In America you have to check power outages on a hamburger app because the privately owned utilities are incompetent

truly burgerland

They are not incompetent, they work exactly as designed and interned.

With no oversight, culpability, or even actual sanctions, in a capitalist setting doing anything more would be stupid. In fact, there is money to be earned with some outages.

I would be furious if I experienced power outages in any but the absolutely poorest countries on Earth, not because of inconvenience, but bcs there is ample money & production to mitigate basically anything that could negatively affect public infrastructure (that should be covered under basic human rights).

ERCOT managed to convince Texans it was a good idea to allow their utility company to charge them whatever they want at any given time because capitalism. The people of the state couldn't figure out it might not be a bad idea to let a power company charge you more money in circumstances where you desperately need power and also choose to ignore the regulations the rest of the country operates under that allows the grid to work when it's over 90 or under 40.

At a certain point it's hard to be sympathetic for the people who make being a big huge fucking idiot to piss off anybody who isnt one their entire personality.

I get there are innocent bystanders trapped in the state but at a certain point you run out of sympathy for the guy who has been calling you slurs at the bar all night who got blackout drunk because you told him to pace himself and fell down the stairs.

A neighborhood in Vegas lost power for six hours during the height of this heat wave and the power company just kinda shrugged and said they don’t know why that happened. Things are looking great.

I live in an area with frequent power outages, and I love my backup generator

I don't see North Korea paying their workers in hamburgers, do you?

When I was younger, I used to rant all the time about why other countries have their power lines underground (when possible of course). Fiber lines too. Or... having fiber at all in many areas.

I still rant about that, but I used to too. (Thanks Mitch)

But seriously, what a clown ass country where I have had to buy/maintain battery backups for my internet and "important electronics" not really because of black outs... yet... but because of random, maybe once a month, for no apparent reason, "oh, the power went out for 5 seconds. Oops!"

One would think, that a competently run utility of the utmost importance, such as water and electric, that if that event happened JUST ONCE it would be like knife at the CEOs throat, "hey, we don't give a shit what happened there, if these lights even flicker in the next 5 years, you're gone. And maybe prison too. This isn't a fucking joke, dipshit. "Oh the wind was blowing!" No, it wasn't. But even if it was, USE THAT $100B THE STATE GIFTED YOU AND THE JACKED UP RATES YOU CHARGE AND DIG SOME FUCKING TRENCHES AND BURY SOME FUCKING LINES!"

But hey, I guess I just actually give a shit about literally one of the few things which distinguishes civilization from... not. Water and electricity. Those two should completely, fully, totally off limits for anyone to fuck up. Which is why a lot of them used to be owned by the city or state and funded properly and given proper oversight. Yeah, it won't be perfect, especially when you have little weasel fuckers on the outside purposely crippling the funding so that they can buy them at a discount. It could be basically perfect but that requires fully abolishing private ownership of these types of utilities.

Think about the state of shit since 1980-> 2000->now. I was alive for most of that, although conscious of things like electricity for only about half, and it seems to be getting shittier and shittier and shittier. It's all held together with effectively patchworks of duct tape as the underlying infrastructure rots. I don't know the plan, seriously I really don't, when I think to 2040, 2060, etc.

No one really talks about this shit. Sure maybe it's implied by passing infrastructure bills BUT THEN IT NEVER HAPPENS. China literally has built all this kind of stuff in the last couple decades. The US last built out infrastructure in that way in the 1950s, to my knowledge. Who the fuck thinks this doesn't just equate to a collapsed, rusted over, scorching hot hellscape in coming decades while China is gonna be effectively living in a utopian future in comparison? Never discussed by anyone with any actual power. "It sounds like you, sir, are a Chinese Communist! HOW DARE YOU!"

We're just fucked. Fully and totally.

But hey, maybe if you live near a military installation you'll have brand new electrical infrastructure. Because that's what actually matters...