isn't all that great. It's dirty, slow, unreliable, crowded and surprisingly expensive. (at 100$/mo owning a car in almost any other city in the US is cheaper)

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>The best example of public transportation the US has is probably NYC and it really isn't all that great. It's dirty, slow, unreliable, crowded and surprisingly expensive. (at 100$/mo owning a car in almost any other city in the US is cheaper)

You obviously don't live in NYC for saying such things.

I love the subway and love the fact that I don't have to take a car to work. It's green (runs off of electricity). I don't have to worry about oil changes, tires, gas, insurance, the initial outlay of a lot of cash for a car... etc. Did I mention its faster than a cab?

I'll give you that it's dirty and crowded (depending on the time). But nothing else.

Where can you own, and presumably drive, a car for less than $100/mo?

Even if you assume parking is free on both ends of your journey and that the car was given to you for free, there is no way you are spending less than $100 a month. Gas alone probably gets you close to $100. Then you add on registration and insurance and ongoing maintenance costs. I want to live in this fantasy world where cars are "cheaper"

> (at 100$/mo owning a car in almost any other city in the US is cheaper)

Where do you live where gas is free and so is maintenance and car insurance and parking?

Not to mention the cost of the car! A really rough estimate of what I spent on my car in the 9 years that I owned one in California:

   $11k: insurance ($1200/yr, a bargain for a 20-something male)
   $8k: depreciation (bought at $18k, sold at $10k)
   $4k: gas (~50k miles @ 35 mpg, ~$3/gal)
   $3k: maintenance (very good luck on this one)
   $2k: tolls, parking, etc. (infrequent for me)

Works out to about $260/mo. Not terrible, but a noticeable part of my budget. And I managed to go 9 years without a single accident, major maintenance issue, or run-in with traffic cops, any of which could easily have caused things to add up to a considerably higher number.

NYC system is not slow, nor unreliable. Yes, dirty-ish but I'd trade some hygiene for reliability, 24/7 access and speed. It's also not expensive especially if you work in the city and get a pre-tax unlimited card. It also costs way more than $100/month to own a card in NYC.

>> we have a political system in which the federal government, having devolved virtually all decision-making power to states

> That's definitely not true. Just look at the ACA.

Well, if the author studied history he would have known that our political system is that where states came together and decided to devote some decision-making power to the federal government. As time passed this federal government usurped as much power as it could but apparently for some people it's still not enough.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

In a democracy, the people get to decide how much power the federal government will have. You might feel it's too much, others might disagree. It's settled by majority vote.

Not if you read the Constitution. This question is not up for a simple majority vote.

> Not if you read the Constitution. This question is not up for a simple majority vote.

The Constitution creates a framework; almost all political decisions are majority votes (as interpreted through our political institutions). I don't agree that the federal government has usurped too much power in general (though there are specific cases); which one of us is right is decided by majority vote.

So you think that if people decide to take any power away from the Federal government it will be possible to accomplish it by a vote that will be conducted by that same government? Highly unlikely that it will ever happen and that it why there are strict limitations on the power of Federal government in the Constitution. Unfortunately upholding the Constitution does not seem to be a popular trend in today's politics.

>> we have a political system in which the federal government, having devolved virtually all decision-making power to states

> That's definitely not true. Just look at the ACA.

The ACA devolves most power to the states, who run their own exchanges, including the ability to not participate at all. Compare that to other countries (which have much less expensive and more effective health care systems).

> We can't build high speed trains because: (1) the government is corrupt, incompetent and beholden to interest groups and (2) the public doesn't really want them.

I disagree on #1, at least in a relative sense. The US government is relatively clean compared to most, including others that build and manage train systems such as Russia and India.

The problem, IMHO, is the demonization of government by a small group. Due to our political structure that small minority can block government from acting, bringing such gridlock that it can't even raise revenues or pay bills reliably. That reduces the general public's confidence in government's capacity to solve problems, not because something is generally wrong with government but because of the gridlock. Until we solve that problem, nothing else will happen.

> The best example of public transportation the US has is probably NYC and it really isn't all that great. It's dirty, slow, unreliable, crowded and surprisingly expensive. (at 100$/mo owning a car in almost any other city in the US is cheaper)

I'll disagree here.

If you live in Manhattan, public transit is fast and efficient. As for "dirty", well it wasn't white glove immaculate, but it isn't covered in filth or human waste.

As for $ of owning a car, I drive very little (my commute to work is a paltry 4 miles!), but just going around on weekends to meet with friends costs me an easy $40/week, making gas alone more than $100/month.

> Yeah let's just pretend that California's train to nowhere is an example other states should emulate.

Hyperloop makes more sense. Personally I'd love to see Hyperloop running down the entire west coast.

> the government is corrupt, incompetent and beholden to interest groups

Which in turn is because of the 2-party oligopoly. Instant run-off voting, to give 3rd parties a viable chance of winning, is part of the solution.

Another reason for corruption is pay-to-play. A full war chest doesn't guarantee winning the elections, but not having one guarantees that you won't get into parliament. And if you do get in your donors expect some kind of return. Campaign finance return is sorely needed, at the moment the system is plainly corrupt, and that doesn't help the legitimacy of whatever government is in power at the moment.

Yep. In the US, if we could get a viable 3rd party we could maybe get campaign finance reform. Until then there is no chance of it.

Multi-party (more than two) doesn't mean that the government is competent or not beholden to special interest groups. See, for example, Italy.

>> the government is corrupt, incompetent and beholden to interest groups

> Which in turn is because of the 2-party oligopoly.

We were able to accomplish a lot in the 20th century with that 2-party oligopoly. I don't support it, but it's no excuse for our inability to get things done.

There are many ways to give '3rd parties' a chance. A simpler one is, let folks vote for ALL acceptable candidates, not just choose one. E.g. vote for your party AND for the compromise candidate. This could drive candidates toward the middle.

You're describing instant run-off voting.

No, "vote for all acceptable candidates" is approval voting, a method that uses binary markings (like vote-for-one FPTP voting), but allows multiple marked candidates on each ballot, with (like FPTP) the candidate getting the highest number of marks elected.

Its very different from IRV, which is a forced-ranking method which elects the candidate with the majority of first place rankings if one exists, and if not throws out all votes for the candidate with the lowest number of first place rankings (leaving the next-ranked candidate first on those ballots) and then tries again, repeating until some candidate has a majority of first place rankings.

Neither is, IMO, a particularly good single winner election for candidates for political office (though there are some other uses of voting for which I think Approval is a good method -- for instance, in social situations where opting out of an activity is permissible and an approval vote has a crystalized meaning of "I opt out unless one of the alternatives I've marked is selected, and I commit not to opt out if one of those alternatives is selected"), but they are the most commonly recommended alternatives to the US's more common methods of plurality and majority-runoff vote-for-one elections, probably because they are the alternative mechanisms that are structurally most similar (AV can be viewed as a generalization of plurality -- he who gets the most # of votes wins -- without a vote-for-one restriction, and IRV is simply using a ranked ballot to allow a simple generalization of majority-runoff to be done off a single balloting.)

Approval Voting is actually an extremely good voting method.

http://ScoreVoting.net/BayRegsFig.html http://ScoreVoting.net/AppCW.html

Sort of. That implies ranking, which is unnecessary.

The NYC public transportation isn't that slow. At least not in my experiences (living here the past 6 years).

Are other cities public transportation better? I haven't found any that are close to as convenient as NYC.

Yes, but not in the US. I've used the subway in LA (yes, they have a subway if you can call it that), Washington D.C., and NYC.

Go visit Tokyo if you really want to see what you're missing out on. US public transport is a sad joke.

I don't think you can run a subway like Japan anywhere except Japan. Different culture.

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