Boring Company fined nearly $500K after it dumped drilling fluids into manholes

How is that only a $500,000 fine???

Stopping when inspectors are there only to restart once they leave is willful enough that you wonder why this doesn't go into criminal liability?

Some of these companies seem to have figured out that you can just do things and get away with it if you don’t mind paying a few fines (maybe “fees” would be a better term??)

Indignation is anger plus self righteousness. Social media companies have found that they see the best return on content which is both shocking and serves users' confirmation bias.

"This thing you already hate is just as bad as you already thought."

Do companies run by Elon Musk violate ethical and environmental regulations much more often than other similar companies, or does it just seem that way as a casual news reader because it is more worthwhile for outlets to publish a story when it happens?

I'm open to the idea that they really are worse, it would be very "on brand" for Musk, but I wish I had a sense of the numbers

Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45540585

There was an amazing YouTube poop format satire video with Musk saying: ~"There are no consequences. Life has no meaning."

I can no longer find it. If anyone else can, it might be nice to link here.

The Boring Company seems like a total nothingburger at this point. The Las Vegas Loop is not particularly impressive and it's taking a long time to expand it. Nothing about this feels revolutionary or even evolutionary. Just novelty.

The fact that Teslas can't navigate autonomously even in these controlled, enclosed environments is also quite embarrassing.

Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45540585

There was an amazing YouTube poop format satire video with Musk saying: ~"There are no consequences. Life has no meaning."

I can no longer find it. If anyone else can, it might be nice to link here.

How is that only a $500,000 fine???

Stopping when inspectors are there only to restart once they leave is willful enough that you wonder why this doesn't go into criminal liability?

ProPublica's reporting has been dogging Boring's heels in Las Vegas on this, I've been reading them religiously. It appears that the city views this project as Cool™ and opts either to not fine or fine pittances for constant violations.

This was their big expose back in January: https://www.propublica.org/article/elon-musk-boring-company-...

Fines start small, then get big.

It's rare for even blatant misconduct of this kind by a company to result in criminal charges.

Which is stupid, obviously. If it's intentional/willful breaking of the law, send them to jail the same way you would for an individual.

Do you know who runs that company???

To be fair it's over 3 times the amount of damage they caused, so that is a pretty big profit margin on cleaning up the mess.

Some of these companies seem to have figured out that you can just do things and get away with it if you don’t mind paying a few fines (maybe “fees” would be a better term??)

Some? This is basically how we let society work now. If you have money, you can do really abhorrent things and just get away with it with almost zero consequence.

We have the law and the police setup to protect the rich from any real rebuttal to this status quo so we're locked in.

Indignation is anger plus self righteousness. Social media companies have found that they see the best return on content which is both shocking and serves users' confirmation bias.

"This thing you already hate is just as bad as you already thought."

I'm open to the idea that they really are worse, it would be very "on brand" for Musk, but I wish I had a sense of the numbers

The part that shocks me is they were told to stop, pretended to stop, and then restarted again. I was under the impression that usually the system comes down quite hard on people who show that level of intentionality.

If this was one thing in isolation, I'd easily believe that many/most other companies are just as bad, and get slapped with small fines like this that they treat as a cost of doing business (and ends up being cheaper than the cost of doing the right thing in the first place).

But it looks like they were, in total, fined for 800 or so environmental violations, which feels like a lot of violations: https://www.propublica.org/article/elon-musk-boring-company-...

This is a valid take, but I also wonder if there’s anything to be gained by chastising those who complain about the musk company. Nobody does a thing about any company being shitty, a company is singled out by the mob for critique in a way that may (?) lead to some kind of consequence, and my thinking is you may as well join in to get something rather than nothing done. The real issue is that public outrage does absolutely nothing most of the time.

Maybe things find it so easy to get worse because so many people would rather virtue signal being above having an explicit stance than choose one that's unpopular or be accused of being partisan.

The fact that Teslas can't navigate autonomously even in these controlled, enclosed environments is also quite embarrassing.

> Nothing about this feels revolutionary or even evolutionary.

They were trying hard to make a TBM that was faster than the current literal snails pace and cheaper than existing ones. It doesn’t appear they’ve had much success, though I’d rather they tried than just sticking with the status quo forever.

> The fact that Teslas can't navigate autonomously even in these controlled, enclosed environments is also quite embarrassing.

They can, regulations just don’t allow it yet. Coming soon (tm)

It's rare for even blatant misconduct of this kind by a company to result in criminal charges.

Which is stupid, obviously. If it's intentional/willful breaking of the law, send them to jail the same way you would for an individual.

Do you know who runs that company???

> Nothing about this feels revolutionary or even evolutionary.

> The fact that Teslas can't navigate autonomously even in these controlled, enclosed environments is also quite embarrassing.

They can, regulations just don’t allow it yet. Coming soon (tm)

What do they do that is more impressive than routine tunnels built in cities for the last few decades (or even between different soverign countries under the sea!)?

It's an outstanding mechanism to derail public transit efforts, that's all. It's not a nothing burger because that would suggest it's a good faith effort that just didn't pan out.

This was their big expose back in January: https://www.propublica.org/article/elon-musk-boring-company-...

ProPublica is extremely left-wing. That doesn't imply that their journalism is low-quality or inaccurate, but it does suggest that their choice of stories will be colored by that ideological/establishment-friendly bent. You won't see them investigating the political influence exerted by public sector unions for example.

Their X feed gives a pretty clear picture of that:

https://x.com/propublica

Fines start small, then get big.

That's the idea in general, but show us how that applies to this company. They're at ~800 violations https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/elon-musks-boring-compan...

To be fair it's over 3 times the amount of damage they caused, so that is a pretty big profit margin on cleaning up the mess.

Some? This is basically how we let society work now. If you have money, you can do really abhorrent things and just get away with it with almost zero consequence.

We have the law and the police setup to protect the rich from any real rebuttal to this status quo so we're locked in.

A lot of times the businesses are long gone when the cleanup needs to be paid for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfund

I guess my question is when was it ever not this way? Seems way better now than in the past.

Their X feed gives a pretty clear picture of that:

https://x.com/propublica

Were they even trying to redesign a TBM? I think they were just using off the shelf boring machines at a smaller diameter (many tunnels one lane each) because building tunnels wide enough for a highway is exponentially more expensive.

But it looks like they were, in total, fined for 800 or so environmental violations, which feels like a lot of violations: https://www.propublica.org/article/elon-musk-boring-company-...

Maybe things find it so easy to get worse because so many people would rather virtue signal being above having an explicit stance than choose one that's unpopular or be accused of being partisan.

I guess my question is when was it ever not this way? Seems way better now than in the past.

That's the idea in general, but show us how that applies to this company. They're at ~800 violations https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/elon-musks-boring-compan...

A lot of times the businesses are long gone when the cleanup needs to be paid for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfund

What do they do that is more impressive than routine tunnels built in cities for the last few decades (or even between different soverign countries under the sea!)?

Their main differentiator is cost. The Boring Company bid $48.7 million for the initial LVCC loop. The total cost to complete it was $53 million. The second cheapest bid was Doppelmeyer Cableliner, which would have built a people mover for $215M. The people mover would have had about 50% more capacity per station, but at 4 times the cost.

Tunnel cost is mostly dependent on the volume of material removed, which means that cost goes up linearly with length but with the square of the tunnel diameter. Trains and people movers tend to require significantly larger diameter tunnels, so their costs tend to be much higher. Also Boring Company tunnels don't need much infrastructure in them, so they save money on rails, high voltage power systems, rolling stock, etc.

It's an outstanding mechanism to derail public transit efforts, that's all. It's not a nothing burger because that would suggest it's a good faith effort that just didn't pan out.

People like to die vote this because it's apocryphal that the purpose of hyperloop was to sabotage public transit but the motive sure fits the crime, musk ain't in the railroading business.

They even derailed (no pun intended) a train link from Building 37 to O'Hare by offering to build a train station in the cavern already dug for a high speed rail terminal that may exist someday in the future. I don't think they ever did anything there but the city was onboard (damn a lot of idioms are train related huh)

How do their operating costs compare?

People like to die vote this because it's apocryphal that the purpose of hyperloop was to sabotage public transit but the motive sure fits the crime, musk ain't in the railroading business.

> because it's apocryphal that the purpose of hyperloop was to sabotage public transit but the motive sure fits the crime

Elon Musk told his biographer that the purpose of his Hyperloop proposal was to kill CAHSR. That's not exactly apocryphal.

How do their operating costs compare?

> because it's apocryphal that the purpose of hyperloop was to sabotage public transit but the motive sure fits the crime

Elon Musk told his biographer that the purpose of his Hyperloop proposal was to kill CAHSR. That's not exactly apocryphal.

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Boring Company fined nearly $500K after it dumped drilling fluids into manholes

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