/travel/Disjointed
It's weird to be back: it's with a definite sense of disjointedness that I
flip my Macbook's timezone back to the right coast, and close the essential Firefox tabs that I've had open for two
weeks — the shuttle schedule, Google Maps of the Mission District, Muni and BART info, and various other journeys I needed to make. The trip was excellent in so
many ways — finding old friendships, making some awesome new ones, my first opera and trying out yoga, and
regrounding myself in a company that's doubled in size since my last trip to HQ and finding myself warmly re-accepted
back into the fold.
But it was so soon after I'd gotten to NYC (which in turn was after an unsettled time in Ottawa) that I return with this sense that my apartment is actually just another couch to crash on (minus the couch — need to buy one of those soon!). I decided to put together my kitchen table properly as soon as I got home, and tidy up a bit to combat this sense of placelessness, which is good — now I have somewhere to sit and type! An upcoming visit or two from friends should help build on this — better get that couch.
One of the things I liked about SF was how I didn't really worry as I walked
around random streets, so tonight I walked home from my sister's (the route had somehow entered my brain as sketchy) for
the first time, and it was totally sane. I don't know what was blocking that before — people here talk about crime a
lot more than I'm used to, I guess.
It's also good to be back. My oldest sister and her three wee ones are down from Nova Scotia, though the wee ones are hardly wee, plus of course J, D & j are still here. This is the third (fourth?!) time I've seen the Nova Scotia contingent this year, which is really great. Today we watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which was kinda cool but generally punctuated by long periods where we couldn't see anything, as parades in Manhattan seem to be.
Now it's time to settle in, and give this damn sleepless city a run for its money.
/travel/Thou Shalt Not Externalize
[from my recent flight to San Francisco]
If God had been an economic agnostic economist, he would have saved time by having only one commandment: Thou Shalt Not Externalise. Lying, adultering, killing, coveting: all impose costs on others and on society in general. Killing and other crime imposes the direct cost of crime onto the victim, as well as the social costs of policing and enforcement. Lying and adultery reduce trust in general, and contribute to the breakdown of families. Intuitively I think even coveting imposes a social cost, though I'm not sure exactly how.
A few years ago, I was mulling over some debates I had in university about free markets, the role of individual rights, the existence of group rights, and that sort of thing. I was waiting for a flight, which somehow always makes me a bit reflective — probably in anticipation of the period of calm, uninterrupted time that air travel often offers. Two women ahead of me were discussing flight prices, and per-item baggage fees (new in Europe at the time) and how they hated it, and I had a novel (to me!) thought: putting aside the philosophical rigorand the arguments about efficiency and minimal government intervention and maximal freedom and optimal wealth distribution and maximizing happiness and all that, most people simply don't like certain outcomes of market economics: the need to price shop and to be diligent about carefully worded agreements, the frequent power imbalances, and the intrinsic drive to externalize.
Since last time I flew, there are now per-checked bag fees in the US; this returns some of the true cost of baggage to passengers &mdash a properly capitalist move. The response of the passengers is to maximize use of carry-on bags. The plane can't actually support that when it's full, so the bags don't fit in the overhead bins and have to be brought back to the front through the narrow aisles to be checked —presumably for free — slowing down the departure time for everyone.
None of these actions are unreasonable; each is really very capitalist in nature, yet the outcome seems sour because the incentives are wrong.
I'm on an airplane again, reflecting: this is the most intense externalization of costs I knowingly participate in. It's a business flight and my employer buys offsets, but these still do not come close to internalizing the costs*. For many greenheads, this is "the one thing". "I try to be green, but flying is definitely one exception" is something I've heard a lot, as I've commiserated with likeminded people who struggle with the same stuff I do. Lately I've been thinking of that as analogous to "I support emancipation, so I've really cut back on my household slaves, but out in the plantations I just can't do without them." (It's in some ways very different, obviously. I said analogous, not equivalent.) It shows awareness and resistance to the externality, yet practically speaking I'm still emitting more than my own annual sustainable CO2e emissions during this one return flight which is all that really matters.
* Carbon offsets are priced based on the marginal cost of offsets in a world that's offsetting a tiny fraction of its total unsustainable CO 2e emissions. In order to fully internalize the costs you would need to pay based on the average price of offsetting or reducing our total unsustainable emissions. This is, at least, somewhere in the $50-$400/tonne CO2e range, much more than the $10-$20 of retail offsets .
Comments
Josh wrote
1. There are definitely lies with net-positive externalities. There are probably even net-externality-positive killings.
2. Where was the asterisk in the last paragraph supposed to point?
Rob wrote
1. True, I guess god was cleverer than I thought.
2. Added.
Tony wrote
Galatians 5:14 ;-p
Rob Ewaschuk wrote
I've always found a lot of problem with that prescription: no matter how simple or naïve or enlighten or profoundly of an interpretation you have it's problematic.
/life/nyc/Arrive
It's with a decided sense of irony that I'm finally writing the complementary post to the last one from a flight from JFK (New York) to SFO (San Francisco). But it's true — this morning I got a kitchen table, four chairs, a rocking chair, and a beanbag chair to supplement the boxes of stuff my dad brought down with him from Ontario (thanks dad!). It turned my kitchen from a depressing one-fork town to a proper-looking place of cullinary enjoyment, and gave me more than the suitcase-load of clothes to rotate through — hurray! Now I just need some food in the cupboards! Moving is "the one thing" I really really can't do independently 'cause I don't drive, and my moving karma is at an all-time low, so if I'm ever in the area when you need help with a move, please let me know.
It's good to be back at work, and I'm slowly settling into my new project and new location; it's pretty weird joining a team when you're the "most senior" employee (by start date) but are rusty and uncertain in your own knowledge from a long respite, and certainly in new turf with its own local culture. I'm not sure I navigated it superbly, but nor did I make an utter ass of myself. I hope. There are several former-Dubliners here too, which has been really nice for having a hook into the goings on of various teams and instant pints-after-work.
I've started learning about New York a bit — Hallowe'en night was fun and involved lots of ambling around lower Manhattan &mdasah; but between work, settling in, hanging out with my sister and her fam, I haven't explore much still. There's no rush though, and it turns out it's a pretty big place so it may take a while.
My apartment is good — I always expect one unanticipated (or, when you're lucky, anticipated!) quirk in any place I rent, and in this case the "Frankie" subway shuttle is louder than I expected: no big deal during waking hours, and it's totally tolerable for sleeping with the windows closed...hopefully by the time it's the season to have windows open I'm used to it. The neighbourhood is hard to gauge. I've met a few of my neighbours, but haven't had much reason to strike out in the immediate vicinity of my building.
I am delightedly shocked with the cycling in Manhattan. It's got a wonderful flow to it, and feels much safer than Dublin (with less attentive drivers making more sudden moves) and even Toronto (cursed streetcar tracks!). Most of my commute is on dedicated bike path on the Brooklyn Bridge (where tourists occasionally start walking across the bridge right in front of you and get a good fright) or the west side bike trail, which is basically uninterrupted cycling. It's really invigorating to have a long cycling commute again, and I'm already starting to be back in decent shape after the no-time-for-exercise election madness in September and October.
So yeah, I arrived, just before I departed again.
