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Those living near impoverishment and experience large increases in price or complete unavailability of critical infrastructure will then become impoverished.

Oil, notably diesel, is critical infrastructure for everyone not living in a pure state of nature or off the grid.

It is you who sees what you want to see. I am pointing the reality of impoverishing a significant amount of civilization as a result of removing a critical part of the world's infrastructure.

My observation is your opinion is one from people who are completely isolated from the rest of civilization.

AFAICT, one significant part of the problem is something like:

Huge hulking expensive iron delivery vessels chugging through the water get blown up by inexpensive distant ordinance delivery.

Thus, a general solution could be something like:

Transition to small, cheap and highly numerous delivery vessels to nullify the effectiveness of distant ordinance delivery.

My layperson conceptual solution:

Create synthetic (e.g., plastic, PVC, etc.) eel-shaped self-navigating "vessels" that provide delivery in very high volume (millions of such "vessels") through dangerous waters to be recovered in safe waters.

These could be manufactured into large rolls, à la inflatable packing, and filled using mechanical power (either any simple motor powered by whatever or even human-powered via crank handle).

Drive can be provided by whatever works: time the release of the vessels to go out with a tide current; small sails; solar-powered propellers, etc. Speed does not matter as the quantity can be so high that once the vessels are being recovered the volume being delivered will be massive. (Conceptually similar to the old saw about "never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 full of tape.")

I really only provide the above to hopefully inspire people who have the talent and means to create something yet better than what we currently have so that we do not arrive at a very real problem of products such as diesel fuel being not only high in price, but largely unavailable, as we may currently be on course to experience.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49740835

Points: 1

# Comments: 11

An important note: in the U.S., the vast majority of jurisdictions permit making a right turn on a red light, and some, including the state of Oregon, permit making a left turn onto a one way road from a red light. In high congestion areas, such as here in Las Vegas Valley, many drivers will not fill a right lane at a red light when they are not turning right as a courtesy to those needing to turn right at the intersection.

During commute hours, everyone disobeys all laws to get home or get to work. When there are regularly spaced roundabouts on a long stretch of road, drivers get exceptionally impatient and will drive at the performance limits of the vehicles, late-braking like they are F1 drivers. This ends up grouping all of the drivers into a very solid wolf pack who will not stop for anyone and will speed through the roundabout, making it impossible for pedestrians and drivers other onramps to enter the roundabout.

The vast majority of drivers do not know how to use the roundabout, as is evidenced when they enter from the left lane of a two-lane road and use the exit lane that is only marked for use from the right lane. Americans who know how to use the roundabout respond to this by habitually stopping at the roundabout entrance when they see a car in any lane entering the roundabout at high speed, which is most vehicles. Then the drivers behind the stopped vehicle think the stopped vehicle is driven by someone who doesn't know how to drive on a roundabout and begin honking incessantly or attempting to illegally pass the stopped driver.

Henderson, Nevada provides many such examples of this. Most interesting to me is that parts of the town have nearly identical roads that are served by either only traffic signals or only roundabouts. My experience is that the roads with traffic signals have far fewer issues than the roads with roundabouts.

Especially with heavy traffic, the traffic all slows down, a lot, from the section before the roundabout. Everyone is always in a hurry, so likely 10-25 MPH over the recommended speed (not the speed limit) for the roundabout, and all of them are at a 6 foot following distance.

You are playing with death to step into that. It's no joke. You end up effectively waiting for the upstream light to turn red so traffic can clear and you can cross.

The only solution I've thought of is to put a large grocery cart full of paint buckets at the roundabout for pedestrians to push into the crosswalk without risking their own lives.

Flagging a submission into dead status makes it unvotable until resurrected (by a moderation team member, usually Dang, whom I am sure is buried and it's kind of a miracle to me they are able to get to such requests). This is usually a long enough period of time to place the submission so far back in the queue that it will never receive another upvote.

The comparisons I've seen are with the general population, not professional drivers. How might that comparison look, since this is a paid service?