284 karma · joined July 8, 2023
And no, I don't think prop 13 style laws would be helpful, it would just create more problems, as it has in California.
https://www.redfin.com/blog/most-expensive-states-to-buy-a-h...
I'm curious how problems like this would be dealt with in a vegan world. Just let the cats loose on the local rodent and bird population, maybe?
Here's[1] a study from Rutgers about this, it seems to conclude that bike lanes do impede traffic, but the reason is that when a bike lane is present, drivers don't speed and actually come to a stop when making a right on red, and in general, the drivers in these areas don't speed when there's a cyclist there. Speeding does alleviate traffic, but I don't really think the safety benefits are worth it.
[1] https://bloustein.rutgers.edu/rutgers-bike-lanes-reduce-traf...
To paint the picture, imagine it's rush hour, and there's cars backed up everywhere because that's just how it always is at rush hour. You're, let's say, 7 cars from the intersection, and a cyclist passes. You see them for a grand total of maybe 5 seconds before they're too far ahead of you to see, then they turn right at the intersection, and they're gone.
I don't feel safe when I ride like that, I've been almost hit multiple times from people going into a turn lane or making a right on red because they didn't even bother looking (or just didn't care and got within like a foot of me to get into the turn lane). Most of the time, it's fine, but what would be a minor accident in a car is going to leave you pretty injured on a bike.
People don't bike here because they can't. I don't live in a city, I live in one of the many dense suburbs (which are denser than many cities in the US) of NJ, where there's lots of roads, and almost no bike lanes. Where biking does happen, they bike in the street, with no shoulder, and hope not to get hit by cars.
The bikes aren't stolen because there are no bikes, because you'd have to have a deathwish to try biking in the road with cars in the same lane as them.
It's the densest state in the union, and the only places you can bike are Newark, Hudson County, New Brunswick, Trenton, Atlantic City, Camden, the barrier islands, and the boardwalks. The other 99% of the state, you're putting your life on the line.
It's about safety. Would you feel safe biking in those lanes? Would you feel more or less safe biking where there are none?
He explains some more numbers in the following paragraphs (that aren't needed to make my point), but the problem isn't even that AI can't make any money, it's that the scale of the money spent is so colossal, what they would need to do to actually make it back is insane! They'd need to actually replace most of the workers in the world because that is such a ridiculous, unimaginable amount of money! It outclasses all of their combined revenue significantly, and remember, these companies don't tell us how much money they make from AI (anymore), they bundle it in with other things, and if it was good, you know they'd be shouting it from the rooftops how much they were making.
I also don't take seriously any of his predictions that have dates attached to them - after all, the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. I don't trust his timing, but the numbers don't lie.
[1] https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-more-you-buy-the-more-you-lo...
I think drivers are catered to in almost every single scenario in the United States to the point that giving cyclists any space, any infrastructure, or anything that is not also usable by cars is almost unthinkable. With that in mind, yes, drivers will be inconvenienced. Oh well. They're convenienced at almost every turn in almost every decision about transportation, let's give bikes a chance too.
You have a bike trail? Lucky! I live in central NJ, while bike trails do exist in the western part of the state, where people live here, they basically don't exist and you have to just ride in the street. Almost no offices even have a storage room, so you'd be chaining your bike to a sign, most likely, or storing it behind the building somewhere. You have it better than we do here...clearly, there's a lot more work to be done.
Adding that detail, the situations are a bit more apples-to-oranges.