Sort of off topic but, how many newly coined “rationalist” terms are
just obtuse euphemisms for a simple concept that already exists?
e.g. red/blue/grey tribe for Democrats/Republicans/Libertarian …
At least on LW I think it comes from not actually reading, and in many cases intentionally and proudly refusing to read, any philosophy (which in turn comes from rejecting anything but STEM as a legitimate academic discipline).
The effect is to create a cultish environment by making it difficult to discuss the concepts with anyone outside the community, but I don't think that's mostly the intent
The alleged reason is IIRC the claim that accepted terms are already carrying existing connotations, and so in order to judge them objectively you need new terms without baggage.
This is obviously bollocks.
I think it’s all of them. From what I can tell, most of their arguments (at least the ones listed here) are standard political diatribes with names changed. Eg replacing liberal and conservative with “Olmec” and “Vedan”.
Decoding these types of posts is basically a glorified “find and replace” exercise, and when you’re done all you really learn is how pedestrian and uninspired the argument is.
one of the worst fucking things about this set and ribbonfarm-adjacent nerds are their use of neologisms and engineering metaphors when perfectly reasonably alternatives already exist.
Is there any group more into “we can do better than the rest of the
world because we’re better than everyone” groupthink than SV engineers?
It’s taken them fifty years to admit they were wrong.
I'm gonna be rich, I'm going to make an app that just lists all the thing you were wrong about, and you only have to buy the app and never apologize to the people harmed, or fix anything. Iabsolution.
BART was not designed by Silicon Valley software engineers.
[https://www.bart.gov/about/history](https://www.bart.gov/about/history)
[https://www.quora.com/Why-does-BART-have-the-unusual-Broad-Gauge-the-Indian-Gauge-different-from-the-rest-of-the-country/answer/Kristen-Ray](https://www.quora.com/Why-does-BART-have-the-unusual-Broad-Gauge-the-Indian-Gauge-different-from-the-rest-of-the-country/answer/Kristen-Ray)
Who said anything about software engineers?
According to Wikipedia, the rolling stock was “designed by Rohr Industries, an aerospace manufacturing company that had recently started mass-transit equipment manufacturing.”
Based near San Diego in Socal: [https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/300327Q:US](https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/300327Q:US)
They also worked on the DC metro
Takes me back to living in San Francisco for college before tech
valley moved in. I lived fairly central so didn’t take BART more than a
handful of times over 4-5 years but, yeah, it was loud when I did. Would
rather take the bus if I could.
Disappointingly, this just sounds like an ordinary trip on the London Underground (and I double-checked by listening to other videos of the BART)
So I'm now fairly sceptical of the claims linked here
It'd be ironic if this were somebody from the Bay Area opining about the uniqueness of the BART trains who hadn't experienced other metros
It is true, but apparently they weren’t the only metro to go for cylindrical wheels at the time in the US. Supposedly cylindrical wheels give a smoother ride, with no chance of hunting (which requires careful setup of the suspension to avoid) on straight track sections. But the price turns out to be massively increased wear on the track, especially on the bends you do have & on track laid on concrete (which BART apparently has a lot of). Plus the godawful noise.
BART is loud but so is every other train in every other city I’ve been to. Only trains that stood out as “holy shit is this motherfucker falling off the rails” to me were the green line trains in boston at Boylston and Park but those are the sharpest-turning trains in the US
I have only experienced BART and the DC Metro and BART seems much louder.
Part of it is that the trans-bay tube really stands out. The trains go the fastest there and it's enclosed so the noise is louder. If you're going across in an old train it's so loud you can't have a conversation for 5-10 minutes.
Found this amazing transcript of a podcast with a BART official: [https://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2018/news20180606](https://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2018/news20180606) \- I paraphrase the relevant part below:
Bombardier engineers: “It hurts us too much to watch you keep doing this to yourself. Have some new wheelsets on us: they’ll make things better.”
BART: “What? No. Stop. We don’t believe you.”
Bombardier engineers: “Here’s a ton of simulation work to show that we’re right.”
BART: “We still don’t believe you, we’re going to go talk to some honest upright American engineers and they’ll tell us you’re wrong.”
Bombardier engineers: “Fine, whatever.”
...time passes...
BART: ”OK, you were right, but we’re going to run a two year trial before we even begin to think about admitting it in public.”
Sort of off topic but, how many newly coined “rationalist” terms are just obtuse euphemisms for a simple concept that already exists? e.g. red/blue/grey tribe for Democrats/Republicans/Libertarian …
Is there any group more into “we can do better than the rest of the world because we’re better than everyone” groupthink than SV engineers? It’s taken them fifty years to admit they were wrong.
Takes me back to living in San Francisco for college before tech valley moved in. I lived fairly central so didn’t take BART more than a handful of times over 4-5 years but, yeah, it was loud when I did. Would rather take the bus if I could.
I had never heard of this, this is fucking amazing
(My Dad is a massive train and plane nerd (I’m just the latter))
I had no idea they tried to do this
My new start up Wheelr has received 650m$ in VC funding from Softbank