It is highly likely that, between unions, and construction companies, and highway patrol departments, and schedule slips and general inattention, there is systemic incompetence in the DoT industrial complex.

It's also highly likely that things are organized the way they are organized because it benefits someone -- e.g. unions, and construction companies, etc. etc. -- and nobody cares about the convenience of the masses.

"It's just good business" -- Lord Cutler Beckett.

I'm occasionally still amazed that traffic works as well as it does. I must say I'm hesitant at using this example to claim that people are more capable than you might think. Driving is just something humans happen to be competent at. There are plenty of things roughly as complicated as driving a car that people aren't surprisingly good at.

This also reminded my of something people said at the latest meetup. At least two people told me they had deliberately tried to get more scared of driving, because they had noticed they had less fear in a car than on a plane despite planes being safer.

I feel like this quote is probably intended to be a joke. But, I have to ask anyway:

I always heard this quote as "never attribute... explained by ignorance," with the moral being that ignorance is repairable, but malice is a (presumably?) permanent character trait. Is incompetence supposed to be a repairable or a permanent trait, in this phrasing?

/end randomness...

Because it is incompatible with the beliefs of my tribe.

Because it is clear and simple, and therefore unfit to signal my sophistication.

Or because there are some specific technical reasons why it is wrong.

I guess these are the three most frequent reasons, perhaps even in the decreasing order of frequency, why clear and simple answers are wrong.

the polarization on the issue would become more pronounced and the 'other side' would accused of additional immorality for not submitting this side's power play as they clearly ought to. (Did that last addition happen by the way? I have more or less assumed that it would but my curiosity seeks calibration.)

If the polarization has become more pronounced, I haven't noticed, but I'm not really sure what that would even look like at this point. But, yes, there's a lot of the predictable "this situation is your fault for refusing to accept the conditions we've set for relaxing this situation!" going on.

Why Opium produces sleep: ... Because there is in it a dormitive power.

Moliere, Le Malade Imaginere (1673), Act III, sc. iii.

He actually spent the first two months on a Soylent-only diet, and only recently added social eating. I think he said something in his three month blog post about a week he spent eating normal food, and he ended up feeling way crappier.

The Young Wizards series has "Dai stihó", a greeting in The Speech between wizards. It's simplest translation into english is "go well" but it also contains senses of "good luck", "do your best", "behave morally" and "be what you are".

Since I first read this about a year ago, it had had an interesting side effect. I am less able to enjoy fiction where the plot requires a monogamous assumption to function. Plots and Tropes like "Love Triangle", "Who Will Zie Choose?", "Can't Date Them, Not the One", and some "Cheating Spouse" and "Jealous Spouse" now seem weird and artificial to me (unless the poly option is considered and discarded).

I was never a huge fan of romance or romantic comedy, so this is no great loss. It is an interesting minor memetic hazard though.