[chordalkeyboard]

> I have been amazed, and also disappointed, by the amount of people that want this to be the fault of “stupid conservative Texas” and absolutely refuse to even entertain the idea that anything other than “Texas is dumb” could have been a contributor.

In my opinion this is the result of a mentality that sees the government as the obvious solution to problems, so when you see problems existing in a place where people seem to have a different philosophy of government, its clearly the fault of those morons who don’t realize that all problems can be solved by sufficient application of government force.

> if we actually want to fix things we need to stop playing these ridiculous partisan games and be honest with ourselves with the full picture of issues.

Some people actually do want to fix things on some level, but they are quite confident in their understanding of the problem and they believe that the indicated solution is clear, and anyone who doesn’t agree with them is either stupid, or evil, or both. So they’re unwilling to abandon what they see as a perfectly correct solution because a bunch of evil morons want to argue about “unintended consequences” or “agent-principal problems.”

Other people are more interested in signaling their ideological alignment with the above, and the object level issue provides them with opportunities to signal.

[xxpor]

Ensuring the electric grid doesn't collapse when it gets below 20 degrees is in fact exactly the sort of thing that can be fixed with enough application of force.

Spend the money, or we'll take it from you. Done.

[chordalkeyboard]

> Ensuring the electric grid doesn't collapse when it gets below 20 degrees is in fact exactly the sort of thing that can be fixed with enough application of force.

This seems like the sort of belief system that inspired the story of King Canute and the tide. [0]

> Spend the money, or we'll take it from you. Done.

I understand that a lot of people only care about justifying the expropriation of wealth. But it seems you’ve forgotten to include the part where the expropriation is actually justified on the basis of promises to do something good with that money.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute_and_the_tide

[leesalminen]

Can you point me to a specific current federal regulation that would’ve prevented this issue? TFA posits that there aren’t. So, you’ll take money to enforce a non-existent regulation?

[davidgay]

The trivial proof of the GP's statement is that there are regions of the world and the US that regularly drop below 20F and have a functioning electrical grid (say, for instance, Alaska).

[makomk]

That's not proof at all. Building grid infrastructure that can function below 20F in regions that reach that temperature regularly is easier in important ways - in particular, if a new piece of infrastructure gets built that can't cope, the problem will happen early on and either get fixed or worked around, whereas somewhere like Texas can build up decades of new infrastructure that can't cope with the cold before anything happens to demonstrate that.

[chordalkeyboard]

Thats probably a result of superior management of infrastructure rather than “application of enough force.”

[maxerickson]

It is clearly stated as a hypothetical application of political will, not a reference to a particular regulation.

[chordalkeyboard]

Then this is the indicated response: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute_and_the_tide

[maxerickson]

Huh? The various law making entities in the US are not always making maximal use of their power, it doesn't make any sense to wave your hands in the air and say that they can only do the things they've already made laws for.

[chordalkeyboard]

Was King Canute making maximal use of his power when he ordered back the waves, or could he have deployed his army to the beach to reinforce his edicts?

[konjin]

>In my opinion this is the result of a mentality that sees the government as the obvious solution to problems, so when you see problems existing in a place where people seem to have a different philosophy of government, its clearly the fault of those morons who don’t realize that all problems can be solved by sufficient application of government force.

It has nothing to do with the government and everything to do with beliefs. Your post is doing exactly that. Pointing out simple facts like that all grids have been under invested in for 50 years, that we need to spend trillions to bring them up to todays standards and that we need to diversity power sources is met with derision and downvotes.

[chordalkeyboard]

> It has nothing to do with the government and everything to do with beliefs.

Government is not separable from the beliefs of the people who inhabit it and participate in its processes.

> Pointing out simple facts like that all grids have been under invested in for 50 years

Surely you can see that this is a belief and not a “fact”

> that we need to spend trillions to bring them up to todays standards and that we need to diversity power sources is met with derision and downvotes.

Well if people disagree then I feel it would be better for them to discuss. But it seems like there’s this perception that there is no room for reasonable disagreement and that’s what I was pushing back on.

We can agree that the grid needs more investment and still have differences of opinion on how to generate that investment.

[konjin]

>Surely you can see that this is a belief and not a “fact”

The belief is that every American should have uninterrupted access to electricity. The fact is that we are woefully under investing to keep that state of affairs. You can have your own beliefs, you can't have your own facts.

For some reason people who want to spend less money on infrastructure don't mention that they wouldn't mind if 50% of people don't have access to roads, hospitals, or electricity.

[chordalkeyboard]

> The belief is that every American should have uninterrupted access to electricity. The fact is that we are woefully under investing to keep that state of affairs. You can have your own beliefs, you can't have your own facts.

The belief that the best way to get every American to have uninterrupted access to electricity is through public investment in infrastructure is belied by your admission that hasn’t happened. Which is a fact.

> For some reason people who want to spend less money on infrastructure don't mention that they wouldn't mind if 50% of people don't have access to roads, hospitals, or electricity.

For some reason the people who want to spend more money on publicly funded projects insist on casting aspersions rather than introspecting on why they’re always dependent on expropriation for basic things.

[konjin]

>The belief that the best way to get every American to have uninterrupted access to electricity is through public investment in infrastructure is belied by your admission that hasn’t happened. Which is a fact.

We have though. From 1930 to 1980 the US had a world class system that was better than any in the world.