Net Zero

[Specmaster]

I have come across these so called 15 minute towns before, I was working on some lighting schemes for schools in one such community near Abingdon a few years ago and then I saw this video today which has made me think https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3NjrcLahvQ&t=23s and the video that he refers to can be found here https://tapnewswire.com/2023/03/well-in ... uHy8bpSDD8 and the video is supposed to be a CCTV recording of a Glastonbury Council Meeting,

Now, am I putting 2 and 2 together and making 22 or 4, anyway what are your thoughts, it does sought of make some sense to me and are we sleep walking into something here or not?

[Zenith]

What I see is a utopian scheme clothed in the best intentions, but inflicted from on high for our own good, with no proper consultation, because if they asked we'd likely say no.

[mnementh]

As long as you have the advice of really smart people who know how things work (scientists and engineers) being implemented by stupid people with a selfish agenda (businessmen and politicians), none of what comes from the process is going to make any fucking sense.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/ ... msg2255907

...My first gig out of college was with an avionics manufacturer which later was absorbed by Raytheon; I lunched regularly with several of the old-timer resident aviation engineers just to listen to their stories. They were a strange lot; not the cold, mathematical automatons engineers are often painted to be, but rather soulful and humourous creatures with boatloads of irony in their "baggage". And the maths to back up their convictions.

Like Cassandra, they were cursed to "know too much"; and so were helpless to prevent the tragic comedies that seemed to constantly unfold as a consequence of their work. They had a preternatural understanding of the clockworks of the universe, and this both made them valuable to people of much inferior intellect, while at the same time drove them to forever seek a greater understanding, even as their own work broke that very clockwork they strove to understand. And the irony was that they knew all of this intimately, even the irony thereof, yet still were driven to carry on just the same.

I found myself bringing a notepad, just to scribble down strange terms they exchanged in passing; later library ponderings revealed whole mathematical, psychological & philosophical constructs that those terms referred to. It was my first inkling of the "larger world" that those with a more complete education and greater intellect than mine lived and existed in. I first "grokked in fullness" the very concept of "grok" as a result of trying to hold my own in one of those conversations...

mnem
"Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. Those who do learn those lessons are doomed to stand by in horror, helpless to prevent the imbeciles around them from repeating those mistakes. This is Cassandra's Conundrum."

[Specmaster]

It really is looking as if they are not going to rest until we all give up our ICE vehicles for either EV or some other form of transport, or maybe even not bother to go anywhere that we could not reach within 15 minutes of walking. They really want it seems to restrict our movements all together, as this latest development suggests that the government have already introduced laws to allow towns and cities to introduce their own charging schemes for motorists along with a national one.

I wonder what they would do for revenue if we all stopped driving all together hmm .......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cLMDMeIe-U

[Cubdriver]

I wonder what they would do for revenue if we all stopped driving all together hmm .......

Remember the Beatles - if you try to walk, I’ll tax your feet…

-Pat

[Specmaster]

Don't give them idea's, or they'll be taxing us for the air that we breathe next.

[Zenith]

There was a window tax at one time. There was also that ridiculous horsepower tax that crippled pre-war British cars.

I'm sure the government believes that if we all went afoot, there'd be less mischief in the land.

[Specmaster]

Who knows what goes on in their twisted brains, what ever happens, seeing as they're all multimillionaires, they can afford to pay charges they dream up, no big deal to them. They have zero idea of the impact their policies have on the rest of us. There needs to be a law that prevents people with any real wealth from becoming MP's, then we might see something sensible happening.

[tggzzz]

Who knows what goes on in their twisted brains, what ever happens, seeing as they're all multimillionaires, they can afford to pay charges they dream up, no big deal to them. They have zero idea of the impact their policies have on the rest of us. There needs to be a law that prevents people with any real wealth from becoming MP's, then we might see something sensible happening.

H. L. Mencken: "There is always an easy solution to every human problem—neat plausible and wrong."

BTW, I don't know what the original post was about, since I'm not prepared to spend 10(?)mins watching a talking head. I would be prepared to absorb the same content in a minute (or less) - if it was written down.

The 30s initial "message from a valued source that you will want to hear" doesn't help either.

[Specmaster]

Who knows what goes on in their twisted brains, what ever happens, seeing as they're all multimillionaires, they can afford to pay charges they dream up, no big deal to them. They have zero idea of the impact their policies have on the rest of us. There needs to be a law that prevents people with any real wealth from becoming MP's, then we might see something sensible happening.

H. L. Mencken: "There is always an easy solution to every human problem—neat plausible and wrong."

BTW, I don't know what the original post was about, since I'm not prepared to spend 10(?)mins watching a talking head. I would be prepared to absorb the same content in a minute (or less) - if it was written down.

The 30s initial "message from a valued source that you will want to hear" doesn't help either.

It was albout how the government have passed laws that allow local councils to impose their own form of road charging if they wish to and they looking to impose a charge for using stretches of the M4 in Wales, plus it highlights that the government are also planning to introduce road charging on the national roads that fall outside of a town or city. In other words, they are actively planning a no car plan unless your rich enough to be able to pay the charges. I think the digital ID card will be the link, linking it to your car, bank etc so when you buy anything, it be via the digital ID card so they will be able to track you and charge you, no hiding place.

[tggzzz]

Who knows what goes on in their twisted brains, what ever happens, seeing as they're all multimillionaires, they can afford to pay charges they dream up, no big deal to them. They have zero idea of the impact their policies have on the rest of us. There needs to be a law that prevents people with any real wealth from becoming MP's, then we might see something sensible happening.

H. L. Mencken: "There is always an easy solution to every human problem—neat plausible and wrong."

BTW, I don't know what the original post was about, since I'm not prepared to spend 10(?)mins watching a talking head. I would be prepared to absorb the same content in a minute (or less) - if it was written down.

The 30s initial "message from a valued source that you will want to hear" doesn't help either.

It was albout how the government have passed laws that allow local councils to impose their own form of road charging if they wish to and they looking to impose a charge for using stretches of the M4 in Wales, plus it highlights that the government are also planning to introduce road charging on the national roads that fall outside of a town or city. In other words, they are actively planning a no car plan unless your rich enough to be able to pay the charges. I think the digital ID card will be the link, linking it to your car, bank etc so when you buy anything, it be via the digital ID card so they will be able to track you and charge you, no hiding place.

Thanks.

It sounds like a bit of a conspiracy rant.

Local councils have no powers over motorways, to the best of my limited knowledge.

There are already toll motorways, e.g. the "new" M6 bypass.

There is already a mileage tax: the tax on fuel.

If any tax on electricity for EVs makes the per mile cost similar to that for petrol/diesel, who cares?

[Specmaster]

H. L. Mencken: "There is always an easy solution to every human problem—neat plausible and wrong."

BTW, I don't know what the original post was about, since I'm not prepared to spend 10(?)mins watching a talking head. I would be prepared to absorb the same content in a minute (or less) - if it was written down.

The 30s initial "message from a valued source that you will want to hear" doesn't help either.

It was albout how the government have passed laws that allow local councils to impose their own form of road charging if they wish to and they looking to impose a charge for using stretches of the M4 in Wales, plus it highlights that the government are also planning to introduce road charging on the national roads that fall outside of a town or city. In other words, they are actively planning a no car plan unless your rich enough to be able to pay the charges. I think the digital ID card will be the link, linking it to your car, bank etc so when you buy anything, it be via the digital ID card so they will be able to track you and charge you, no hiding place.

Thanks.

It sounds like a bit of a conspiracy rant.

Local councils have no powers over motorways, to the best of my limited knowledge.

There are already toll motorways, e.g. the "new" M6 bypass.

There is already a mileage tax: the tax on fuel.

If any tax on electricity for EVs makes the per mile cost similar to that for petrol/diesel, who cares?

Well, in the case of the M4, it is the Welsh Government. No it is a not conspiracy rant either, it is official as the presenter explains and if you follow the said presenter, he provides official evidence with links to the governments or local authorities websites where the information is there for all to see and even download. Sometimes I think we need to be more like the French and not take things so casually. Did we take to the streets in violent clashes with the police over the pension age being increased? the French have been doing that for the last few days.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-65052649

[tggzzz]

Death and taxes are the only certainties. You (and me) are going to end up paying for the roads one way or another.

How would you prefer to pay for the roads?

I'm not too fussy about the mechanism used, provided that it doesn't screw people at the bottom of the heap.

The city near me is anything but passive; it has a proud tradition of rioting going back ~200 years. Recently riots have set buildings on fire every decade or so. The latest riots to change the UK were a year or so ago; obviously they hit national news then and since.

[Zenith]

We already pay for the roads through road fund tax, as well as tax on fuel. We also pay for emissions since certain cars attract higher tax rates.

This looks like a money making wheeze wrapped up as an environmental measure, and I believe it will hit the worst off hardest. Khan's scheme certainly looks like a money making wheeze to make up for the way TfL has been handled.

[bd139]

This sounds more like a persecution complex driven by media consumption rather than a rational position.

The taxation system has scandals and efficiencies. Any system of any scale as implemented by humans suffers from the human condition which is that it is fallible. You have to take some of the crap with the smooth. It's a rounding error compared to the scale of human suffering which would result from it collapsing or being changed drastically. Even minute changes, particularly by our ruling party, have had serious impacts. You can't just roll in with demands and empty platitudes.

As for France, what does rioting and burning stuff really solve at the end of the day? The opposition to Macron wasn't particularly logical as there are two really big problems. Firstly all this taxation and pooling of resources we have been doing turned into a pretty cool thing: life expectancy increases drastically over the last 100 years or so. Obviously people hanging around longer means they cost more money so that requires people to work a bit longer to put more money into the pool. Our useful lives have been extended. Secondly, the pensions system didn't keep up with that resulting in increasing annuity and lump sum debts, so it's teetering on the edge of a cliff. Pushing another couple of years out pulls it a few metres back from the edge. There are actuaries and finance companies restructuring entire markets at the moment to try and stop this shitting the bed but it's a long and slow process and not well popularised because everyone goes glossy eyed and falls asleep when you talk about it.

Something I've learned though is there are things you can change in life and things you can't change in life. But there are a lot of people who really want you angry about the latter because the helplessness and anger gets clicks and attention. Attention that is probably better spent on making rational improvements to your existence that you can control. Health is a good one that you can mostly control and it doesn't cost anything to improve!

[Specmaster]

We already pay for the roads through road fund tax, as well as tax on fuel. We also pay for emissions since certain cars attract higher tax rates.

This looks like a money making wheeze wrapped up as an environmental measure, and I believe it will hit the worst off hardest. Khan's scheme certainly looks like a money making wheeze to make up for the way TfL has been handled.

Under the planned road charging by the government, it linked into the introduction of the digital ID card, also the introduction of the digital £, so cash will be a thing of the past and the linking of your cars registration to your ID card, so basically as I understand it, you will have to carry your card with you at all times. It will be your means of paying for shopping etc, your admission to anything really, hospital A&E etc as it will also hold your medical history etc.

There has been zero mention so far that road fund tax or tax on fuel will be removed, so it seems that the congestion charges, low emission or clean air zones and also the road charging (based on time of journey, types of road, and the distance) is all going to be additional charges, not replacement so that those who do a lot of miles and at peak periods stand to pay more than driver who just drives to and from the local shops and schools etc.

It looks as if George Orwell's 1984 is going to happen and big brother will know your every movement and can track you, the start of it is already being introduced with the requirement to have a recognised form of photo ID in order to vote in elections, both local and general. There are ready small towns / communities springing up designed to place everything you need, within a 15-minute walk from your house which are designed to remove the need for a vehicle, thus reducing your mobility.

[bd139]

Under the planned road charging by the government, it linked into the introduction of the digital ID card, also the introduction of the digital £, so cash will be a thing of the past and the linking of your cars registration to your ID card, so basically as I understand it, you will have to carry your card with you at all times. It will be your means of paying for shopping etc, your admission to anything really, hospital A&E etc as it will also hold your medical history etc.

There has been zero mention so far that road fund tax or tax on fuel will be removed, so it seems that the congestion charges, low emission or clean air zones and also the road charging (based on time of journey, types of road, and the distance) is all going to be additional charges, not replacement so that those who do a lot of miles and at peak periods stand to pay more than driver who just drives to and from the local shops and schools etc.

It looks as if George Orwell's 1984 is going to happen and big brother will know your every movement and can track you, the start of it is already being introduced with the requirement to have a recognised form of photo ID in order to vote in elections, both local and general. There are ready small towns / communities springing up designed to place everything you need, within a 15-minute walk from your house which are designed to remove the need for a vehicle, thus reducing your mobility.

Notes:

1. ANPR+PNC+MID already does that. Your vehicle is constantly tracked. And it has been a massively effective tool against people driving untaxed and uninsured vehicles on the road.
2. The digital ID card is unrelated to banking and finance at all. In fact most financial orgs will not process it as they have their own ID verification systems in place. It is not a replacement for cash. That is paranoid bullcrap.
3. The digital ID card is mostly misunderstood. It's a way of providing the authentication part of the non-repudiation process for government services and 3rd party contracts. There are already 3rd parties like docusign and numerous identity services providing this for private businesses. The government want that capability because it saves a hell of a lot of tax revenue on identity verification.
4. Driving to the local shops and schools should not happen unless you are physically disabled. This is the very problem with vehicle ownership.
5. The communities are indeed purposely designed to keep everything local. I sort of live in one. On a daily basis I don't need to travel at all. My net negative impact on the environment is far less than most people.

The ID card is a PKI system which assures the person doing whatever transaction is authenticated. The authorisation part is on the card holder to approve or decline. For example when you renew your car tax, you can present your digital ID and a second factor, the service will ask if it can have your address information and date of birth, you hit ACCEPT and a signed outcome and scope is delivered from the ID service to the DVLA. The DVLA can only get information they require to process your data from the ID system (as per GDPR data minimisation principles).

The ID provider, the central government, already has all your data. This just allows you to syndicate it to other agencies as and when required to stop the pain in the arse verification process. For example try renewing a driving license and telling it to use your passport photo. That's a whole load of fun that is. Problem goes away. DVLA asks if it can get your photo from the passport office. You can choose to accept or decline that.

The company I work for probably has more data on you than the government does. Neither us or the government are out to get you.

[tggzzz]

There's a fundamental difference between the financial ID and the government ID.
The government ID authenticate as individuals and their entitlements.
Financial ID authenticates transactions.

The government wants digital ID because they incorrectly think it will solve problems. It is another variant of "if you think encryption will solve your problem, then you don't understand encryption and you don't understand your problem". It may well, however, shift something from being the government's problem to being a person's or company's problem.

Any single widespread ID mechanism has to address the certificate revocation issue. For financial ID that is easy: just issue another piece of plastic with a different magic number (with 16 digits, of course). The legion problems with the USA use of SSNs amply demonstrates problems with digital government ID.

Many people don't live within walking distance of amenities.

Incorrect company information can't lock me up. Incorrect government information can. (Yes, that is a simplification, but there is some validity to it).

[bd139]

There isn't really a difference at all. They both authenticate a claim that you have.

The SSN issue in the US is not comparable at all as there is no cryptographic protection of any sort. A proper digital identity, as being proposed is revocable and can be reissued as it is a surrogate for the claim that you have rather than the claim itself like an SSN.

I do understand encryption, have a lot of experience in this space and the applications, simplifications and security benefits are very obvious. You have to look at the other side of the coin: Go down the job centre with disparate bits of paper like household bills (now dying) trying to prove your identity to get your jobseekers payment sorted out. Not as easy as it sounds.

Incorrect information can't lock you up. That is a complete fallacy. It can however cause a pain in the arse for sure. But that's not new and hundreds of separate government agencies using isolated distinct identity data is more likely to be problematic.

Most people will be living within walking distance of amenities in the next 25-50 years. Some of us look at the horizon and saw it was probably a good idea to do that sooner than later because having a dependency past your legs on essential items is looking like it's going to be a rather large problem in the future.

[tggzzz]

Incorrect information can't lock you up. That is a complete fallacy. It can however cause a pain in the arse for sure. But that's not new and hundreds of separate government agencies using isolated distinct identity data is more likely to be problematic.

Some of these are more pertinent and wideranging than others.

http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/31/48#subj28.1
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/31/58#subj14.1
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/30/74#subj6.1
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/31/6#subj20.1
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/31/47#subj43.1
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/31/61#subj1.1
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/30/94#subj18.1

Based on the number of comp.risks search results I didn't look at, I guess there are at least 10* more examples of faulty source data and faulty processed data causing people to be locked up.

[Specmaster]

These low emission charges are another factor in the huge rise in inflation that is just not required in the current crisis, many white van companies operate as couriers and in fact everything we buy in the shops is transported by road and the transport companies have to deliver into these LEZ areas and many companies will have to drive through multiple areas on a delivery run, accumulating multiple charges on route, this I know as I did a short stint a few years back as lorry driver for a small manufacturing company supplying chain stores across the British Isles and a good deal of mail order catalogues as well and could be away from home for upto 2 weeks at a time driving around the mainland and Ireland doing deliveries.

Here is a list of towns (some not so big as well) that are currently operating these charges.

London, Birmingham, Bristol, Oxford, Glasgow, Bath, Bradford, Portsmouth, Manchester, Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Newcastle & Gateshead and Sheffield.

I used to deliver to these places and loads more, each and every month, so if the company is till doing the same, that means that they are having to add the cost of all these charges onto the cost of the goods or absorb the cost which small companies can't do, add in the extra costs of the fuel, which is a massive amount in its own right, is adding considerable costs to the consumer, IIRC it had a 200 litre fuel tank. There are loads more local authorities thinking about doing the same, it does not bode well for the future.

[bd139]

Our Evri, Royal Mail, DPD and Amazon vans here are all EVs. Only UPS is still using other vans. That is the future of the last mile deliveries.

The rest of the country uses hub/spoke architectures now with backbones being large articulated trucks. That is under review as well now.

You as a consumer do not have a right to cheap goods. You are currently just lucky it's cheap.

[Specmaster]

Our Evri, Royal Mail, DPD and Amazon vans here are all EVs. Only UPS is still using other vans. That is the future of the last mile deliveries.

The rest of the country uses hub/spoke architectures now with backbones being large articulated trucks. That is under review as well now.

You as a consumer do not have a right to cheap goods. You are currently just lucky it's cheap.

I was driving a 7 ton box truck and there are still loads of these on the roads and for many small companies running an articulated truck or even contracting out huge monthly consignments to the likes of last mile operators of Evri etc, even with their vast fleets of articulated trunker lorries and hubs is not either cost or time effective. With the constant loading and unloading between collection from the factory, to the local hub, to the trunk trucks, to the national hub, more trunk trucks to the final distribution hub and then to the last mile van. Then a drop-kick over your gate, adding to the risk of damage or lost goods and considerable delay in getting large orders to customers as that will sometimes fill a last mile van almost to the brim, no room then for the other 399 deliveries those vans have to do daily

I was also charged with picking up the raw materials for the next production run on my return trip in order to keep the manufacturing costs as low as possible. The other distinct advantage is of course that you don't get damaged goods being delivered or goods not arriving, definitely not something you can afford with high value items.

When it comes to me as a consumer, I don't mind not having the right to cheap goods, as long as my income would allow me to afford to pay more for them, its that simple , trust me.

[tggzzz]

Our Evri, Royal Mail, DPD and Amazon vans here are all EVs. Only UPS is still using other vans. That is the future of the last mile deliveries.

Not far from you and until recently people used to see horses making deliveries.

I haven't spotted BEVs near here, but I suspect they will come. "Back to the future" really, since we had BEV deliveries until a couple of decades ago.

A lot will depend on the range and recharge times, and how that matches the routes and deliveries.

[Zenith]

BEVs were popular as milk floats, certainly in towns. They didn't need to go fast, maybe 20mph max and 100 yard trips never allowed an ICE to warm up properly, nor allowed the battery to be recharged. I think it died out because people don't generally have milk delivered these days.

About the only horse drawn commercial traffic I can recall were scrap men's carts. Some years back Watneys made a thing of having horse drawn drays in London. They reckoned it was cheaper than having a ICE dray, and it was good PR. I think Wadworths did the same in Devizes. There's something magnificent about shire horses.