Comment by softwaredoug
7 hours ago
If these projects ultimately end up canceled they’ll be the largest “mostly done” infrastructure projects to be cancelled. A huge waste. And a monument to US incompetency.
7 hours ago
If these projects ultimately end up canceled they’ll be the largest “mostly done” infrastructure projects to be cancelled. A huge waste. And a monument to US incompetency.
> incompetency
"corruption"
spite of one man child
Are you talking about Biden?
The Keystone XL pipeline had been partially constructed before President Biden revoked the permit on January 20, 2021 on his first day in office. About 300 miles had been completed when TC Energy officially abandoned the project.
The sad truth is that it's millions of people. These people just want to see the world burn due to nothing but narcissism and hate of the imaginary "other side".
7 replies →
[flagged]
> Less corruption
there's been, in 2025, 983 000 people receiving disciplinary sanctions[0]. then:
1. either there's no corruption, and people are getting sanctioned for no reason
2. there's corruption
> Less incompetency
one thing they seem to do correctly in China, is to select their leaders not based on pure political skills, but on actual thinking skills: many of them come from technical backgrounds, and have been trained to think rationally.
furthermore, in my experience, Asian people, and Chinese in particular, also have better working habits − stronger wills − than most Westerners.
I'd still be careful about assuming they're really _that_ more competent. intellectual theft, propaganda, rushed work, all could contribute to a temporary illusion of superiority.
> Less freedom for stuff like protesting
this is a watered-down description of the actual situation.
you can get jailed, beaten up, tortured, killed, etc. religious groups seem to be the main target of the most violent treatments[1]. there's really no reason to target peaceful people, via such extreme means.
[0]: https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2026/01/30/investigations-in...
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_China
3 replies →
It's not a linear relationship where you trade one for the other. You don't just get a more competent government by giving up freedoms.
14 replies →
I think parsing out what kind of freedom would help here. The US has a lot of “freedom of” but not a lot of “freedom from.”
10 replies →
Wait until you live through what Argentina or Brasil have then see how you feel about redress, petition and speech.
4 replies →
This is one of the most insane things I’ve ever read on this forum.
The assertion that being able to summarily execute people you accuse of corruption somehow reduces corruption is absurd. If that were true, places like Russia would have no corruption. Being a dictator just ensures that corruption flows your way as the leader.
2 replies →
> A huge waste. And a monument to US incompetency
But a windfall for the litigation financier that buys those claims off the U.S. government.
These leases are contracts. Sovereign immunity is curtailed when the U.S. contracts.
have you met the california high speed rail or not yet?
Well, that's not 'mostly done'
Worse than the Superconducting Supercollider?
Yes far worse, the superconducting supercollider produced science which has debatable value. There’s an argument we lost nothing by canceling the project.
Wind farms produce electricity which pays for the investment when you finish but pays nothing when a stop early. This makes stopping early extremely economically harmful.
Esoteric programming language developed for the superconducting super collider, Glish, was picked up by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which used it well into the 2000s.
Glish supported networked remote procedure calls, made then almost transparent to the program. Otherwise, Glish was roughly similar to Tcl or Lua.
I don't know what other bits and pieces got salvaged from the SSC project.
1 reply →
The effective electricity rate in MA is already $0.37/kWh. How much further could it go?
1 reply →
Or that space telescope?
Well, judicial checks and balances should protect them until regime change, which is coming.
I dunno. The Americans stuck their hand in a blender for four years and then four years later needed to try it again. Alas, Stumpy McNubs remains long on limbs but short on memory.
The first time many of Trump's desires to do illegal things were somewhat restrained by non-political government employees who remembered that their oath is to the Constitution, not the President.
Based on what I've read a lot of people who voted for him subsequent times thought that would continue.
I have similar concerns, but the evidence so far is encouraging.
https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1puwkpj/democrats...
https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1qu6vyu/trump_cal...
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5716988-democrats-scor...
https://www.npr.org/2026/02/01/nx-s1-5695678/democrat-taylor...
2 replies →
Don't look into laser with remaining eye! (Unless it's really shiny, and red?)
1 reply →
It's going to be dicey whether you can keep all the suppliers engaged with start / stops over 3 years.
From the piece:
> Several of these projects are near completion and are likely to be done before any government appeal can be heard.
Just gotta keep grinding towards success.
2 replies →
There's no regime change coming when those in power run the elections, have already cheated in the past, and know that they are now untouchable.
It is not too useful to make bold unsupported claims that the current administration has the power to subvert elections. That just lowers us to their level, and the last thing we need is for a further erosion in confidence in our democratic system. The states run elections, and no matter what Trump says to get people to keep paying attention to him, they don't jump when the president tells them to. The feds have money and nukes, but States have a lot of the actual power.
1 reply →
States run the elections.
6 replies →
GOP cronyism and deep corruption.