Comments by "Persona" (@ArawnOfAnnwn) on "Dutch proposal to dam the North Sea" video.

Drain it to where? Outside the wall? So the rest of the Atlantic Ocean can rise even further and encroach upon millions of people in the rest of the world? Actually yeah, that does sound like something Europe would do...
2
@NGRevenant No, arguing per capita is the only way to make a just comparison. Fact of the matter is the average American is far more responsible for this mess, and has also been doing it for and benefiting from it for far longer than the average Chinese has. So how is it fair that said average Chinese is to be penalized for it? And if you're going to argue that the climate doesn't care about human justice, then show your great concern for the climate by agreeing to foot the bill for them to transition faster (they're already changing btw, at a faster rate than western nations ever did). After all, you've benefited the most from creating the mess, you ought to pay the most for cleaning it up as well.
1
@OptimalOwl That only deals with one of the reasons cost overruns happen i.e. that they underestimate the cost when making their bids. Plenty of cost inflation occurs during the actual building phase as well, especially if it spans a long period of time and is highly contentious, bureaucratic and complex.
1
@Dimosthenis Karamparpas Why does Europe even need to be bigger? There are other parts of the world that're more crowded yet still work, nor does Europe particularly need more farmland.
1
@OptimalOwl Yes, everyone expects such inefficiencies and overruns. Even the people here in the comments are doing that. But notice how no one has been able to provide a proper specific figure for it. Or if they have, it's just a hand-wavey guess. You can't do that on a serious proposal. You need to have a specific figure in mind, and also some at least plausible rationale for it. So another explanation (and it's not necessarily the whole reason, but it does contribute) for why the proper number isn't provided is simply because no one knows it. At least not with any confidence or justification. They know it'll likely overrun. Their client (the govt.) knows it'll likely overrun. They know their client knows. Their client knows that they know that he knows. But no one actually knows how much. That's something that only becomes apparent once the boots are on the ground and the building commences (and keep in mind that there are plenty of genuinely unforeseen circumstances, like public opposition leading to frequent halts), and as stuff goes up (or as the say in the military, no plan survives first contact). So they just present what costs they can account for, with the tacit understanding by all parties (including the watching public, as evident in these comments) that it's going to overrun by some uncertain amount, hoping that that amount isn't too large.
1
@OptimalOwl Mind that I'm not saying underreporting costs in order to try to win contracts doesn't happen. It does. But as you've pointed out, that isn't a factor here. I'm simply saying that there's plenty of other reasons why stuff goes overbudget, which would likely still occur for megaprojects like this. So it's still likely to cost more than predicted. This one even has issues that most public infrastructure projects don't face, such as geopolitical tensions and quite possibly active public opposition (and it'll have to run through the terms of multiple different govts. in a multitude of countries, so expect a lot of flip-flopping).
1