Even if that's true - let's assume that it is - moderation has to go by the expected outcome. In this case the expected outcome is certainly a flamewar.
A bad hand does still win the pot sometimes, but that doesn't make it the right play!
Kind of proof that privatizing public infrastructure does not work without very tight regulations.
The profits and benefits in infrastructure go towards a state and are long term. A private company cannot increase their stock price on a 100 year goal and a countries GDP growth.
Yep. "Socialist lure" is a very US american perspective and far off the real past of most EU nations. The same budget hawks that drive tax cuts and are hollowing out public institutions were directing the privatization of the Deutschebahn. Thats why its not a single company but over 250 of them, for all the naturally competing segments of that gigantic infrastructure. You know, for maximum free-market efficiency, but somehow, blame is still not privatized.
Id like to know the US position on why socialism is failing their infrastructure, like power grinds.
Our infrastructure runs on freedom and good ol' American grit! Take for example our beautiful highways. They were built after the war (which, by the way, America WON), by the US Army (the greatest fighting force on Earth), using $100B of 1950s taxpayer money (mostly gasoline taxes). Just plain ol' simple taxation of the public to support social programs built and maintained by the government. Now if that's socialism, call me a socialist, but dang if it didn't work. Not sure why we can't do that anymore, but I try not to think about it too hard. Yeehaw!
"socialism" is vague and meaningless, yes. But poor regulations are a huge problem in the US. Copying a comment from my notes (I didn't write it):
The year is 2010. The Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (LADWP) publishes its initial environmental study [1] on a large power infrastructure maintenance project. A portion of the project involves replacing about 200 wooden power poles that run through Pacific Palisades. The California State Lands Commission reviewed [2] the initial study and requested that LADWP provide a Native American Ground Monitor [3] during any digging to ensure that cultural resources are not inadvertently damaged or destroyed. By the final EIR [2] in 2016 LADWP decided that replacing all of those +70 year old power poles was no longer necessary.
The year is 2018. The Camp Fire ignites in northern California. Its cause was the failure of a 100 year old power line. By early 2019 LADWP decides to replace [4] those 70 year old powerlines running through Pacific Palisades, they're in a now deemed high fire threat area. The California Public Utilities Commission has recommended they be replaced as soon as possible. Work is to start in 2019.
July 7th, 2019. LADWP has started work to replace the power lines, as well as leveling and grading new fire roads. Amateur botanist and avid hiker David Pluenneke is hiking in the area. David is a member of the California Native Plant Society [5]. He sees that LADWP has trampled the endangered Braunton’s milkvetch. In all, 183 milkvetches [6] were murdered.
As a result:
- All newly constructed fire roads must be unconstructed and returned to their original condition.
- Any work must be supervised by an on site project biologist, or biologists if the worksite is large. These observers will make daily surveys of sensitive wildlife species and they have the authority to stop any work that could result in their harm.
- LADWP agrees to excavate the new powerline poles by hand, with shovels. Workers will walk to the site. Helicopters will bring in the new poles and remove the old.
- No construction activities that generate noise above 60 dBA (loudness of an average conversation) may take place during bird nesting season, which runs from mid February to mid September. Of course this requires another observer biologist, a bird biologist, to verify.
Checking Google Street View, as of August 2023 these poles were not replaced. [7] But overall there are 300,000+ [8] power poles in LA. As of 2019, 65% of them were older than the average lifespan of 50 years old. In 2024, LADWP replaced just 2743 poles. [9] Their average cost to replace a pole in the same year was $69,300. [10] At their 2024 rates it will take LADWP over 70 years and $14 billion to replace all past lifespan poles.
Germany's public transport is really not privatized though. The Deutsche Bahn AG is structured as company, but is entirely owned by the federal government. There's very, very little public transportation (e.g. private buses between major cities) that is not owned and operated by the government.
DB is only in its current state (company organization, leadership failures, organizational failures, underfunding for decades, etc) because of previous governments' failed attempts at privatization decades ago. Full actual privatization would not likely have yielded any better results - especially regarding the actual infrastructure itself. (There's enough examples worldwide)
It's also been used for cushy post-politics jobs and lots of other incompetent meddling - such as requiring and extracting profits, etc.
You're right that it's not privatized, but the root causes of current misery still are the privatization attempts and a significant neoliberal/conservative political force that caused decay and blocked progress/improvements.
Not sure what socialism has to do with getting multiple ticket systems to speak to each other. I sometimes worry HN is astroturfed but I tend to read comments like this more simply as trolling.
Yeh this has more to do with the failures of federation and has nothing to do with socialism.
Federation is a huge part of why Germany struggles to deliver on it's digitalization goals.
Having every podunk authority handling ticket issuance basically guarantees signing keys will eventually be stolen/misused. The lack of a robust revocation mechanism is the nail in the coffin though.
Nothing. Some people just wake up in the morning and have to interject their "socialism = bad" religion into at least one thread in order to feel they've done their evangelism for the day.
Privately owned and operated transportation, where the main government involvement is just telling them to make it happen and then giving a certain amount of money per active subscription.
Huh? I mean if anything the problem here was privatisation of local transport (and too much faith in said privatised transport by the national authorities), which doesn’t seem _particularly_ socialist.
"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Funnily enough it generated the most interesting subthread of this submission.
Even if that's true - let's assume that it is - moderation has to go by the expected outcome. In this case the expected outcome is certainly a flamewar.
A bad hand does still win the pot sometimes, but that doesn't make it the right play!
Kind of proof that privatizing public infrastructure does not work without very tight regulations.
The profits and benefits in infrastructure go towards a state and are long term. A private company cannot increase their stock price on a 100 year goal and a countries GDP growth.
Yep. "Socialist lure" is a very US american perspective and far off the real past of most EU nations. The same budget hawks that drive tax cuts and are hollowing out public institutions were directing the privatization of the Deutschebahn. Thats why its not a single company but over 250 of them, for all the naturally competing segments of that gigantic infrastructure. You know, for maximum free-market efficiency, but somehow, blame is still not privatized.
Id like to know the US position on why socialism is failing their infrastructure, like power grinds.
Our infrastructure runs on freedom and good ol' American grit! Take for example our beautiful highways. They were built after the war (which, by the way, America WON), by the US Army (the greatest fighting force on Earth), using $100B of 1950s taxpayer money (mostly gasoline taxes). Just plain ol' simple taxation of the public to support social programs built and maintained by the government. Now if that's socialism, call me a socialist, but dang if it didn't work. Not sure why we can't do that anymore, but I try not to think about it too hard. Yeehaw!
> why socialism is failing their infrastructure
"socialism" is vague and meaningless, yes. But poor regulations are a huge problem in the US. Copying a comment from my notes (I didn't write it):
The year is 2010. The Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (LADWP) publishes its initial environmental study [1] on a large power infrastructure maintenance project. A portion of the project involves replacing about 200 wooden power poles that run through Pacific Palisades. The California State Lands Commission reviewed [2] the initial study and requested that LADWP provide a Native American Ground Monitor [3] during any digging to ensure that cultural resources are not inadvertently damaged or destroyed. By the final EIR [2] in 2016 LADWP decided that replacing all of those +70 year old power poles was no longer necessary.
The year is 2018. The Camp Fire ignites in northern California. Its cause was the failure of a 100 year old power line. By early 2019 LADWP decides to replace [4] those 70 year old powerlines running through Pacific Palisades, they're in a now deemed high fire threat area. The California Public Utilities Commission has recommended they be replaced as soon as possible. Work is to start in 2019.
July 7th, 2019. LADWP has started work to replace the power lines, as well as leveling and grading new fire roads. Amateur botanist and avid hiker David Pluenneke is hiking in the area. David is a member of the California Native Plant Society [5]. He sees that LADWP has trampled the endangered Braunton’s milkvetch. In all, 183 milkvetches [6] were murdered.
As a result:
- All newly constructed fire roads must be unconstructed and returned to their original condition.
- Any work must be supervised by an on site project biologist, or biologists if the worksite is large. These observers will make daily surveys of sensitive wildlife species and they have the authority to stop any work that could result in their harm.
- LADWP agrees to excavate the new powerline poles by hand, with shovels. Workers will walk to the site. Helicopters will bring in the new poles and remove the old.
- No construction activities that generate noise above 60 dBA (loudness of an average conversation) may take place during bird nesting season, which runs from mid February to mid September. Of course this requires another observer biologist, a bird biologist, to verify.
Checking Google Street View, as of August 2023 these poles were not replaced. [7] But overall there are 300,000+ [8] power poles in LA. As of 2019, 65% of them were older than the average lifespan of 50 years old. In 2024, LADWP replaced just 2743 poles. [9] Their average cost to replace a pole in the same year was $69,300. [10] At their 2024 rates it will take LADWP over 70 years and $14 billion to replace all past lifespan poles.
[1] https://www.ladwp.com/sites/default/files/documents/AppA_SGR...
[2] https://www.ladwp.com/sites/default/files/documents/SGRS_Fin...
[3] https://farwestern.com/monitoring/
[4] https://www.ladwpnews.com/ladwp-statement-on-power-pole-repl...
[5] https://www.cnps.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Compressed-D...
[6] https://www.courthousenews.com/la-to-pay-1-9-million-for-uti...
[7] https://earth.google.com/web/search/Temescal+Ridge+Fire+Road...
[8] https://ladwp-jtti.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/upl...
[9] https://prp.ladwp.com/
[10] https://www.ladwp.com/sites/default/files/2025-09/Rates%20Me...
Germany's public transport is really not privatized though. The Deutsche Bahn AG is structured as company, but is entirely owned by the federal government. There's very, very little public transportation (e.g. private buses between major cities) that is not owned and operated by the government.
What privatization are you talking about?
DB is only in its current state (company organization, leadership failures, organizational failures, underfunding for decades, etc) because of previous governments' failed attempts at privatization decades ago. Full actual privatization would not likely have yielded any better results - especially regarding the actual infrastructure itself. (There's enough examples worldwide)
It's also been used for cushy post-politics jobs and lots of other incompetent meddling - such as requiring and extracting profits, etc.
You're right that it's not privatized, but the root causes of current misery still are the privatization attempts and a significant neoliberal/conservative political force that caused decay and blocked progress/improvements.
6 replies →
Not sure what socialism has to do with getting multiple ticket systems to speak to each other. I sometimes worry HN is astroturfed but I tend to read comments like this more simply as trolling.
Yeh this has more to do with the failures of federation and has nothing to do with socialism.
Federation is a huge part of why Germany struggles to deliver on it's digitalization goals.
Having every podunk authority handling ticket issuance basically guarantees signing keys will eventually be stolen/misused. The lack of a robust revocation mechanism is the nail in the coffin though.
> Not sure what socialism has to do with
Nothing. Some people just wake up in the morning and have to interject their "socialism = bad" religion into at least one thread in order to feel they've done their evangelism for the day.
I grew up in a socialist country and anyone equates socialism with failure is 100% spot on.
People who think that living in socialism is in any way desirable simply don’t understand what socialism actually means.
The US provides plenty of anti-socialist fervor even without astroturfing.
We also get a bit of paid-for goading, just to keep it lively. But we do just fine without it.
All those socialist... Companies? With their socialist coding?
Maybe they also use Marx# (M#) with a socialist software architecture.
Isn’t the Deutschlandticket for public transportation?
Privately owned and operated transportation, where the main government involvement is just telling them to make it happen and then giving a certain amount of money per active subscription.
[flagged]
Huh? I mean if anything the problem here was privatisation of local transport (and too much faith in said privatised transport by the national authorities), which doesn’t seem _particularly_ socialist.