poli-sci@ucbvax.ARPA (04/30/85)
From: JoSH <JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Poli-Sci Digest Tue 30 Apr 85 Volume 5 Number 16
Contents: Drinking age
Railcars
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Date: Thursday, 25 April 1985 13:52:05 EST
From: Hank.Walker@cmu-cs-unh.arpa
Subject: drinking age
Of course setting a drinking age is "discrimination," just like any other
restriction based on some attribute not shared by everyone. I'm repeating
myself, but I again point out that we have all sorts of ages of
responsibility. You can't drive until 16, you can't consent to sex until
13-16, you can't get married without parental permission until 16-17, you
can't become a Congressman until 25, or President until 35. You can't rent
a car until 18 with a credit card, and 25 without one. Etc. Etc. Not all
of these restricts are set in laws, but I believe all of them have been
upheld as constitutional. Note that the public office ages are explicit in
the Constitution.
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Date: Thu 25 Apr 85 17:22:34-PST
From: Lynn Gazis <SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: Drinking age
I think my point about people being able to experience both treatments
was misunderstood. It has nothing to do with knowing how it would
feel. If my household had only enough hot water for one shower a day,
it would be fairer for each person to go without a shower one day and
get one the next than for half the people to go without any showers at
all. In the same way, it is fairer for every person to not be allowed
to drink for some period of time and be allowed to drink for some
period of time than for some people to never be allowed to drink and
some to be allowed to drink all the time. This would be truer if it
were certain days of the week on which no one could drink, rather than
certain ages, because not everyone lives to every age. But I still
think it is fairer to restrict everyone at some age than some people
at every age.
What sort of restrictions on everyone would you suggest as an
alternative to age restrictions?
Lynn Gazis
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Date: Thu 25 Apr 85 17:30:43-PST
From: Lynn Gazis <SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: more drinking age
I just thought of an alternative to a uniform national drinking age;
people could have to prove in-state residence to buy alcohol. Then
there would be no incentive to drive across the state border to drink,
since it is just as easy to fake your age on an ID as to fake your
residence.
Lynn Gazis
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Date: 26 Apr 85 16:46 EST
From: Turner.wbst@Xerox.ARPA
Subject: Drinking age discrimination
Re:
[Suppose you take your "but younger people are
more likely ..." (which is statistically true) and replaced
it with "but black people are more likely" (which is also
statistically
true). How do you like the laws your own logic leads to now?
--JoSH]
The debate over whether or not setting a drinking age constitutes
discrimination seems peripheral; the usual meaning of discrimination
describes the situation accurately. If one supports this country's
legislative process, then what seems more important is whether or not
drinking age discrimination is acceptable (considering: most law
entails some form of discrimination). It seems as though most people
believe discrimination by blackness is unacceptable (unconstitutional,
immoral, unfair, etc.); the consensus on drinking age discrimination
would be interesting and useful.
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Date: 25 Apr 85 01:24 EST (Thu)
From: _Bob <Carter@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Subject: "Railcars"
Hi JD,
From: DINGMAN at RADC-TOPS20.ARPA
Finally, several years ago I heard some polititian suggested
building monorails on the grass median strips found between
opposing lanes of most interstates. This would be much cheaper
than landscaping for new track. Perhaps this would be the ideal
place for the railcars, making the integration of them and
conventional travel easier.
Sigh. This is just the kind of jackass idea a politician would
suggest.
Roads differ fundamentally from from railways. Something that runs
on rails @i(cannot) have active steering. Getting a
Greyhound-bus-sized object with wheels at each end to change
directions on tracks requires @i(large) radius curves and long spiral
easements in and out of them. So, a railroad is almost always coming
out of the last corner or going into the next one. And, if you want
to make respectable speed, you have to superelevate (bank) the
curves.
Steel wheels on steel rail have a very low coefficient of rolling
friction. Unfortunately, they have a pretty low coefficient of
sliding friction too. It is nontrivial to lay out the roadbed
necessary to get a railcar up a hill you wouldn't notice on a
fat-tired one-speed bike. Again, you need a long gentle curve, with
easements in and out.
Uneven track surface makes a railcar fall off. In steam (i.e.
regular railroad) practice the surface of superelevated rail has to
be positioned to a tolerance of half a centimeter or so, and even
tangent track should be correct to about twice that. Track is a
flexible composite structure. To keep it even enough to be safe
requires constant twiddling.
In short, no interstate (and hence, no interstate median divider) is
designed to rail standards of vertical and horizontal curvature. And
no railway could survive on an interstate level of maintenance. You
can build a highway when and wherever necessary to make your idiot
brother-in-law rich, and you don't have to repave it until you need
the construction union vote. You have to @i(plan) a railway and then
take you have to take @i(good) care of it.
_B
[This is one of those ideas that seem to hang around out there waiting
for some to bring them up again--and someone always does. The last time I
heard it, some New Jersey politician had been to Disney World and decided
that the state should make the "Jersey style" highway median barriers
into monorails, because they LOOK LIKE the concrete rails the Disney
monorails run on. Well, I've been to DW too, and went with malice
aforethought to analyse the monorails and other technological wonders.
The monorail is fantastically photogenic--and completely worthless
as a serious transportation system. Nowhere near the economy, in
capital or labor, or the capacity, of the diesel parking lot trains--
or of an ordinary bus. --JoSH]
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Date: 26 Apr 85 01:32:49 EST
From: Mike <ZALESKI@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Subject: Pie in the sky rail cars
1. Will cost a fortune in money and energy to build.
2. If they use electricity will be even more inefficient that
the internal combustion engine (fuel to electricity will yield
some waste, transmission losses will add to this).
3. Be potentially dangerous, depending on how the power is provided
from the ground (third rails everywhere might be a bit chancy).
4. Will probably be more unreliable in bad weather.
5. If they are computer guided, we will all be in trouble when
the computer crashes or the first bug in the software is "found".
6. Will enable the government (or other fringe lunatic group) to
cut off the juice and keep people from moving around.
7. Could potentially be used to monitor people's movements.
Hmmm...this doesn't sound like a very good idea.....
If the government wanted to move people efficiently, they would
raise the speed limit to 100 MPH and ticket anyone driving
more than 10 MPH below the limit.
To see why this is true, consider how much traffic can pass a point
on the road in a given hour. Assume a constant flow of cars, each
15 feet long, seperated by one car length for each 10 MPH.
At 10 MPH a stream of cars 10 miles long (1760 cars) can pass said point.
At 55 MPH a stream of cars 55 miles long (2978 cars) can pass said point.
At 100 MPH a stream of cars 100 miles long (3200 cars) can pass said point.
This is what real engineering is all about. -- Mike^Z
[Of all the people who have completely misinterpreted something I said
on the net, you are within physical reach--Look Out!
Points 2,3,5,6, and 7 turn on a system that is centrally controlled
or powered--which I specifically disavowed in previous postings.
On point 1, I have indicated that I thought a system might be installed
over the period of a replacement generation of present roads and
cars, with interim (double) systems perhaps costing more, but with
lower costs in a "pure" railcar system. On point 4, sure, cars are
more dangerous in bad weather, automatic or not, rail or not.
More serious criticisms of the railcar idea can be drawn from Bob Carter's
informed demolition of the "interstate monorail" idea. The geographical
inflexibilities of conventional rail make it difficult to parallel
existing roadways therewith. Changes in the design of the rail and
vehicle ameliorate the problems, I think enough to work.
Mike's second point, about speed, forgets that following distances
should be measured in time, not distance. Following someone two seconds
behind --at any speed-- is as close as you can do safely. Thus at any
speed, a lane's carrying capacity is 30 cars per minute.
( enter :^) mode )
Mike's failure is one of nerve. Consider the following facts (guesses,
misrecollections): There are 50 million cars in the US, which make an
average two ten-mile trips per day. This means that once each 0.864
milliseconds, someone starts a trip somewhere. We will assume (with
absolutely no justification) that the fact that the trips are not
actually evenly distributed in time cancels the fact that they are
not all goint to the same place or crossing paths. Then, if everyone
is required to drive at 11,574 miles per second or faster, the carrying
capacity of the roads is effectively unlimited, *since there is only
one car on the entire road system at any one time*. This feature of
an increased speed limit has obvious safety advantages as well.
--JoSH]
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End of POLI-SCI Digest
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