• boiledfrog [he/him, they/them]
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    2 years ago

    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.

  • Huldra [they/them, it/its]
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    792 years ago

    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.

  • lckdscl [they/them]
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    412 years ago

    Sorry sweetie, you wouldn’t understand, I have a PhD, didn’t you look at my Twitter display name?

  • Dyno [he/him]
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    652 years ago

    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)

  • WIIHAPPYFEW [he/him, they/them]
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    2 years ago

    “THE PARAGON OF POOR ECONOMIC CHOICES”?

    Motherfucker,

    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%.

    • kristina [she/her]
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      232 years ago

      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.

      • ferristriangle [undecided]
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        82 years ago

        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.

  • mar_k [he/him]
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    2 years ago

    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.

    • voight [he/him, any]
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      232 years ago

      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

  • Dr_Gabriel_Aby [none/use name]
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    362 years ago

    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?

      • Rod_Blagojevic [none/use name]
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        142 years ago

        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.

  • TheGamingLuddite [none/use name]
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    102 years ago

    “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.

  • CarbonScored [any]
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    722 years ago

    If the paragon of poor economic choices is overtaking you economically, how truly below awful is your country doing?!

  • SuperZutsuki [they/them]
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    452 years ago

    When society treats these people like the infants they are, we might actually make some progress. Instead, we entertain every crackpot idea with mountains of VC money and government grants while shunning superior, already-existing technology. And I’m sure it would surprise these morons to find out that trains are still improving significantly and we’re not still riding what were essentially steam powered bombs. I know it’s all to sustain car supremacy but fuck, I just want one city council to treat the carbrains and NIMBYs like the adult children they are. Escort them to the play room with the hot wheels and lincoln logs and tell them to make their model town and city council will take a Polaroid and hang it on the fridge.