[bkettle]

Why are the socio-political stars aligned in tens of countries across Europe and Asia but not in the US, if such alignment is so rare?

I might argue that the bay area focuses on transportation technology that is flashy and gets around existing regulations because it is new, with hardly any regard at all for how it scales.

[rsynnott]

One thing I wonder about is the extreme localism of US transport. As far as I can see from visiting, the Muni buses and subway/trams cover only SF proper, and kinda abruptly cut off before you get to places that are theoretically other cities, but in practice close enough that they’d be treated as suburbs of SF elsewhere (South San Francisco, say). That seems to have its own independent transport (except for BART and Caltrain) which seems pretty bizarre.

[beisner]

Unfortunately the problem is literally the way the government is structured from an electoral + mathematical perspective. Particularly heinous failure mode is polarization, which has been the norm for 50+ years (really started after Vietnam). Biased towards inaction and status quo structurally. The last sustainably unifying event was WWII, which doesn’t bode well.

[linguae]

In my opinion, there are two factors at play: (1) social division and (2) it’s easy in America for self-interested people and organizations to block progress by weaponizing due process.

I’ll expound on the first point. European countries and East Asian countries generally have a stronger sense of cultural cohesion, while America has many deep divisions such as:

1. Social liberalism versus social conservatism, which also correlates to a secular versus cultural Christian worldview.

2. Racial and ethnic divides with sometimes centuries of bad blood

3. Class divides between the poor, the working class, the middle class, and the wealthy.

These divisions make it harder for people to come together to work for the common good. There are some politicians who shamelessly act in the interest of their voter bases with little regard for those outside their bases, and there are also people who are suspicious of even well-intended proposals since there may be hidden motives behind them.