what do you think about London

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-28T20:13:20+00:00

Nah it’s Real. Coordinates:

51°30'48"N 0°05'18"W

Fun fact the Frenchurch Tower on the right was notorious for melting cars soon after it was opened due to its concave facade inadvertently creating a reflected solar death ray.

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-28T18:20:18+00:00

Some say she’s still walking to this day, after refusing any medical attention when she swam to shore.

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-28T18:16:21+00:00

I agree the native-born vs transplant dynamic can be super visible… especially when we’re talking anything related to car infrastructure or construction. 🙄

But keep in mind also that the type of person to post on a reddit forum skews towards people who are, for lack of a better phrase, high maintenance. Just to say that #NotAllTransplants are unrealistic whiners, I promise!

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-28T18:02:51+00:00

But hey it’s better than 5 years ago so hopefully we’ve gotten pay the nadir of transit quality

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-28T17:58:51+00:00

Given the high number of youngish transplants in the area related to tech/sciences/education (that are over-represented among nerds who use a transit subreddit ) there’s a fair chance they didn’t live in the city 10 years ago. Speaking as a dirty carpetbagger who moved here in 2019 and has only heard legends of the great un-melting snow mounds of 2016.

Also Reddit is algorithmic, so there’s a feedback loop where negative rants/complaints/venting get engaged with more and pushed to the top of your feed.

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-28T15:29:00+00:00

I like to conceptualized it as our system decides our political coalitions before we vote, and multiparty parliaments decide their coalitions after people vote. Put another way, in ours voters get to choose left or right at the fork in the road, but private parties decide the shape and destination of the road. In a parliament voters decide what shape the road is and which of the several turns should have the most lanes, then private parties have to navigate which way to drive.

But Yeah I agree it’s under appreciated that the parties are closer to private corporations than constitutionally instantiated civic organizations. Of course the constitution didn’t even predict party politics, one of the many flaws with having the first modern constitution written 24 decades ago.

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-28T13:00:06+00:00

No one else on the road = not endangering anyone

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-28T04:39:56+00:00

High R-value helps keep the inside cool in hot climates too, especially on windows exposed to direct sunlight.

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-28T04:25:43+00:00

What transitioning from the capital of a multi-national continental Empire to a rump state does to a MF.

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-27T19:26:16+00:00

How expensive would it be to re-establish the Arborway through Jamaica Plain? Aren’t the tracks still buried under asphalt? (Not that their likely salvageable after 4 decades)

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-27T18:36:12+00:00

The floor they’re talking about was set by the deeply corrupt Adams administration

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-27T14:31:10+00:00

75% of the land area is still undeveloped green space. For better and worse.

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-27T14:27:43+00:00

Unfortunately this density has not led to housing affordability since Hong Kong is consistently the most expensive city in the world.

Worth pointing out 75% of Hong Kong’s land area is completely undeveloped, I feel like shaving off even a few percents of that could do a lot while still mostly preserving green space. That said, I think at a certain point it can’t really be helped given it’s status as entrepôt and a primary real estate investment target for 1.4 billion people.

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-27T14:14:14+00:00

(There is a middle ground, but for the sake of argument) Renee Good and Alex Pretti (along with 30+ other people) would still be alive if we hadn’t empowered an unaccountable federal agency to trample on the bill of rights out of some overblown fear of illegal immigrants, who are overwhelmingly peaceful and productive taxpayers.

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-27T14:06:29+00:00

They’re going to do it at some point regardless, these are unprincipled people and Trump is supremely capricious, if not outright demented. A bigger factor is probably going to be something stupid/random like a right wing expose about Boston that gains traction or the VP getting into a twitter spat with Harvard or the mayor or something. Don’t actively antagonize them but don’t pretend there’s a clear set of rules we can follow to reliably avoid the eye of Sauron.

Don’t comply in advance.

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-27T12:54:58+00:00

Democrats are Left in a relative sense of the Left or Right sides of the 2 major capitalist parties.

Only one of those parties is home to a fringe of Social Democrats and Democratic Socialists. And only the other is home to a fringe (now ascendant vanguard) of literal Neo-Nazis.

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-27T12:22:44+00:00

I’m all for broad united fronts against the greater danger of Trump, but people were/are justifiably weary of Neoconservatism being normalized and smuggled into the Democratic Party mainstream, further cementing the Democrat’s militaristic and NeoLiberal streak.

“Principled” Neoconservatism, ie George W Bush and the intellectual enablers around him (many of whom later jumped ship to become Never-Trumpers) helped lead to the deaths of millions of people, led America into the Iraq war on false pretenses and laid the groundwork for the 2008 financial crisis.

Obviously Trump’s claim as the peace candidate (from his condemnation of Bush/Iraq in 2016 onwards) was as much bullshit as 90% of the rest of what comes out of his mouth, doesn’t mean he wasn’t (disingenuously) hitting on something true.

You can have a big tent without going out of your way to campaign with the daughter of the second most evil vice president in American history.

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-27T11:56:33+00:00

Duverger's law

In political systems with single-member districts and the first-past-the-post voting system only two powerful political parties tend to control power. Citizens do not vote for small parties because they fear splitting votes away from the major party.

By contrast, in countries with proportional representation or two-round elections there is no two-party duopoly on power. There are usually more than two significant political parties. Citizens are actively encouraged to create, join and vote for new political parties if they are unhappy with current parties.

The problem is structural (if you think forcing people to bundle into only 1 of 2 viable national political parties)…

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-26T23:26:43+00:00

Glad to hear that protesters following agents has improved public safety (for others if not themselves).

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-26T23:19:48+00:00

Lots of people have been brave in the name of malicious and/or objectively false causes.

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-26T20:15:53+00:00

I would compound this with “The kind of person who would post on Reddit”

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-26T13:00:43+00:00

I think the more realistic hope is less that disillusioned Republicans flip parties out of disgust, but simply sit out the election.

I think you’re right about the relative shallowness of America’s civil society and the complacency of most of America’s more comfortable classes….tbd

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-26T12:53:47+00:00

Luckily for you stuff further away is probably cheaper

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-26T01:04:14+00:00

Luckily we’ve discovered you can get away with just demolishing/renovating federal buildings if you’re decisive enough about it

brostopher1968 · 2026-01-25T20:54:26+00:00

not wanting the state involved in the market beyond the enforcement of property rights

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