Not so friendly reminder that musk specifically came up with, and pushed, for hyperloop knowing that it would never be made, as an effort to stop the development of highspeed rail in America and shift all political discussions of it because “something better is around the corner”:
As I’ve written in my book, Musk admitted to his biographer Ashlee Vance that Hyperloop was all about trying to get legislators to cancel plans for high-speed rail in California—even though he had no plans to build it. Several years ago, Musk said that public transit was “a pain in the ass” where you were surrounded by strangers, including possible serial killers, to justify his opposition.
Also: 2024 update, the total length of China’s high-speed rail tracks has now reached well over 45,000 km, or 28,000 miles, by the end of 2023.
They are additionally five years ahead of schedule and expect to double the total number within ten years. And, before someone inevitably complains about “how expensive it is”, they are turning over a net-profit of over $600M USD a year.
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To be fair, China doesn’t have to deal with eminent domain.
And annoying stuff like human rights
On the “good on China” side, they standardized their train sets and rails to very few models for efficient and consistent systems, have the largest manufacturing base in the world, and the constant building of rail is training generations of chinese engineers how to build and run it efficiently.
The US builds rail infrequently to random specifications, generally with outsourced labor and engineering. Every single project is different, with different voltages, trainsets, tracks, on and on. Hell, we toss in diesel trains still for fun, like the Florida HSR brightline.
It’s a big part why we suck at it. As an example, the east coast Amtrak line that runs through NYC/Boston/etc has like 3 different voltages. The “single line” is actually 3 lines, with one of them nearly 100 years old with constant maintenance issues. They have been trying to replace it for decades, but we never fully fund it enough to do so.
We are just doing this the stupid way possible.
We suck at it because the auto lobby wants us to suck at it. We could do what China is doing if we told the auto makers to stuff it and started building
The problem with the buildout of Chinese high speed rail, that the US won’t really have should it start investing into it, is that China already had a very robust passenger rail system
They WAY overbuilt their high speed system, and now tons of lines are hemorrhaging money because people are opting for the slower, but significantly cheaper, traditional rail system that the high speed one has to compete against
And those pesky environmental impact reports
That’s why the US didn’t build high-speed rail?
Come on bro. What human rights violations are the Chinese specifically violating to build high-speed rail?
Last I checked, you don’t have to drive to a different state to get an abortion in China either, btw. So nice job cherrypicking “human rights” bullshit.
It’s so obvious when we’re dealing with people whose brains are rotted from propaganda as a result of the trade war.
The US does? The black neighborhoods they destroyed to build highways would like to speak to you
That’s why the US didn’t build high-speed rail?
Come on bro. What human rights violations are the Chinese specifically violating to build high-speed rail?
Last I checked, you don’t have to drive to a different state to get an abortion in China either, btw. So nice job cherrypicking “human rights” bullshit.
It’s so obvious when we’re dealing with people whose brains are rotted from propaganda as a result of the trade war.
When did I mention anything about human rights?
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Nope, still have to get permission from folks for that, too.
I hope people realize that the issue isn’t musk but California’s reliance on the private sector to do public good.
It gets worse, for the national HSR they’ve doubled down with a privatized high-end train line (think first class, private lobbies for premium etc) with a horrible “track” record in Florida.
Dubbed the deadliest train per mile in America by the Associated Press, Brightline has killed dozens of people (link)
New York-based Fortress Investment Group, which owns Brightline via its Florida East Coast Industries (FECI) unit, has pursued a strategy of mixing its infrastructure play with large-scale, real estate investments. Coral Gables-based FECI has developed multifamily and office buildings near Brightline stations and sold most of these projects to institutional investors at nine-figure prices. It also has a sizable portfolio of land and real estate holdings along the train line… “I think Brightline was a real estate play. I think it always has been,” said Bradley Arendt (link)
So a deadly company that refuses safety precautions (forced the government to fund further safety regulations), and is managed and owned by huge financial companies that own the real estate making their own government funded mini-monopoly rail line and estates! Oh yeah, they’re way over budget and losing money fast, but if they can just get that sweet “build back America” funding they can squeeze the company for a few more years before the high priced investors can cut ties and run with their profits.
I could go on for days probably talking about Brightline, might have to do a complete write up one of these days to show how nasty and deep all the crap goes with our politics and influences. Just make it a national service, this “private” sector for public utilities has got to be moved on from.
Unfortunately, that “real estate play” that you’re complaining about is the oldest and perhaps the only way to build a public transportation network that isn’t a net loss financially for the owner/operator. In many Asian nations with great public transportation systems, such as Singapore, the majority of housing is public and so the government is effectively using the same play. Part of the reason good systems are so difficult to get past the conceptual stages here in the US is that transportation and land use planning functions are separated administratively with responsibilities housed in totality different agecies at different levels of government, so the parties involved are forces to at best “coordinate” and at worst basically guess what the other will actually do or build, which makes it almost impossible to put together the kind of land use pattern that supports public transport with good ridership potential.
The problem with your premise is that it’s a private company who’s goal is profit structure not community support and is also being funded with public funds from the government to remain “Private”. Brightline from orlando to boca raton costs 100$ for the basic fare, or 309$ for the premium ride. That’s the same cost for a train between Paris and London. The same trip on bus is 30$ or 36$ taking amtrak (another train service that’s a public service). Can’t wait for the new pricing for the california-vegas run.
I’m not saying that a private approach to this is better–I specifically noted that governments could potentially do the same thing, but in the public interest, and I’d prefer that.
might have to do a complete write up one of these days to show how nasty and deep all the crap goes with our politics and influences.
Please do. I’d love to read it. I’m a South Floridian who uses public transit and hates the fucking Brightline.
Both. It’s both.
It’s both IMO.
They’re the same thing.
I was told that we can’t have a public rail infrastructure without doing a Tiananmen Square, and a Tibet colonialism, and killing all the Uighurs. You need a robust private sector to protect the people from tyrannical authoritarian socialist government. Elon Musk is the bollard between Tank Man and the tank, saving us from far-left extremism and blood dictatorship by soaking up a few billion dollars in state and federal subsidies to deliver kickbacks to neighboring politicians and finance his takeover of Twitter.
Y’all should be grateful we’re not living in the hellscape that is HSR China right now.
That’s Capitalism for you…
Fuck Elon Musk. He’s a piece of shit that has damaged the fabric of our society.
Maybe republicans are right about immigrants /s
Is damaging the fabric of our society.
Read a very interesting column in Dutch recently, I’ll push it through translate:
*You thought it couldn’t get any worse than Trump? Think again Donald Trump has no idea who Elon Musk really is, writes Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer.
If Donald Trump wins the American presidential election and Elon Musk joins his government, that will be a playful stepping stone for Musk to a compelling power grab, writes Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer in an essay. Because Musk is a god in the depths of his mind. Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer August 24, 2024, 03:00
Last Monday, August 12, a conversation took place between the most dangerous and the second most dangerous man in America. It was broadcast live.
“The world is full of villains,” the second most dangerous man said at one point during that conversation. “If they think the president of the United States is a softie, they will do whatever they want and that is a danger to the world.”
The most dangerous man agreed, but he felt the need to be a bit more specific: “I think it is good to emphasize to the listeners how important it is that the president of the United States inspires fear. Global security depends on it.”
Although both men agreed with each other’s positions throughout the rest of the conversation, the meeting was marked by a fundamental misunderstanding that was not addressed or clarified. The second most dangerous man was under the impression that the whole show revolved around him, because he was running for president. The most dangerous man allowed this misconception to persist and settled into his role as a subservient interviewer, knowing that his time would come. ‘Citizen Kane’
The media magnate who gains disproportionate political influence through his empire is an archetype in modern Western mythology. Charles Foster Kane, the titular hero of Orson Welles’s 1941 film Citizen Kane, is a cross between William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. Rupert Murdoch can be held at least partly responsible for Brexit, the rise of Trump and many other political developments in the Anglo-Saxon world. Murdoch, his family and his empire have been mythologised by Jesse Armstrong’s HBO series Succession, which aired between June 2018 and May 2023. Silvio Berlusconi had built his political power on the commercial television channels of Mediaset, which he owned. The unforgettable opening scene of the first part of Paolo Sorrentino’s 2018 diptych Loro, in which a sheep freezes to death in a room in Villa Certosa, where the air conditioning is set much too high because it cannot tear its gaze away from a television screen, is a metaphor for Berlusconi’s influence.
Elon Musk could be considered a modern incarnation of this archetype. Instead of investing in presses, printing ink, and television antennas, he bought the social media platform Twitter in 2022, which he renamed X in July 2023. Musk has a fetish for the letter X. He named one of his twelve children, a four-year-old son who is called X Æ A-Xii, by name. But that’s beside the point. The platform X, which Musk now controls, is a powerhouse. It is one of the five most visited websites in the world. I should put the figures next to it about the growing percentage of global citizens, especially young people, who consider social media their primary source of news, but I don’t think that’s necessary. We know that. The situation is that Elon Musk has acquired control over a substantial part of the global news supply.
Musk has shared a meme of a man watching a Javier Milei speech on his laptop in his white satin bed while being ridden by a prototypical hottie: that’s how horny Musk gets from neoliberal extremism.
The main reform Musk has implemented at the former Twitter is the abolition of content moderation. Previously, deliberate disinformation and hate speech were blocked as best he could, but Musk presents himself as a paladin of free speech and allows everything. Instead of top-down moderation, he has implemented a system of so-called ‘Community Notes’, where users can indicate that certain messages are misleading, but research by The New York Times has shown that this seemingly democratic self-regulation is a farce. Apart from the fact that users are so polarized that they can no longer agree on anything, only a mere four percent of all Community Notes make it through the algorithms, and even in this small minority of cases, the warning does not prevent mass distribution.
Anyone with nfar-right agitators and conspirators are taking advantage of the new freedom on the former Twitter, especially since Elon Musk regularly shares their messages on his personal account, which is followed by more than 195 million people. At the same time, there are increasing indications that users with a left-wing, woke signature are systematically disadvantaged in the opaque black box of the almighty algorithms. It has now become clear that Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter is part of a pronounced political project. Since his two-hour interview with Donald Trump on August 12, which was broadcast live on X and in which Musk gave his interviewee, whom he also generously supports financially, all the space to profile himself, this is no longer a secret. Horny about extremism
The advantage of Musk’s exhibitionism on his own platform is that his political position leaves nothing to the imagination. He is ultra-liberal in economic terms, opposed to taxes, leveling or any form of state intervention. In that respect, he is a fan of Argentine President Javier Milei. He shared a video of himself watching a speech by Milei on his laptop in his white satin bed, while being ridden by a prototypical hottie: that’s how horny he got from neoliberal extremism. He is a supporter of the White Supremacy Movement, a racist, an anti-Semite and an outspoken anti-woke. He no longer recognizes one of his own sons as his own since she wants to be his daughter.
The fact that Elon Musk is spreading and helping to spread far-right propaganda on one of the most-viewed social media platforms in the world, over which he has complete control, makes him dangerous, but there are other circumstances that make him even more dangerous. He is the owner of Starlink, which provides internet via satellite in parts of the world where there are no fiber optics or other cables. The extent to which this gives him power was demonstrated during an episode in 2022 when he shut down the internet along the Crimean coast to sabotage a Ukrainian surprise attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. While there are different versions of these events, it increasingly seems that Musk was personally involved in the decision to deny Ukraine a decisive advantage. On this basis, Jeet Heer of The Nation concludes that “Musk is now so powerful that he has his own foreign policy.”
When European Commissioner Thierry Breton asked Musk about his responsibility to stop the spread of unfounded hatred, he responded with characteristic diplomatic sophistication: ‘Go fuck your own face’
But the most dangerous quality of Elon Musk is his attitude, which is aptly illustrated by a recent incident. While Britain was being torn by race riots, after three girls were stabbed to death in Southport and after far-right influencers spread fake news that the perpetrator was an asylum seeker and a Muslim, Musk actively contributed to the hatred of Muslims and foreigners, even after the authorities revealed that the arrested suspect was a 17-year-old boy from Lancashire, born in Cardiff, who had no affinity with Islam. He responded approvingly to reports that mass immigration and open borders were the real cause of the unrest, commenting on them by saying that civil war was inevitable. When confronted by European Commissioner Thierry Breton, who reminded him of his responsibility to stop the spread of unfounded hatred, he responded with characteristic diplomatic sophistication: “Go fuck your own face.”
Elon Musk is obsessed with chaos and destruction and he doesn’t care about rules, laws or decency. He also doesn’t care about the truth. In running his own companies, he has a habit of flouting laws and often gets away with it because governments consider his companies too big to chase away. He recognizes no authority in the world other than his own self-proclaimed genius and his whims. He is a god in his deepest thoughts. That makes him dangerous. A gripping power grab
In gratitude to the most dangerous man in America for the pleasant conversation, the second most dangerous man in America yesterday promised him a cabinet position if he is elected president of the United States in November. Musk responded that he is ready to serve his country.
But Trump has no idea who Elon Musk really is. Trump thinks he is rich, popular, smart and powerful, but Musk is many times richer, more influential, more intelligent and more powerful. If the scenario comes true that Trump wins the election and Musk joins his government, then for Musk that is not the crowning achievement of his career, as Trump thinks, but a playful stepping stone to a truly grand and compelling power grab.
We need to realize that our democratic constitutional state is ill-equipped to stop someone like Musk
Who did Musk have in mind when he said that a president should be scary? The archetype of the influential media magnate deceives us. Musk is not the man to impress in the background and manipulate behind the scenes in anticipation of the ruthless film adaptation of his life story. It cannot be ruled out that Musk harbors the ambition to become president himself one day, and it cannot be ruled out either that his ambitions extend beyond the United States and that he is already dreaming of world domination in his white satin bed with his laptop on *
https://www.demorgen.be/meningen/u-dacht-dat-het-niet-erger-kon-dan-trump-think-again~b5cf8e56/
Union Pacific’s profits over the last 20 years would have paid for a high speed rail line from Chicago to Los Angeles
The existence of that entity as a private owner of critical American infrastructure, which uses it to extract rents from the American economy, has cost us at least one trans-continental high speed rail line worth of value.
Yeah, fuck private ownership.
The only reason it’s so prevalent is because it helps funnel as much money to those who already have it.
Useful idiots will never be able to pick up on this obvious reality which is why they’re so useful.
The cult of musk is fucking disgusting.
It’s abhorrent how much influence he has on public decisions.
The man is a monster and his sycophantic followers are incapable of critical thought.
incapable of critical thought.
Look in the mirror, bud.
Why are you insulting someone who is agreeing with you…?
To paraphrase the great Big Daddy Kane:
Anything goes when it comes to hos cos simpin’ ain’t easy!
Keep simpin’ ya simp!
The next Trump as soon as he decides to run for office. Or worse, the next Hitler, except with infinite money.
I wonder what vehicle Americans have to use because of lack of high speed rail…
Could this be to keep everyone car dependent?
I wonder if that Musk fellow has a vested interest in car sales or something. Maybe he has ties to some sort of car company. 🤔
I sure hope he doesn’t have a media company that spreads lies about political topics to further his own personal agenda
Go figure, a billionaire killing the competition in order to make more money.
And there’s a segment of society that thinks billionaires should essentially get dictatorial powers because they “earned it” and they have good business sense.
I’m not even mad at Elon. He came up with a clownishly absurd idea and the media bought it. He literally described it as “an air hockey table in a vacuum tube” while laughing, and the media just went ahead and ate his ass anyway.
Hyperloop was all about trying to get legislators to cancel plans for high-speed rail in California—even though he had no plans to build it.
Nah, I’m mad at Elon
People like simple shit
In hindsight, CA lawmakers should have known not to trust the guy that owns a car company, when taking advice to shut down a massive public transportation project.
The California high speed rail project is still being built, legislators didn’t shut it down. Check out the spring 2024 update.
Now it probably should be faster, but progress is being made.
True. And I’m sure they did.
I’m not going to promote a ‘china is better’ post because that’s one of the reasons I don’t like it here. I don’t want to hear it. China is not a role model.
…what now?
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Now you don’t have to imagine how the rest of the world feels about hearing comparisons and US news constantly like it’s the center of the universe. Sucks for everyone.
Search Thunderf00t on YouTube. Researched and sourced refutation of each of musk’s many and always evolving lies, from an actual physicist with a PhD.
thunderf00t is a raging misogynist. Like he made hundreds of gamergate videos obsessing over this one woman for daring to criticize the portrayal of women in videogames
I’m down to reject bigots being bigots. But even a broken clock can be right twice a day.
Doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to let that broken clock into your YouTube algorithm and reward it with clicks.
Really though, what specifically are you talking about? I’ve been subscribed for literal years. This guy literally just debunks scams from musk, religious zealots, kickstarter/startup scams and things like that (and also randomly does science experiments with sodium that are completely over my head.). Haven’t seen any of what your saying as a focus or expressed opinion in his videos.
My algorithm is better for having this person in there.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Thunderf00t
This goes pretty in-depth into his problematic past regarding attacking feminists and feminism in general, with sources and links to back it up provided as well. Most of it is old, dating back to the GamerGate days.
yes he’s a scientist and has a lot of videos debunking tech bro pseudoscience, I just think it’s worth knowing how muvh of an unhinged asshole he is
🤡
OK then, I’ll make sure to only watch the Musk hate videos.
Helps for you to cite claims with some source material.
You say “raging” here and mention “hundreds of videos” so it seems like you would easily have hundreds of slam dunk examples to share at your fingertips? And please point out exactly what you take issue with and done just push plain links to hours long videos and just say “see”.
I’ve been watching him for years and have not known him to be any of what you’re saying - Maybe you’re confused?
thunderf00t is a raging misogynist. Like he made hundreds of gamergate videos obsessing over this one woman for daring to criticize the portrayal of women in videogames
Completely false.
Adam Something does a good job of savaging Musk’s bullshit as well, along with lots of other “tech bro” bullshit in the same vein (and no misogyny that I’m aware of). He does talk a bit too fast, however, so I always slow his videos down a bit and they come out alright.
I think he’s great as well. I think he was recommended to me because I subscribe to Thunderf00t. I’ve never seen any direct or indirect misogyny in Thunderf00t stuff. None of the people above are citing anything, so I’m still not sure what they are getting at.
But I like Adam something and Thunderf00t content because they both make supported claims exposing fraud, they don’t just confidently say, “this person is X” and move on without support.
Serious question: Aside from the obvious reasons (oil and car lobby), what is preventing the US from adopting and building high speed rail infrastructure? I would much rather take a 4 hour trip on a comfortable train than my cramp Acura.
“That’s communism!”
No, really.
For example, Minnesota (and to a lesser extent Wisconsin) keeps planning light rail/high speed rail projects but they keep getting killed by Republicans who take office. Why do they kill it? Mostly i don’t think they say, or make some vague claims about “budget” (while providing no actual explanation or justification). However, if you listen to their base it’s because they believe trains are communist and communism is bad.
In particular, the big push in Wisconsin for expanding Amtrak (not even high speed rail) circa 2010 was killed by Republicans taking office. The trains themselves were already paid for, but they never took delivery. So the state paid all the costs for nothing, and IIRC, it was actually more expensive to cancel it at that stage.
I recently took the Amtrak from Columbus, WI to Minneapolis. Even as limited and poorly implemented as Amtrak is compared to European rail, it was still a more pleasant experience than either flying or driving. I always feel exhausted after a flight; even though you’re not physically doing much, the whole process is so unpleasant that I need to collapse in bed afterwords. Didn’t feel that way at all on Amtrak.
- Having to buy out private land owners who will take the government to court which can take years to decades to figure out
- Having to do environmental assessment of all the land that will be impacted by the high speed rail then having to re plan the route to avoid sensitive areas and wildlife which would take years if not decades to complete
- Having to raise taxes or shift infrastructure funding to build the rail line
- Contracting out the work to private companies that will inevitably raise costs dramatically because it’s a government project
- Having to negotiate with state and local governments that will want (or not want) the rail line to go through their town, city and state.
- If the route is going through a mountainous region having to build massive tunnels (not unheard of just more money and longer build time)
- Contracting out companies to build the rail cars specifically and having them work closely and accurately with the companies building the rail lines.
- If the rail line is going through Texas and is going to use electricity then the government will have to negotiate with the Texas electrical grid, probably demand that they do a better job of keeping it online.
- Promoting the rail line enough so that it gets used more
- Dealing with oil, gas, automotive, and airline lobbies along with all the secondary and tertiary companies and industries that rely on those industries that will lobby to keep it from going through.
This is all just stuff that came off the top of my head. I don’t know if it is all valid or not.
Don’t get me wrong I would fucking love to have a extensive, reliable high speed rail in the US I just don’t think it will happen without huge push from the voters and I’m skeptical that will happen.
Can’t have nice things for poor people.
Rich people will just fly everywhere.
I lived in Korea for a while and the biggest difference is how our cities are set up from the get go.
Korean cities are dense. NY dense. Buildings generally go up instead of out. Shops on the base floors, but also a lot of commercial buildings with 5+ levels of shops.
You generally don’t have to walk more than a mile in any direction to get anything you need at any hour of the day, even in smaller satellite cities. There’s usually at least a corner shop or two within a few hundred feet of your apartment entrance.
Subways are generally within a 10~15 minute walk. That connects you to anywhere in the greater Seoul area. Cabs are plentiful, you can hail one down on any major street in minutes if not seconds if you’re in a hurry. The cities are designed around walking. Wide sidewalks, overpasses everywhere, and the density makes it so anywhere you go feels a bit like walking in an outdoor shopping mall would in the US. You can’t walk more than a quarter mile without hitting another cluster of shops.
The area I lived in probably had a 100+ shops in a 2 mile(?) radius and it was a smaller city in the outskirts of Seoul called Buchun. Everything from smaller corner stores to chain restaurants & Korean versions of multi-story Walmart/Costco etc. I’m guesstimating a bit, but I never walked longer than 30 minutes to get to anything I needed.
Sure, you can drive, but walking works just fine. No one NEEDS a car if you live in a city in Korea.
The high speed rails just complements all this infrastructure to connect the cities. We don’t have any of the other stuff necessary to really make this work the same way. That last mile is the killer. If you need to drive to the rail, ride it, get off and find another car to your final destination, most folks would just opt to drive the whole way. Especially if you also factor in the return trip, or the need any degree of flexibility.
In the US, high speed rail would almost function like a plane. In Asia, it’s more like… one part of a comprehensive public transportation system.
I live in Austin in one of the expensive areas considered to be ‘walkable’, but the closest bagel shop from my house is still a 10 minute walk away. If I want to get to the breakfast place I like, it’s 20 minutes from my front door. Only thing I pass in between those two are a bunch of tattoos shops and I think a yoga studio, and some architect firm. Oh, I guess we have a few food trucks now too. They’re usually closed in the mornings when I walk anywhere.
The rest of it is just houses. If I wanted to get to the downtown rail station, it’s a 30 minute walk and I have to walk under the highway and get accosted by homeless folks on occasion. (Most of them are cool, there’s a few that are not).
Oh, and there’s no shade anywhere and it’s Texas. Five months out of the year we hit 90~100+ degrees and you’d need a change of clothes by the time you get anywhere you’re going.
American cities are just not designed for it. We have everything spaced too far apart.
Mainly it’s last mile issue. Train gets you to the state, and maybe the city you want, but where do you go from there? Busses are slow and just generally terrible here. Light rail/subways only exist in a handful of metro areas, and the cost of a train ticket here is usually more than the fuel cost to drive, and takes 3x as long.
The cost of the ticket is normally cheaper going into a metro area. You have to sit in traffic and find a parking garage. Find the place to pay the then when the event is over you have MORE traffic to leave then get home.
It’s mentally taxing.
Gonna disagree with you there. I just priced out the cost of going from my house to my brother’s apartment in the same city.
For reference, it is ~11 miles by car, and takes ~15 minutes to drive there. My car gets ~36mpg in city, so roughly 1/3 of a gallon of gas, so about $1.20 in gas right now. Parking is 1 dollar and hour, with a 25 cent service charge.
To take the bus, is almost a 2 hr trip, requires a transfer to a other bus, and it costs around 5-8 bucks (couldn’t get firm pricing for the trip).
It is way faster, cheaper, and less stressful to drive there and park for a few hours than it is to take the bus, and my city has pretty good bus transit compared to the rest of the US. Also I can do the trip anytime I want, and come back anytime I want, and round trip it saves me almost 3.5 hrs of my day.
For reference, it is ~11 miles by car, and takes ~15 minutes
You’re not driving into a city you’re driving into a town 🤡
Yeah, I guess I have no idea how long a drive that I do frequently takes. As for town, the metro area is a quaint 1.8 million people.
“rugged individualism” is our culture & tells people they all need one or two cars each so they can move ‘independently’.
The real reason is that it is less profitable, mostly because of how efficient it is. When plane and car fuel prices are sky high, they can tack on an extra 10% and get filthy rich. When they tack on 10% to the cheaper electric trains, they get less filthy rich.
Capitalism, or corporatism in our case, is showing it’s true colors. It is not efficient, it is not the best way to encourage innovation, it is not good for the people it is meant to serve.
I bought a chinese phone recently, the OnePlus Open, and my eyes have been opened. It is 3 years ahead of the American Competition, the Pixel 9ProFold…
Why don’t we just shut up with the sinophobia and ACTUALLY COMPETE???
NAFTA Turned us into an investment economy instead of a manufacturing economy. We are being sold out by wallstreet piece by piece
Lobbying and ideology, nothing else. We easily have the capacity to do what china did on a similar time table, especially if we piggy backed on the cleared land for highways. We just don’t.
Musk lied. Enough said.
to bolster car sales for decades
Projects intended for the public good don’t need to be profitable. It is disingenuous to argue that High Speed Rail is profitable in China, nor can you make the assumption that it could be profitable in other markets.
There are a lot of conflicting reports on how profitable HSR is in China, the fact that government and Industry are often one in the same and the lack of good public accounting at Chinese companies makes any reports from HSR advocates out of china questionable. After all they do want to sell their HSR technology globally.
HSR is much more difficult in the US as the rights of private property are respected and projects need to pass a much higher threshold of review for environmental impact, etc. There are many major infrastructure projects in China that turn out to be poorly planned and executed years after they have been completed.
It is disingenuous to argue that High Speed Rail is profitable in China
Good thing that’s not what OP or anyone else in here was arguing. Like you said, it’s a public good. It doesn’t need to be profitable to serve the public interest. In fact, profits run counter to the public interest. So why bring it up?
HSR is much more difficult in the US as the rights of private property are respected and projects need to pass a much higher threshold of review
We have eminent domain, and HSR has been built in Europe despite stricter envirobmental regulations.
There are many major infrastructure projects in China that turn out to be poorly planned and executed years after they have been completed.
Wow. Couldn’t happen in the US. Never.
Good thing that’s not what OP or anyone else in here was arguing. Like you said, it’s a public good. It doesn’t need to be profitable to serve the public interest. In fact, profits run counter to the public interest. So why bring it up?
Only OP did argue it… it was part of his closing arguments of his post he even cited a WSJ article on it.
We have eminent domain, and HSR has been built in Europe despite stricter environmental regulations.
We do have eminent domain, but it is still a much harder process than in China where all land is owned by the central government. My point was to reinforce the fact that the process of building HSR is harder and more expensive in the US than in the CCP, not that it’s impossible.
Wow. Couldn’t happen in the US. Never.
Your “Whataboutisms” are either ill informed or disingenuous. The amount of badly built infrastructure projects in China vs the US aren’t even on the same scale. Feel free to educate yourself and google “tofu dreg projects”.
My bad, it was the very last thing the OP said. But either way we’re in agreement profits aren’t the way to measure success of a public service.
Anyway, I’ve learned it’s pretty impossible to have a reasonable discussion with someone suffering from “China bad”-ism
The Big Dig didn’t cost that much in the end … about 1/4 of what Musk paid for Twitter. If a billionaire could throw money away on a vanity social media project, than the government could spend a quarter of that on critical infrastructure.
The biggest cost of the big dig was the opportunity cost. The state let the mbta (the metro and commuter rail) fall into a state of comical disrepair. Trains aren’t supposed to catch fire or derail as often as the T does
It is disingenuous to argue that High Speed Rail is profitable in China
High efficiency public infrastructure doesn’t add economic value because it won’t show up on China’s domestic ledger as “profit for shareholders”. You heard it here first.
government and Industry are often one in the same and the lack of good public accounting at Chinese companies makes any reports from HSR advocates out of china questionable
Yes, we have data to argue there is an economic benefit, but DON’T TRUST IT! Everything good you read about China is a lie and everything bad you read about China is a ten times worse.
HSR is much more difficult in the US as the rights of private property are respected
LO-fucking-L.
And that’s just the modern stuff. Google “Robert Moses” if you really want to get a taste for American style private property protections.
High efficiency public infrastructure doesn’t add economic value because it won’t show up on China’s domestic ledger as “profit for shareholders”. You heard it here first.
Weird you would write that when in the first sentence of my post, I explicitly stated that public works projects don’t need to be profitable to be justified. But hey I’m glad we agree on something, it’s great to find common ground!
Yes, we have data to argue there is an economic benefit, but DON’T TRUST IT! Everything good you read about China is a lie and everything bad you read about China is a ten times worse.
If you choose to willingly believe everything the CCP is stating, feel free to put your money where your mouth is and invest in Chinese HSR companies. It could be a great investment opportunity for you.
LO-fucking-L.
In Iowa, an ongoing saga regarding a network of carbon dioxide pipelines proposed by carbon-capture companies has united predominantly conservative farmers and environmental activists on the issue of taking privately owned land for corporate gain. Despite feeling intimidated, the Averitts wouldn’t sell their 135-acre property, along with a 100-acre commercial site the family had hoped to develop. The company, Dominion Energy, ended up claiming the land anyway via eminent domain, the power to take private land for “public use,” which in recent years has been invoked with increasing frequency by oil and gas companies seeking to build new pipelines. After Dominion and its ACP partner, Duke Energy, canceled the Atlantic Coast Pipeline in July 2020, the Averitts, who had been in the process of challenging the company in court, regained control of their land, but not without a serious financial and emotional toll. Others along the ACP’s route—often rural communities that are disproportionately BIPOC, low-income, or both—have fared even worse in the aftermath of the canceled pipeline, which was going to run from West Virginia to North Carolina, and elsewhere in the country. And that’s just the modern stuff. Google “Robert Moses” if you really want to get a taste for American style private property protections.
I once again wish to express appreciation to you for making my point for me. It is weird you would do that but hey thanks! The fact that the pipeline was tied and others were canceled because of the increased costs of eminent domain illustrates how it is more expensive to undertake major infrastructure projects in the US than it is in China.
I explicitly stated that public works projects don’t need to be profitable
If I save 10 minutes on my daily commute, I claim a profit in relative time. If I can get between home and work for $5 less a day, that profits me monetarily. You can - and plenty of papers do - demonstrate the financial benefits of a high speed transit system.
The difference between the East Asian rapid transit model and the American model is that those profits accrue primarily to the individual rather than the corporation. Claiming that Chinese/Japanese/Korean residents don’t profit from an HSR requires you to treat their time and money as valueless.
If you choose to willingly believe everything the CCP is stating
You need more on the table than “Don’t believe Chinese people, they’re all lying to you”. Hell, I’m not even sure what I’m not supposed to believe. You haven’t cited a source much less challenged one.
I once again wish to express appreciation to you for making my point for me.
Don’t trust the Chinese, because Iowa corn farmers are being sold out to the American O&G industry?
it is more expensive to undertake major infrastructure projects in the US than it is in China.
Why do you think that is?
If I save 10 minutes on my daily commute, I claim a profit in relative time. If I can get between home and work for $5 less a day, that profits me monetarily. You can - and plenty of papers do - demonstrate the financial benefits of a high speed transit system.
The difference between the East Asian rapid transit model and the American model is that those profits accrue primarily to the individual rather than the corporation. Claiming that Chinese/Japanese/Korean residents don’t profit from an HSR requires you to treat their time and money as valueless.
Weirder and weirder…you seem intent on misquoting me and taking my statements out of context. You left off the first part of my original statement:
Projects intended for the public good don’t need to be profitable.
Once again thank you for agreeing with me (even if you didn’t realize it) and finding common ground.
If you choose to willingly believe everything the CCP is stating
You need more on the table than “Don’t believe Chinese people, they’re all lying to you”. Hell, I’m not even sure what I’m not supposed to believe. You haven’t cited a source much less challenged one.
Yet again you seem intent on taking my statements out of context. Even with my exact words listed above… Are you just trying to invent straw man arguments?
No where in my sentence about the CCP did I say “Don’t believe Chinese people”, THAT IS YOUR OWN QUOTE. Quite frankly its very racist.
You can’t even cite or interpret my own text properly, why would I bother providing you with more advanced citations.
Don’t trust the Chinese, because Iowa corn farmers are being sold out to the American O&G industry?
I’m not even sure where to go with this racist rhetorical question. Once again I would advise not trusting the CCP, I have no qualms with the Chinese people. I’ve done direct business with Chinese business owners and in all my personal dealings they were honest and forthright.
Why do you think that is?
My original post covers why it is more expensive to build HSR in the US, I suggest going back and re-reading it.
Once again I would advise not trusting the CCP
Is there any actual reason for this?
Other than the obvious, of course.
No where in my sentence about the CCP did I say “Don’t believe Chinese people”
Do you know what the C in CCP stands for?
Is there any actual reason for this?
Other than the obvious, of course.
Feel free to educate yourself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_China
https://time.com/6302515/china-philippines-south-china-sea-aggression/
Do you know what the C in CCP stands for?
Yes, do you know how a names and acronyms work? Do you also know what the CP in the CCP stands for?
Feel free to educate yourself.
All of these have been debunked.
Do you also know what the CP in the CCP stands for?
The the largest political party on earth. Might as well say “I don’t hate Americans, just all the Republicans plus all the Democrats”
If your point is that it’s harder and more expensive to build HSR in the US than in China, so what? The US builds massive infrastructure that’s more regulated and more expensive than the equivalent in China all the time. None of your points adequately explain why no HSR has been built in California and has only just started being built in the US broadly compared to what’s been built around the world in the last decade.
If your point is that it’s harder and more expensive to build HSR in the US than in China, so what?
Yes that is my point.
The US builds massive infrastructure that’s more regulated and more expensive than the equivalent in China”
That is the “so what”, you answered your own question.
None of your points adequately explain why no HSR has been built in California and has only just started being built in the US broadly compared to what’s been built around the world in the last decade.
The fact that it is more regulated and more expensive than China is the main point. There are many hurdles, from NIMBY to regulatory capture, to competition with other industries. Without the profit motive, there is no private interest in HSR. That leaves it to the public sector and without strong public support, it will fail or won’t enjoy widespread adoption. The fact that there are at least two other widely available modes (air, car) of transportation in California undermines that support. In Europe, China and Japan HSR is more successful because they do not have the car culture or required infrastructure to support that mode of transportation that we enjoy in the USA.
Oh, do you “enjoy” air and car travel in California?
I think it’s a little strange to say Europe and China and even Japan lack the car and air infrastructure the US does, car culture sure.
My response was more asking to clarify what your response to OP was. The OP meme points out an embarassing gap between how other places have built HSR much to the benefit of its people while California has yet to lay a single line after a decade of promises for a people who want and stand to benefit from HSR. You pointed out obstacles that China doesn’t face, but none of these obstacles are insurmountable and have been overcome in other US projects, so how is the decade of broken promises not an embarassing tragedy?
Oh, do you “enjoy” air and car travel in California?
That is a subjective question, not very many people enjoy the actual act of traveling no matter what it is. The fact remains those alternate modes of travel exist and compete with HSR no matter what your personal feelings are.
I think it’s a little strange to say Europe and China and even Japan lack the car and air infrastructure the US does, car culture sure.
You seem intent on inventing strawman arguments. No where in my post did I state that the infrastructure for car and air travel didn’t exist in those countries. They just don’t exist to the extent that they do in the US. The vast majority of US citizens travel by car every day. Only in certain urban centers do you have the option of alternative modes of transportation. I’m arguing that ratio is quite different in China, Europe and japan.
so how is the decade of broken promises not an embarassing tragedy?
I’ve laid that out in both of my prior statements, you even state:
You pointed out obstacles that China doesn’t face,
Perhaps you should reread those points.
Let me rephrase on infrastructure. Car and Air infrastructure is obviously as developed (footprint, accessibility, sophistication, etc.) in Europe and China compared to the US. Utilization proportions is going to be different because US lacks HSR. That Americans use cars more than other countries doesn’t mean those countries have less developed car infrastructure for the needs of their populations.
Perhaps you should reread those points
And again, other US infrastructure projects that deal with the same obstacles show they don’t prevent development. So they’re weak excuses. I am very open to reasonable or more specific explanations as to why HSR development in California is justifiably dead.
While I appreciate a well written and thought out response, especially one which I can broadly find common ground with you on. That isn’t at all the point you made, in your original pithy comment. See below:
I think it’s a little strange to say Europe and China and even Japan lack the car and air infrastructure the US does, car culture sure.
US infrastructure projects do encounter similar issues that exist in Japan and Europe. Car infrastructure is far more developed and integrated within the US than in those countries. US cities (by and large) are designed around cars. Our suburbs exist because of cars. One may not agree with cars from a philosophical, environmental or economic basis. But the fact is the infrastructure is there and the majority of Americans already have the necessary vehicles to use it. Americans are also already conditioned to take their car where they want to go.
Trains do not have that existing infrastructure. Most US Cities have poor public transportation infrastructure compared to their European and Japanese cohorts. The population is also not conditioned to use it. For individuals that have already sunk money into a car for their day to day transportation, using the train is demonstrably more expensive.
HSR may be popular, but with existing entrenched alternatives that are better suited for the existing infrastructure. They just aren’t a priority. Yes European and Japanese cities have cars infrastructure in place, but the cost of ownership is higher, the availability of parking is less and ease of operation is significantly lower than in the US. There are many cases where operating a car in a city such as Paris with heavy traffic regulation just doesn’t make sense. In those environments robust HSR infrastructure can flourish.
This is a great, nuanced post. Musk is still an asshat and we should still get HSR but there are a lot of practical reasons it’s harder in the US. Part of that is the lobbying of the automobile industry. Obligatory “fuck cars.”
Add it I needed more reasons to hate him
