hills or mountains
Switzerland famous for not having trains
Also, as if digging through hills and mountains has ever been an issue since the invention of dynamite.
Japan, famous for not having trains
Fuck the US even figured it out
Americal railways are in such shit condition and so poorly used, that ‘figured it out’ may be a bit too much.
Prior to World War II, we had it figured out. The destruction of “it” was an intentional political project (insert comparison maps of a major city’s trolley lines in 1921 compared to 2021 here).
America is so trash at building trains that they needed the Chinese to do it even back in the 1800s
If trains were invented today itd be incredible for trains as seen by how every hyped up vaporware transportation invention is just a train but worse
The American economy is dependent on massive freight rail networks.
Want to create car-length transport on rail roads? Can’t.
What car brain does to a MF.
Besides, we already have a work-around for that, as well as the “what if the railroad doesn’t go there?” problem: Auto train. Train can take you 90% of the way and then take the personal vehicle the last 10%.
Gonna be honest here the Auto train is an incredibly dumb idea born out of car consumerism. There’s absolutely no need to ferry a lot of cars somewhere on a train inherently, they could just have cars there you could rent
I get the economics of this, car rentals are expensive and all, but it’s not a good idea generally
Or you could just have a bus station integrated with the rail station.
Yeah it’s not really something that makes sense en masse, there’s a reason Amtrak runs it as a specialty line to a tourism hot spot. Point is, if it was absolutely necessary and personal vehicle rental wasn’t an option at the destination station, the option is on the table.
i really appreciate that a blue check indicates a post that you don’t need to take seriously.
Not to mention he puts “PhD” in his handle.
These people take social media way to serious, bragging about your fake degree on twitter is really funny.
Why is the degree fake?
PhD stands for Phake Degree
I don’t know that for a fact, but people who put their degree in their social media display name are goofy.
Look at the fucking followup tweet?
“Ohh no a bunch of people are telling me I’m a dumbass. First day here losers?”
“Ohh no a bunch of people are telling me I’m a dumbass. First day here losers?”
What is that supposed to mean? Is he saying that the fact that he’s a dumbass shouldn’t be news to anyone and is so well established that it isn’t worthy of comment?
What he thinks it sounds like is he’s a free thinker who doesn’t care what other people think about his opinions.
What it actually sounds like is he’s such a huge dumbass if anybody is surprised that’s on them.
If the paragon of poor economic choices is overtaking you economically, how truly below awful is your country doing?!
Dude’s Australian. His brain is beyond poisoned.
Planes are bad because you need to land at an airport and there aren’t airports everywhere.
Cars bad because you need to dig in order to make 20 lane wide highways.
The only good transportation is the helicopter.
The only good transportation is a Lada Niva 1985
Specifically an Osprey.
nah, dont be silly, roads or airports dont need to be built, they just sort of appear.
The only good transportation is boat, and even boat is bad because the entire planet isn’t water.
Shouldn’t rail be more necessary than ever with global population having risen 8x since the invention of the steam locomotive and a consistently increasing % of people living in urban environments? Cars are more useful when you live in a sprawled out town in the middle of fucking nowhere and there aren’t a thousand people in your area trying to get to work at the same time as you.
The roads here are just disintegrating they took all the money away from the department of transportation and are trying to make everyone go back to the office
This mf said enjoy digging as if they’ve ever had to pick up a shovel and dig to make a living.
also thank god all these roads and tunnels were here through the grace of god
may there be a tunnel where we want to build this railroad.
Ben Norton was dunking on this absurd take
Many hard science programs in the US indoctrinate graduates with neoliberal economic dogma while leaving them politically and historically illiterate. But because they have PhDs, they arrogantly believe they know everything, and make extremely stupid comments like this, showing they are actually deeply ignorant about many things. Just because you worked for NASA doesn’t mean you know anything outside of your narrow field.
This loser also has “hyperloop” in his bio, which should instantly disqualify you from ever talking about transit ever again
Mf complains about digging yet is a tunnel supporter. Curious.
Didn’t even melon admit hyperloop was a scam to prevent Cali from building hs rail?
reading these tweets after finishing this post in c/indigenous has really got me thinking thoughts
Every single year on my 10 feet above see level flat road highway has half its lanes closed for 1-2 months in order to repair the potholes that form every single year from weather and weight.
This moron thinks digging isn’t a vital aspect of building roads?
I wonder what he thinks all those rock faces right next to roads are.
This isn’t the type of person that’s ever had to consciously engage with the earth on its own terms. They walk on pavement, they get on an airplane and arrive at their destination (abusing workers if there’s a weather related delay), they definitely don’t dig holes.
“Bad economic decisions”
The lizard people will never forgive China for standing up for itself. They kept the Qing alive indefinitely because it forced masses of starving and immiserated people to become guest laborers, “coolies” for Western capitalists. Reform Era economic liberalization wasn’t enough; Unless Dow Chemical is dictating the environmental policy of Guangxi, China will always bear the original sins of authoritarianism and bad economics, regardless of how prosperous or stable it is.
Literally the most efficient form of land-based transport ever invented. Steel wheels on steel rails have very low rolling resistance.
NAH, it’s bad because you can’t clog up the lines with masses of inefficient, tiny, personal trains.
Also, you have to dig through hills and mountains to lay track - you definitely don’t need to do that for highways (except for all the ones that you do)“THE PARAGON OF POOR ECONOMIC CHOICES”?
Economically, there were initial concerns, particularly outside China, over the high-speed rail’s cost, debt and profitability. However, research by the Paulson Institute has estimated the net benefit of the high-speed rail to the Chinese economy to be approximately $378 billion, with an annual return on investment of 6.5%.
Yeah, but what if China had invested its HSR budget into Bitcoin instead?
Ah yes, the perfect investment strategy
, particularly outside China
capitalists mad 'cause bad
for the record the long term average of the s&p 500 is 6.45%, and that is considered a good investment. 6.5% is a smidge better but it should be noted that transportation historically is not very profitable by nature despite the value it provides, so the fact that they have been able to get such good returns for the economy at large is pretty impressive.
This is good context, and I typically avoid the profit conversation on topics like this altogether.
Not everything can be or should be designed and operated around profit. Providing a service costs money. When something is a public service, the benefit that the public receives from operating that service isn’t profit, the benefit they receive is the service.
The whole point of transitioning towards socialism is that we want to be able to organize our labor and put the resources that we generate as a society towards projects that give some kind of benefit to us, not just towards projects that can turn a profit for people who privately own the economy.
This is what happened with bike lane too. Naysayers say that bike actually block people from parking their car and penalize small businesses.
But in reality local businesses profit actually goes up after the lane is set up
