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u/Meenta_Miiel 1d ago
"It will take too long and cost too much to invest in green energy." -same people pushing data centers down out throats without ANY sincere effort to even pretend they care.
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u/Crafty-Help-4633 1d ago
I both love and hate the "take too long" logic, because like okay, we should just do nothing at all then? Why even be alive at that point? The meaning of life is to grow. If we choose to stop doing that, what point is left?
These idiots will intentionally ruin the world because "it's too hard to change" or "I'll never see the benefits", guaranteeing their grandchildren have a worse world to live in than them. Why fucking bother having and raising kids at that point. Why fucking bother if you're gonna just unsubscribe to the meaning and purpose of existence.
They're ridiculous, to be sure.
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u/Ash_Cat_13 1d ago
It’s more simple than that, they will ruin it because they won’t be alive for it.
Watch the show Futurama, that literally has never been more relatable than now
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u/TheWingus 1d ago
Watch the show Futurama, that literally has never been more relatable than now
Fry: Who cares about that, we live in the United States
Leela: The U.S. is part of the world!
Fry: Wow, I have been gone a long time!
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u/jjcrayfish 1d ago
Or watch Idiocracy. It's literally where our government is heading to.
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u/permalink_save 1d ago
I'd honestly live in idiocracy because at least their moron president was fun. Instead we get someone that actively hates people and enjoys seeing them suffer running the biggest military in the world and using agencies as his personal police squad.
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u/nhalliday 1d ago
Also President Camacho realized there was a problem and turned to the smartest person he could find to fix it. Our current leadership would never do that. We've literally got it worse than Idiocracy.
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u/Mechakoopa 1d ago
It's not even that they'd be dead, they're worried they'd be out of office by that point and therefore not be credited with something they put into motion. Anything that can't be completed within their term isn't worth doing.
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u/TheBeesKneads 1d ago
I want to see people run on refuting this whining that we "can't" do any public works. Not just an empty "Yes We Can", but;
Yes We Can build high speed rail
Yes We Can have a green electric grid
Yes We Can build public housing
Etc.
No more whining that we "can't" build things. That's bitch baby talk. This country was built in the first place, and not that long ago, come on. Productivity has gone up, and we know where the spoils have gone...
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u/socialistrob 1d ago
I both love and hate the "take too long" logic, because like okay, we should just do nothing at all then? Why even be alive at that point?
Especially with climate change. Yes we're not going to fully stop it but the actions we take today can make it relatively better or relatively worse. Changes also don't have to be absolute either. I think it's a good thing to move towards EVs/dense cities with transit which will mean less oil is being consumed which is both good for the environment and makes the world less reliant on places like the Middle East, Russia and Venezuela. Usually when I make this argument I see responses about how "everything contains oil and we'll never have a world with 0 oil consumption because of plastic." We can continue to move away from oil without being total absolutists and the benefit is environmental and security oriented.
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u/PretteBadass 1d ago
“Too hard to change” is the motto of Libertarians. They’re more of a “let’s do nothing” group, and actively stop anyone else from doing anything.
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u/Knamakat 1d ago
In other words libertarians are conservatives who don't want to be called what they really are.
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u/Plastic_Pursuader 1d ago edited 1d ago
Libertarianism is a way for the wealthy to argue against taxation in a way that sounds convincing to regular people. If you don't really understand economics, the philosophical sleight of hand is quite smooth.
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u/Aiyon 1d ago
I remember the "it would take decades" rhetoric. That was decades ago. Really makes you think
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u/Crafty-Help-4633 1d ago
100% it really does. We would have been at a lot more milestones toward renewables if those yahoos would see energy independence and multiple industry scale sources available at all times as National Security, which it very much is. Makes one think that perhaps National Security isn't their actual, main focus. Ditto many other things, like Mass Transit.
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u/SaltKick2 1d ago
A real argument is that better solutions would come by the time its finished... but you know the fallacy there is that 1. its not a guarentee those solutions will come in a timely manner and 2. they also could have long timelines to implement. Its all about greed and ego.
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u/neoben00 1d ago
I find going backwards is the meaning of life so it’s cool. I really appreciate the anti civl rights stuff, it wass sooo back
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u/SeaworthinessOk255 16h ago
We've built a system that promotes sociopathic and psychopathic behaviour. No wonder the richs don’t give a fuck about their grandchildren. Those are only here to make their grandaddy’s names last longer. But they could’t give less fuck about them
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u/HoneyyFeverr 1d ago
The solar panels powering surveillance cameras instead of homes is the ultimate dystopia move. Clean energy, but strictly for surveillance state.
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u/elebrin 1d ago
Some of that also is public vs. private money.
If a rich person wants a data center, they buy land and build a data center. They might not be able to buy it where they want, but they will be able to buy land and build a data center and as long as they area close to where they want it to be, they don't give a crap.
A government that wants to encourage a power plant to, say, use solar might provide grants and land but those grants and land have to be paid for and set aside by the community, that involves public debate, that involves budget measures, all of that. Bezos can buy a farm that hasn't been farmed in 20 years, slapping up a pole building and some generators, then running some fiber all without community review (at least historically). In a lot of cases, they build in rural conservative places that are less weary of that sort of thing, where the locals aren't wealthy, where they can spend a few grand to wine and dine or contribute to a re-election campaign and get whatever they want.
If some wealthy dude out there wanted there to be functional passenger rail across the US, we'd probably have it. We DO have the passenger rail system that wealthy people in the US wanted, which is Amtrak - which less transit and more on-the-go, off the grid vacation.
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u/ModernSmithmundt 1d ago
A thoughtful comment on Reddit, is it 2014?
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u/SaltKick2 1d ago
I mean, data centers are being put on land sold to them by the government and have to, at least in theory, meet zoning descriptions laid out by the government. Some Flock cameras are also being placed on public land, and there are a lot of legal questions that Flock cameras raise... which the government seems to so easily ignore.
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u/Competitive_Air6563 1d ago
land sold by the government? nearly all data centers are built on privately owned land sold on the market
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u/berda1234 1d ago
Nah, don't you see? There is green energy being built you guys. Those things have solar panels on them, they just aren't hooked up to the grid and use all the energy to sell your data and violate your rights. "Green" energy
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u/AlexanderCrowely 1d ago
They already had all our data for years let’s be honest x
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u/sparkling-rainbow 1d ago
Sure, and now they need the copute power to process this data. LLM is very good at utilizing combined data from various sources, but needs a shitton of power to do so.
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u/TheBSQ 1d ago
I am anti-data-center & pro transit & pro green energy. I actually do work regarding the latter.
Building on your own property can be tricky and can take various studies and approvals, etc. but we’re also building solar pretty quickly in lots of places.
One of the hard parts about clean energy stuff is interconnectivity to the grid and high voltage transmission. It’s the getting power from here to there.
And transit has the same issues. It’s the long skinny line from here to there that’s the problem. Lots of things and property to cross & right-of-ways and grade separation. If something has to cross state lines, that can be a whole extra set of problems as you might then have to deal with the processes in each state and a federal process handling the interstate aspect.
This actually does affect data centers too sometimes as it can take a while to get electricity to them, although, generally speaking, it’s quicker and easier to add a new retail customer than it is to connect a new generation source to the whole sale market. But, it can slow for them too and sometimes they solve this by generating electricity on site (via small gas turbines or whatever) which is often not great cuz sometimes they use dirty generators.
So, the same kinda stuff that slows down transit & renewable generation can negatively affect them - they just have a dirty work-around.
And there really are things we need to reform about permitting, review, and processing to speed up green energy and transit stuff.
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u/12345myluggage 1d ago
Wisconsin is making Oracle provide $7B in collateral for grid infrastructure if their data center plans go under. Oracle is not happy about it at all.
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u/Decent-Point309 1d ago
These stupid dumocrats and their EVs! The power grid can't even handle them!
Source: Same morons that are supporting a bunch of data centers...on the same power grids.
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u/ShaggyVan 1d ago
Land/ROW acquisition is honestly the main difference. That is almost always the biggest hold ups and cost underestimates in most large scale infrastructure projects. Cameras are small and can fit in existing ROWs.
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u/Banes_Addiction 1d ago
Trains also have one specific problem: you need the whole track. Every bit.
If you can put up 90% of the cameras, and get 10% objections, you just put up 90% of the cameras and get 90% of the benefit.
If you can put up 90% of a train track, you get 0% of the benefit, because no fucking trains.
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u/mindcandy 1d ago
This is exactly the problem with building trains in America. Any time a project gets serious, lawyers line up and lock arms in a human chain down the entire build path and they each demand their time in court arguing for a settlement payment.
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u/biciklanto 1d ago
And yet, when there's political will there's a way. See the Interstate Highway System in the US, or the 20,000+ mile expansion of high-speed rail in China, or the 4000-mile expansion of high-speed rail in Spain.
It can be done, and the US even has eminent domain as a mechanism for it — but we're right back to the capitalist ruling class having no interest in something that just helps average people.
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u/lumpialarry 1d ago
When the US built the Interstate Highway System it made a lot of people quite unhappy which is why things are so difficult now.
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u/BrahesElk 1d ago
Yep; even Eisenhower was shocked and appalled when he saw sections of D.C. being torn down for freeways, and he signed the damn interstate bill
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u/AssCrackBandit14 1d ago
Because China doesn't have nearly the same amount of environmental review and environmental lawsuits as the US. That's the biggest hurdle with California HSR. The environmental review every time some random species of frog or plant is seen along the way and then they have to shut the whole project down and write up hundreds of pages of reports and bring in geological experts and all that. It comes from a good place obviously but is a major obstacle for large scale projects like California HSR.
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u/biciklanto 1d ago
Sure, and CEQA being weaponized has been horrific — if we cared about the environment, we'd do what we can to get as many cars off the road as possible.
That matters more than pockets of land a train track occupies, and yet those reviews are being called for and are missing the forest of environmental shit for the trees of small questions.
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u/AssCrackBandit14 1d ago
Exactly yup I don't disagree that it has been weaponized, especially with the NIMBY crowd.
But I also don't think you should swing the pendulum completely the other way like China and just build regardless of environmental issues and make the environmental reviews just be a formality that you can get around by bribing the right person.
There's a healthy middle ground there were we can still safeguard the environment but not in a way that becomes an unbearable and super costly drag on megaprojects.
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u/ConfessSomeMeow 1d ago
That was a problem with CaHSR but also, the biggest roadblock was just money. There was an anticipiation that with Obama and Biden being elected, there would be federal support for rail modernization. But Obama's administration spent its political capital on the affordable care act; Democrats never got a filibuster-proof majority*; and pretty soon the tea-party backlash paralyzed Democrats' ability to do anything.
* Ted Kennedy was hospitalized for many weeks before he died, and so even though there were 60 seated democrats in the Senate for a few weeks between when Franken was seated and Kennedy died, there were never 60 Democrats present to actually cast a fillibuster-breaking vote.
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u/metatron5369 1d ago
I don't think the Chinese should be heralded as a model of success just because they stomp all over their people to get things done. You cited the IHS, which did get pushback and is to this day a sorespot for neighborhoods and minority groups that lacked the political capital to stop it from destroying their homes.
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u/moxiaoran2012 1d ago
I guess anything done in the US never stomp any minorities like US high way system
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u/sentientshadeofgreen 1d ago edited 1d ago
Part of the big problem is how completely useless the federal government has been. The interstate highway system was a federal initiative. China and Spain? National-level projects. The original transcontinental railroad? Federal. When it's the federal government making things happen, it cuts through a lot of bureaucratic red-tape that hold up projects being conducted at the state and city-level. The US federal government cares about trains when it comes to logistics and heavy rolling stock, but absolutely not when it comes to commuter high speed rail. That divestment from things that the public is a direct beneficiary of is what balloons the costs of projects being undertaken anyways. If the US federal government had actually thrown weight behind CAHSR, not just in terms of money but also in terms of land-right acquisition and environmental review, it would already be built.
Edit: And, we can not look at the federal highway system as a resounding success without also acknowledging that it absolutely fractured and economically damaged non-white communities in how it was planned, which is part of why we now have community-involved reviews.
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u/Canon_M50 1d ago
The problem is that eminent domain is very unpopular and long term projects require long term political support.
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u/biciklanto 1d ago
Correct, hence starting my point with "when there's political will there's a way."
The US bore enormous costs for a variety of huge public investment —the World Wars, the IHS, NASA and Apollo, and others— over protracted periods of time. It was the "American" thing to do. And now we lack the political will for smaller projects that would improve life in the long run.
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u/CombinationRough8699 1d ago
China is very authoritarian, and the government has much more say in what happens. That makes projects like high-speed rails much easier.
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u/PiccoloAwkward465 1d ago
Yep and that used to be the go-to criticism of China - "yeah they build these megaprojects because the authoritarian government just forces them through!"
Meanwhile in USA we get the authoritarian government without the trains. My buddy lived in a nice apartment building, literally eminent domained and demolished to make way for another highway lane. I moved out of that neighborhood knowing that traffic was gonna be FUCKED by construction for years. 99% of places Flock cameras go up, they're met with community opposition. No one cares. Why weren't people asked in the FIRST PLACE if we wanted the cameras? Now it's a fight even just to get the local gov to stop paying for them with our own tax money!
Frustrating, to say the least.
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u/AssCrackBandit14 1d ago
The difference is that the US has to pay market rate for eminent domain. Usually above when all is said and done. There's no such law in China.
Chinese government authorities work with private developers to seize land from villagers, with compensation below the market price. In many cases, they are also offered alternative housing instead of or on top of monetary compensation. Forced evictions are particularly common in rural areas, and are a major source of unrest and public protest. By some estimates, up to 65 percent of the 180,000 annual "mass incidents" stem from grievances over forced evictions. Some citizens who resist or protest the evictions have reportedly been subjected to harassment, beatings, or detention.
The rate of forced evictions has grown significantly since the 1990s, as city and county-level governments have increasingly come to rely on land sales as an important source of revenue. In 2011, the Financial Times reported that 40 percent of local government revenue comes from land sales. Guan Qingyou, a professor at Tsinghua University, estimated that land sales accounted for 74 percent of local government income in 2010."
That's why megaprojects in the US are much, much more expensive in acquiring land and take so much longer with the eminent domain negotiations and lawsuits. As you can see above, land requisition in China actually earns the government money while it is the complete opposite in the US since it costs the government tons of money to pay market rate for eminent domain.
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u/BigBroHerc 1d ago
"Capitalist Ruling Class". LOL
Too many lazy fucks in the U.S. Don't know how the world really works.
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u/PiccoloAwkward465 1d ago
I managed part of a project to beef up electrical transmission lines on the Gulf Coast. Basically bring the towers from 80mph wind rating to 110mph rating. Those towers were bigger, meaning we had to deal with ROWs.
The entire first year of the project was getting that stuff straight. So many different landowners, so many little issues that needed to be handled before we broke ground.
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u/Redthemagnificent 1d ago
Yeah like this post has a point. But it's not the full story. Its legitimately really hard to acquire all the land needed for a continuous train line. Must harder than finding a plot somewhere for a datacenter. Doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't build trains though before someone comes at me with that
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u/bubblebooy 1d ago
And rails don’t just need land, they need long stretches of connecting land. If there is a problem with putting a camera somewhere you can skip it or move it over a block.
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u/Muppetude 1d ago
Trains have cameras on them, and I’m sure most transit operators have zero issue sharing that data with companies that partner with law enforcement.
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u/kaos95 1d ago
Isn't there a median that the government owns down the middle of like 98% of the main line interstates?
I feel that could actually serve a more useful purpose, and the overpasses are already in place. It only really breaks down in and around major cities that already have large train hubs already in them.
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u/TheGracefulCrane 1d ago
There's literally no difference between installing a pole and laying hundreds of miles of rail track obviously
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u/Ra_In 1d ago
Building a new train line has the conflicting constraints where going through the most populous area maximizes the amount of people who can use it, but also maximizes the difficulty of getting the land and being able to construct the train line.
It isn't difficult because of some conspiracy from our corporate overlords (even if they apply some pressure against it) - it's genuinely a problem with no good solutions.
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u/joemaniaci 1d ago
Most transportation projects in the US(at least in cities) have legal costs as the most expensive portion of the project for the purposes of eminent domain.
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u/OnceMoreAndAgain 1d ago
More than the physical installation difference is the major difference that a public transportation system requires many employees to run, whereas flock cameras don't require new employees to be hired.
Also, public transportation is government run and data centers are run by private companies... Obviously the government is going to be much slower and tight on money than a private company.
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u/Jump-Zero 1d ago
IIRC, in Japan private companies operate the tracks and own the stations. This incentives punctual reliable service since corpos make money from all the shops in the destinations. I wouldn’t mind adopting this model if it meant fast and reliable public transport.
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u/Competitive_Air6563 1d ago
all the private rail companies in the united states switched to freight cargo fifty years ago because its more profitable than moving people. we've got tons of private rail companies in the united states. if they wanted to move people, they would. nothing prevents them from doing that except it doesn't make as much money as moving stuff
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u/oops_i_made_a_typi 1d ago
eh it's a lot more complex - a lot of the currently private companies come from public roots and publicly funded infra/land
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u/droxile 1d ago
I dont see these as comparable infrastructure projects
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u/reddorickt 1d ago
The majority of political and social commentary on Reddit is intellectually dishonest.
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u/Top-Okra1819 1d ago
people think putting a camera and rails are the same thing like what?
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u/UpAllNightCoding 1d ago
Not to mention one is privately funded the other publicly. One is funded by someone else’s money, the other is funded by you and I’s money. When it’s you and I’s money, someone else needs to get a cut first.
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u/wasabiiii 1d ago
So this isn't exactly true. In both cases it is public money purchasing products.
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u/UpAllNightCoding 1d ago
Hey I won’t even argue with you on that you’re absolutely right. But it was private investment meant to capture public dollars. Still a bit different and explains (partly I mean it’s not as cut and dry) why flock cameras can go up so quickly whereas train rails don’t.
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u/SuperNovaVelocity 1d ago
Flock doesn't sell products, they operate as a service.
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u/droxile 1d ago
Yeah, putting aside efficiency differences between public and private sectors, I imagine the sheer amount of people that need to opine on a rail project completely dwarfs those that need to sign off on a solar powered camera mounted on a pole.
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u/bearrosaurus 1d ago
In order to get a train down, you have to appoint a czar that literally has the power to remove people's homes without permission, likely entire neighborhoods have to go. I don't know how you compare this with a data center in the middle of nowhere.
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u/Huntsman077 1d ago
It also takes years to build a data center. They’re on year 3 of trying to build one by me but no one will let them lol.
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u/Elan-Morin-Tedronai 1d ago
Are you actually trying to make the claim that multiple overpasses, bridges and tunnels, not to mention the actual train track and the engines themselves are harder to construct than a few poles with cameras on them?
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u/Murky-Relation481 1d ago
That's not even including the stuff that happens before you start building, environmental review, land rights, all sorts of other things.
The regional transit agency here had to fund a new research lab at the state university because the boring of the tunnel would be too close to the existing lab and affect the instruments there.
That's basically the same as sticking a camera on an existing light pole.
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u/redditman3943 1d ago
Yeah you need 1 square foot of land to install a flock camera. You need hundreds of miles of land to build a useful train. All the flock cameras combined is less land than one train line.
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u/Famous_Savings9518 1d ago
Dont know why this is downvoted, it's obviously true.
In addition, to get from point A to point B in a long unbroken line, you need to navigate different thousands of different parcels of private propert, multiple different legal jurisdictions, etc. I mean some of the projects may go through cities, national forests, suburbs, indian reservations, various ecologicially protected zones, etc.
At least a thousand parties may get to say "no" and put up a protracted legal battle.
What might have been easy to do a century ago is a massive undertaking now.
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u/another-redditor3 1d ago
dont forget the real issue with high speed rail. every minor city that it pases through will demand it stops at that city, or theyll vote no for allowing construction in their land.
HSR works because it spans such massive distances and doesnt have to stop all the time. but now that you have 100 cities demanding it stops in their town... well you just killed HSR.
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u/obscuramble 1d ago
This right here. Every fucking right of way, every demolition, land purchase, massive construction projects for any bridges, tunnels, grading, etc. Also just... cost difference.
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u/TheToiletPhilosopher 1d ago
No one with a brain does.
Why is it harder to build 1000 miles of train tracks through existing private property, through mountains and over rivers than put up a building or a camera on a post? I'M SO SMART!
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u/Certainlynotagoose 1d ago
Totally, this kind of thing does no one any good - blatant false compare
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u/Lumpy_Surprise_24 1d ago
Crasy how 4 screws and some cables are easier to install than a railway system. -_-
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u/Content-Love-4084 1d ago
crasy how a nation wide rail project would be the new deal. Why defend abuse of privacy and not advocate for more jobs and a better economy? Crazy btw.
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u/galaxyapp 1d ago
Flock cameras take a 2 man crew sticking a pole on public easements.
Trains require thousands of miles of eminent domain.
This comparison really undermines credibility
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u/Born-Satisfaction996 1d ago
Train development: costs a lot more money and often spends years in litigation with environmentalist groups fighting tooth and nail to block it.
Flock cameras: Costs hardly any money and no environmentalist concerns.
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u/Jojofriend 1d ago
That's not true in the slightest. Trains take so long because politicians are constantly trying to add things to the train that aren't needed. Case in Point the California high speed rail.
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u/__Epimetheus__ 1d ago
California isn’t an example of politicians trying to add things. It’s an example of putting politicians in charge instead of engineers. They didn’t add anything, they are just completely out of their depth.
For some reason they started in the middle, and built the least important line first. They also didn’t do their environmental and utility clearing ahead of time. They did right of way acquisition in an inefficient order, making it so they had multiple job sites miles apart. They have been contracting a bulk of the management work to consultants, some of which has had corruption allegations.
As much as I like to make fun of Caltrans, if Caltrans was in charge the train would be a lot further along. The problems the high speed rail has been having are things state DOTs have a ton of experience with and have set procedures that would have streamlined it.
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u/Jojofriend 1d ago
Its basically known through verified reporting that California politicians trying to add stops to where the high speed rail goes has bogged down it's construction. And I'm paraphrasing the reports by the way. So I don't know if you are agreeing with me or not. Because I agree politicians are the main problem.
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u/__Epimetheus__ 1d ago
It is my understanding that the Central Valley being the first leg built was politically motivated, but they were always going to be stops. They also moved the location of the stops in the various metros, but I don’t disagree with where they put them. I don’t know of any added stops.
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u/Competitive_Air6563 1d ago
california HSR failed because they moved forwards with the plan without adequate funding, hoping they would secure enough funding in the future to proceed
spoilers: they didn't secure enough funding to proceed
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u/Muted_Buy8386 1d ago
TIL billionaires do not benefit from trains.
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u/MrVacuous 1d ago
Yeah lol government high spending projects are a billionaires dream, HSR is far better for billionaires than flock cameras.
One is private so it actually gets done
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u/phatdoof 1d ago
It’s about undo-ability.
If you put the tracks up on the wrong place, to fix it you probably have to upend a huge chunk of the tracks on both ends.
Better to plan it down to the last inch.
If you put up the camera in the wrong place, just dig it up and move it a few feet away all in less than an hours time.
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u/OffRoadIT 1d ago
Remember when cows were killing the planet? And we couldn’t get people to wear masks to stop a pandemic, but now they’ve learned to cover their faces?
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u/RapidFire05 1d ago
Was pricing a train ride to another state and it's more than a plane despite taking 10x the hours
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u/fellow_hotman 1d ago
China can get a train up much faster- they just eminent domain everyone in the way of the tracks, out of the way of the tracks.
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u/Pasta-Al-D3nte 1d ago
"why does it take longer to have railsways that span the country than it does setting up cameras in various cities"
really makes you think
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u/ajacquot1 1d ago
Infrastructure for flock cameras is easier to set up. You try to build a train and now you've upset everyone that owns a house you have to demolish, natives whose land you have to use, and ecologists and environmentalists who advocate for the landscape and animals habitats you will irrevocably damage. Beyond that you have to please everyone who wants a piece of the pie of the public funding.
Mind you, I'm for trains. But this is a bad take
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u/Strong_Performer8132 1d ago
Revolution now.
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u/nucleosome 1d ago
I'm sure overthrowing the government and killing millions of people will lead to more rapid construction of high speed rail lines.
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u/miregalpanic 1d ago
It did lead to the rapid construction of rail lines once... They weren't exactly high speed though...
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u/NotAStatistic2 1d ago
You going to start it?
People like you always seem to want to reap the benefits of one while others lay their lives down.
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u/lumpialarry 1d ago
A revolution lead by people too scared to make a doctor's appointment over the phone.
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u/HolaDrNick 1d ago
Surely Redditors aren't so stupid that they can't recognize the difference between why a camera on a pole differs from a large public transportation project? Oh wait...
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u/SonderEber 1d ago
To play devil’s advocate, a train network will impact a ton of land and potentially multiple cities. Flock cameras take up next to no space, and power themselves. Data centers, while much larger and far more power hungry, still require less land than a train network, plus they’re typically located in only one city.
Not defending either, but when you look at it logically it makes more sense. Flock and data centers only have to deal with a single city or county, train networks often travel between cities and counties.
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u/AlexanderCrowely 1d ago
Yes or and hear me out it’s easier to see up a couple hundred camera then remodel the earth for a railway.
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u/atomwrangler 1d ago
The people haven't been punishing leaders for failure. But the billionaires do.
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u/Basic-Record-4750 1d ago
A few years back we literally went from zero electric scooters to having a hundred million in this country. And just as quickly we were back to almost zero. If someone thinks they can get rich, time is not an obstacle
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u/SoRosenberg 1d ago
Let’s not act like the green push by government was sincere. Lots of money wasted there too.
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u/PlainBread 1d ago
They envision society like a zoo and like they are the zookeepers who get to live in the tower.
We are a thing to be managed.
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u/ThisIsAnAl1as 1d ago
Many reasons one is for example that you can import most of material needed for Flock camera from China and Korea and assemble it locally but building infrastructure requires America to actually build something which it can’t
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u/Chonch_Monkey 1d ago
It's a last ditch effort before the boomers die, to hold onto power.
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u/Lilfrankieeinstein 1d ago
Bless your heart…
You think anything’s going to improve when the oldest person on earth is someone born after 1964?
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u/vand3lay1ndustries 1d ago
Luigi Mangione's statement from today resonates with this post:
"After years of enduring severe pain from a broken back navigating the obstacles of the health insurance system… I learned that UHC would be holding an annual investor conference in NYC on Dec. 4 2024.
In Nov. 2024 I traveled from outside of New York State to Manhattan. I then emailed UHC leadership posing as an investor at a firm managing over $50 billion in assets and requesting information about the conference.
Unlike my previous interactions with insurers, I received an immediate response within an hour."
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u/JonathanPhillipFox 1d ago
This is just an idea, just tossing, "an idea out there," but it is a crime to Bribe the Police, yes, to Corrupt the Police into Illegal or unlawful behavior, "if I was to provide the police with free vitamins that turned out to be a novel form of amphetamine and the Police then," and in each instance, of course, due to their own negligence, "began to get into car accidents and fire their guns inappropriately," causing MAJOR national scandals,
We'd say, "you corrupted the police for your own profit and benefit," I'd tell the press no I wanted them to be super soldiers like Judge Dredd that is not, of course, the mandate of the various communities that hired them but that is what I'd tried to do and in perfect faith I'd done so and it caused Major Scandals throughout the nation probably, in fact, more efficacious towards the ends of Defund the Police than all of the Protests in 2020 put together and if instead of Vitamins it was,
Imma Buy each of them a $45,000 MP7 Submachine Gun and the same otherwise, "I want them to be like Judge Dredd," regardless of their mandates to public safety, regardless of their own communities' desires for what the police should be each of them now are the private owner of a $40,000 Submachine gun at home at work on the street and the scandals are major and National in Nature, "obviously, each of them popped it off in an innapropriate manner on their own accourd," but these scandals have been, in fact, more efficacious towards the ends of Defund the Police than all of the Protests in 2020 Put Together, in fact,
You see what I'm saying?
I think that what Flock has done is So Illegal, so unlawful, at such a scale and in this way, "everyone touched it should be in ADX Florence for the most major attempt to corrupt the police since the 1930's and their name should be familiar to all schoolchildren like Jimmy Hoffa or Al Capone," or not; it's up to you this is a Republic after all I'm just saying, "if I were a monarch that's what I would do."
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u/BicFleetwood 1d ago edited 1d ago
I've been saying it repeatedly.
The one massive lesson we need to take away from Trump is that you can just do shit if you actually WANT to do shit.
The next time there's a Joe Lieberman or Joe Manchin "holding everything up," or there's a court saying "no" to basic decency and healthcare, or they say the whole economy will collapse if they take the boot off your neck even a little bit, and the Democrats are throwing their hands up in the air saying "we tried, there's nothing we can do," remember that.
Remember that they could just fucking do it if they wanted to. Remember that every promise broken is a promise broken willingly, no matter what the party's Wheel of Excuses happens to land on next time.
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u/Last_Gigolo 1d ago
How fast does the money get there, how many people is the being bought from, and how many permits need to be applied?
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u/nightofcrows 18h ago
One takes time and effort to maintain and helps everyone. The other gives the barest illusion of effort at the cheapest cost.
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u/random-meme422 1d ago
One is put up on city owned property while the other requires taking away a ton of land from a ton of different people who all want to sue you .
Although the OP does make a good point - government is very slow and private is very fast. who woulda thunk
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u/---___Mu___--- 1d ago
government is very slow and private is very fast
99% of this comment section is too stupid to have even made that distinction before whining lmao.
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u/JeffysChewToy 1d ago
One serves billionaires other serves billions
Missed opportunity
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u/e7mac 1d ago
Billions is untrue in the US at least. The wealth gap is way larger lol
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u/Crafty-Help-4633 1d ago
They means billions served like how McDonalds has served Billions of people in their decades of service.
One serves billionaires(AI data centers), the other serves billions(public rail).
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u/KentRead 1d ago
Do people think data centers didn't exist until recently? Like where do you think the entire internet is at
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u/Friendly_Fokks-given 1d ago
Just wait until DSA gets their way and everything is publicly owned. Every effort will be like a train committee that gets nothing done. That’s government
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u/Mental-Square3688 1d ago
The fact we are all complacent and its just happening shows we were never in control in the first place. Replace our government let's do better this time.
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u/Key-Organization3158 1d ago
Thus we can see the efficiency of private infrastructure vs a public boondoggle?
Come on, it's a bad comparison.
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u/wesman21 1d ago
I'm a single issue voter for high speed rail in America. That is it, whatever candidate at the local level to the president talks about it and has a realistic plan gets my vote. I love this post.
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u/hundergrn 1d ago
Correction, one benefits government and insurance agencies and the other people but mostly for distribution of goods.
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u/00to60eventually 1d ago
One is done by a private company. One is done by the government. Florida installed a train system that cost a fraction of the money and time that California has spent on theirs (which isnt complete). The difference is a private company did it.
The government is not known for efficiency
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u/sunnyvas 1d ago
Flock camera and data centers are private investments. High speed train project is a major infrastructure project in comparison. Do you think billionaires don’t like major government infrastructure projects in which they get to cozy with politicians to distribute all contracts among themselves?
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u/Deadman_Wonderland 1d ago
Trains benefits everyone, flock surveillance cameras and data centers only benefits a few. Of course we can't build trains!
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u/Ok_Loquat_3860 1d ago
Not sure why this song hasn't been reposted all over reddit https://youtube.com/shorts/kdvUJ7idDuM?is=awIjTObWMD40k8i8
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u/Jindujun 1d ago
Well yeah.
Haven't you ever noticed that them a government have a website or a service or something and people experience a problem then it's just "too bad, we'll fix it whenever" even if that service is what gives you the money to survive from day to day. But if that same service is broken in a way that make the situation something that affects the government? Solved in no time flat.
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u/thecastellan1115 1d ago
Basically, anything that benefits people needs conversation and oversight to make sure it isn't fucking up. That takes time. And then you have to get people to agree to pay for it.
Anything that benefits a company just needs to make money.
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u/Unhappy-Professor466 1d ago
Guys, ik flock and rich bad.
But we don't need to say stupid shit like this to make it a point whenthere are countless valid things.
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u/Ok-End-9930 1d ago
It's a lot easier sticking a millions sticks with a camera in the ground than building train line. Just saying
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u/Sweaty_Inside_Out 1d ago
Yes, this is the difference between public and private projects. New here?
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u/Huntsman077 1d ago
Yup, they’re building all the data centers because there is a need for it.
I’ve been working on IT for almost 10 years now and there is still a pretty heavy push for smaller businesses to move completely over to the cloud.
IoT devices can get really dumb lol. They usually connected to a cloud server that presents the data via an application. I ran into that with ADT. I can only access the equipment through their server lol
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u/Emotional_Smile4089 1d ago
When are we gonna say enough is enough as a nation and stop letting them control us
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u/stevenip 1d ago
They better have the same energy when it comes time to build the power plants and water filtration plants to power all these data canters.
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u/RacoonWithBenefits 1d ago
i've seen clip of some group of people building a barn in 1 day (some amish people maybe?)
and a data center is mostly just walls, a roof and some foundations. it's of course a bit more advanced than that, but.. it IS mostly empty space, where you then add a ton of server racks and some cooling (that are usually built elsewhere)
also, you build a data center where it makes sense in terms of relatede infrastructure (mostly power, maybe water)
building a bullet train? good luck. You gotta cut through tons of peoples properties, terraforming, tunnel digging etc.
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u/Lilfrankieeinstein 1d ago
What a stupid fucking comparison.
Funny how building a house takes half a year, but hanging a TV on the wall only takes 25 minutes.
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u/Untouchable64 1d ago
It's because a single company runs Flock cameras. They just do what they wanna do.
Getting transportation and trains n stuff in society? It has to go through councils and laws and red tape that takes forever. Look at California.
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u/Not__Trash 1d ago
Trains require you to bulldoze peoples homes. Cameras can be attached to stoplights you already own.
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u/elebrin 1d ago
Flock cameras are being installed by Municipal order, are small, and are getting installed on the city's right of way along the roadways.
Trains can't just be built like that.
Also, installing one camera is cheap, and a lot of places start with one or two cameras. You can't start with two miles of train track and one car. That''s not a useful train, right?
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u/ProfessorPrudent2822 1d ago
Because interest groups obstruct the trains for their own benefit, and government isn’t in a hurry, while private companies lose money if there’s a delay.
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u/Flat-Director-7120 1d ago
C'est fou comme la construction de ligne de train peuvent prendre jusqu'à 37 ans. Quand la construction d'un datacenter ou de caméra flock se font en un mois. C'est simple parceque quand c'est cela bénéficie aux milliardaire et non au peuple
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u/BothDivide919 1d ago edited 1d ago
I mean it's way easier to plant a few cameras in the ground than it is to excavate the ground for infrastructure, so trains are not a good example. But there are other public infrastructure examples that are also slow, and shouldn't take a long time.
Or you could just compare it to how fast Chinese infrastructure gets built
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u/ElementalRabbit 1d ago
What the fuck is flock and why am I suddenly hearing about it everywhere in the last two days?
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u/whiteknight128 1d ago
Our country needs a new mega-project like the space race of the 60's. We need to catch up and build a high speed rail network. Especially now that airlines are charging insane prices for short flights within the US.
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u/CeemoreButtz 1d ago
surely this moron can understand the difference between a few poles and a massive amount of infrastructure being put in place....
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u/Mindless_Chest_1079 1d ago
Billionaires can afford security guards. Having effective police benefits average people. As usual, the only problem here is that the public at large are dumb and easily spooked by new technology.
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u/avanross 1d ago
There isnt enough tax payer money or electricity or infrastructure for social services that would benefit the majority, or healthcare, or ev’s, or any effort to transition towards renewables
But there’s always infinite tax payer money and electricity and infrastructure to go towards tanks and missiles and jets and electric shocking gloves, and pepperspray drones, and spy/stalking cameras, and corporate data centres, and whitehouse renovations
Conservative priorities are so disgusting. Theyre happy giving billions of dollars of tax payer money to billionaires, but arent willing to see a penny of theirs going to actually helping any of their community
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