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
Well, you don’t get better at it without doing it, so.
Still, about all these “China has built N M-units of P”, remember those of them about China building whole new cities? They are now demolishing whole districts of many-story residential buildings nobody has ever lived in, cause nobody wants to live there and buildings without maintenance will be dangerous.
And I think it’s not only that nobody will live there (China still has lots of poor rural population that would like some improvement), but also the fact that probably many things in those exist only on paper. Chinese corruption is enormous, despite what people here may want to believe, and it also involves oligarchy.
Your comment has literally nothing to do with how they build trains.
We aren’t talking about their failing economy or corrupt residential building process. We are talking about what the world can learn from their effective train building process.
Your evaluation of how they build trains is as problematic as of how they build housing.
Because you haven’t seen that. You are evaluating the mapping of that in some discourse popular among fans of “government doing stuff” in the USA.
We are talking about what the world can learn from their effective train building process.
You don’t know how effective it is.
What we surely know is that China’s a vastly different country, so their processes won’t be applicable at all. Americans who want to do things the way they do in China forget how much a worker (or even an engineer) in China earns and what their labor rights are (none).
I mean, considering USA is already an immigrant country, it would be poetic to have an immigration program of the “half-slave work for 10 years on railroad-building projects, then citizenship” kind. But that wouldn’t solve the problem of funds being embezzled.
Your comment has literally nothing to do with how they build trains.
I’ll be fine without considering your opinion on that, to be honest.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to look at what they’re doing right, nor does it mean we have to condone the situation there in its entirety.
I for one am in awe they built enough high speed rail to circle the earth. The flip side of that coin is the shame I feel at our own progress in the meantime. The interstate system is so gross and inefficient. 90 out of a hundred trucks you see could have been on a train, should be.
And I’m sorry but if you find yourself driving on the interstate on a regular basis you’re doing it wrong. I’ve heard all the best excuses. It’s an insane way to live, and it’s straight up ruining our planet.
I certainly don’t advocate adopting China’s way of being lock stock and barrel, but they’re doing what we cannot. Too many apartments and trains. Sounds like awful problems to have.
I live in Russia, so don’t really know anything about both USA and China.
But the part about China would be also true for you. We can’t say what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong, that’s the problem.
That said, yes, for logistics trains are just better.
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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
Except they can’t, because their residents are mostly dead. From old age.
We don’t do that anymore, for good fucking reason.
Pretty good chance they died from the consequences of poverty.
Or the increased health risks associated with all the roads and industry we plopped next to their communities.
Then again that could be considered
consequences of poverty… or better yetcause of the poverty
We still do it, it’s just that the voices are louder now when we try. My city was wanting to run a new bridge to replace an old, failing bridge, and SURPRISE, most of the neighborhoods that would’ve been impacted were historically nonwhite. Thanks to the Internet, it got a lot wider dispersal, and a lot more people were able to rally against it.
That’s the real reason yes. Not sure if hyperloop being underground avoids that problem or one still has to deal with property owners
Nope, still have to get permission from folks for that, too.
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?
I hope people realize that the issue isn’t musk but California’s reliance on the private sector to do public good.
California HSR is an entirely state funded project.
To nitpick, does that imply that it’s being both funded and constructed by government employees? Or is the funding public, but the companies that are supposed to be performing the work private? Because that’s how the telco industry works, and well… we all know how that went.
There really doesn’t exist a government workforce large enough to do the construction. But it’s bid out to construction firms directly overseen by the government, so there’s no big potential for just diverting funds like in the case of telecoms. Construction is all these companies do. There’s nowhere else to shift the money to. They have deliberables and metrics to meet.
Of course the potential for fraud exists but it’s no bigger risk than a project with solely government employees.
This is accurate. On the private sector side it’s the same. One of the things driving up costs is that the private sector doesn’t have a company big enough to do this job, so Cali HSR is sub-contractors all the way down. Every private company contacted by the government has to be vetted and then there’s the paper work on contacts and those contacts need to be enforced by yet more people who need yet more contracts.
How China built so much so fast was that the PRC national government founded a handful of big companies (read: state-backed monopolies) to sort everything out and build it. Lots less overhead when one entity basically runs the whole show. China HSR is corporate vertical integration combined with centralized state planning on a scale that is only rivaled by other things the Chinese government has done before or that other nations have done however over longer periods of time (like the US’s Eisenhower Interstate Highway System… asperational national project on an immense scale and it took half a century because it was delegated to fifty states to plan and flesh out).
Sure but they had secured funding. California has to do it piecemeal as funding is available.
Yep. So too did the Interstate system. There needs to be a federal backed program, with dollar matching at the state and local level just like the interstate highway system.
Agreed. This is such a huge project for a single state to do alone.
Army Corps of Engineers would be big enough I presume.
Maybe some joint projects with the Navy SeaBees.
That’s federal.
The more you know …
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.
That’s Capitalism for you…
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.
The funny thing about this post is no one except tech bros ever gave a shit about the hyperloop. The government of California summarily ignored the muskrat.
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.
The next Trump as soon as he decides to run for office. Or worse, the next Hitler, except with infinite money.
incapable of critical thought.
Look in the mirror, bud.
Why are you insulting someone who is agreeing with you…?
You’re white knighting for a billionaire you fucking chud.
To paraphrase the great Big Daddy Kane:
Anything goes when it comes to hos cos simpin’ ain’t easy!
Keep simpin’ ya simp!
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 feel like we can talk about how Elon and mass transit in America are the worst without making poor comparison to China.
We can’t compete with nationalized railroads.
Sounds like railroads should be nationalized
but the guy who makes the funny steel is just so sexy and manly, do you want us all to be boring and on time all the time? like, if things worked, that would just make us the cogs, wouldn’t it? /s
but the guy who makes the funny steel is just so sexy and manly
Never through reading that shit he seemed that.
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.
They literally did not. California never listened to Musk, and CA HSR is still under construction. Only tech bros ever cared about the hyperloop.
In the end, Musk failed to derail California’s visionary shift toward a balanced, electrified transportation system with high-speed rail as its backbone, along with electric vehicles, local transit and walkable, bike-friendly communities.
In June, [of 2022, nine years after Musk’s hyperloop lie] the California Legislature approved a $4.2 billion appropriation to help complete the project’s first operating segment, along with another $7.65 billion for rail transit. The California High-Speed Rail Authority continues to pursue federal funding to advance the project. Voter support for high-speed rail remains strong.
Yeah that’s what I’m saying. California ignored him.
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
Yeah it’s amazing how fast and cheaply you can build infrastructure when there’s no labour rights and no property rights.
This is FUD to support the trade war between USA and China.
Do not fall prey.
I am sorry?
There literally is no property right in China. You’re only allowed to “lease” property from the government.
Also, does “996” ring a Bell?
The US Government refers to you as a tenant in your own home that you ‘own’. This is so they can take over it with imminent domain whenever they feel like it. Stop pretending we actually have property rights in the US, they can take anything from you at any time, it is US Law.
addition: You are less free than you think you are. We are far from the freest country on earth. Funny how Norway, a fairly socialist leaning country is the Freest on the Freedom Index. They also have one of highest rates of billionaires… USA is somewhere around 30th
We are being misled. Capitalism leads to corporatism. It is a time bomb of an economic system which requires 3% compound growth infinitely. that is a pipe-dream, not socialism
“It’s really legalised robbery by law enforcement”
From a Last Week Tonight piece about civil forfeiture
Yes! That episode reinforced my notion that we do not have true property rights in the USA
John Oliver has so much passion for justice, and so much energy. I love how he talks about stuff no one is talking about too, ‘fringe’ subjects that matter
Skip out on your property taxes and you’ll find that you too are just leasing the land. The reality of the world is that, unless you own your own island, no one other than governments actually own land.
(And if you never actually build it then it’s really cheap!)
And quality control
I would never set foot into a chinese Train
I have seen 3 Videos of derailed chinese Trains in the last 2 years and I have no idea how many more the CCP successfully covered up.
I’ve been on a few. They’re quite… nice? At least the high speed rail ones between cities. Better than anything I’ve seen in europe or UK.
In terms of train derailments, you have to consider the size of the country
Better than anything I’ve seen in europe or UK
I will unironically take you out for a Beer here in Switzerland. You can choose: Geneva, Bern, Lucern or Zürich. Because no, the trains in China are definitely worse than those here in Switzerland. Trust me.
They’re really really fast, I’ll give them that (If you’re on one of the ones that the CCP prioritized as a prestige-project), but other than that: No, Swiss trains are just better.
Also:
In terms of train derailments, you have to consider the size of the country
I am going to have to strongly disagree.
The Video I saw was a earthslide that destroyed the rails and no early warning system picked it up causing the Train to run into it full speed and derailing
If your railways don’t have early warning systems, that’s just completely unacceptable. Train safety has absolutely nothing to do with the size of a country.
Which I was especially disappointed in since I once saw a documentary about how the chinese had apparently implemented the swiss train-security system into their railway system. But I guess only the “important” routes get the upgrade. Everywhere else either doesn’t get it or the money goes into the carpark of the local Officials.
Swiss trains are so good that they cross the border to break the strikes of other countries. I will say the exception is Switzerland.
But compare it to the DB ICE, or to National Rail / Southern / Great Western, or TGV going cross country. China trains win, imo.
In terms of early warning systems I can’t comment
woah, woah, context, context!
We only drove international routes that would have impacted Swiss people if they just suddenly stopped at the Swiss border. We didn’t “break” a Strike, we just “contained” it to the country it actually belongs to.
other than that we wish the best to the protesting workers :P
But yeah, I am absolutely spoiled living here in Switzerland.
The most powerful thing about our public transport isn’t even what most people tend to think about. It’s how regional and local public transport are integrated. A Bus will be at the train station exactly at the same time as a train, so you can effortlessly change between the two. While in other countries the transport is separated so you routinely wait 20+ minutes for your next transport, in Switzerland, it is seldom more than 5-10 minutes.
Yeah, I am absolutely spoiled. But at least I know it and don’t take it for granted but instead enjoy it :)
we just “contained” it to the country it actually belongs to.
That sounds a bit like undermining the strike, but tbh, I’ve no idea of what you guys are talking about.
It totally is.
A lot of French/German people go work in Switzerland, a noticeable amount such that when the DB (german trains) is broken down / delayed / on strike (as it often is), Swiss companies suffer.
It has become such a problem that in order to get these workers to work, Swiss trains will cross the border to collect these commuters as a replacement service.
Since these Swiss trains are following the same tracks as the DB would take, French/German people who just want to get to work in France/Germany also take these Swiss trains to work.
The end result is a DB strike that failed, pissed off commuters realising just howsmooth, quiet, and fancy Swiss trains are in comparison, and a general populace who are irritated at the state of german trains and train scheduling.
If your railways don’t have early warning systems, that’s just completely unacceptable. Train safety has absolutely nothing to do with the size of a country.
You’re probably right. It’s not that US railways suck because of the size of the country, that’s probably true, yeah. They suck for totally unrelated reasons.
We have plenty of domestic derailments to go around, so I feel like this is just casting stones from our glass house. Although in our case it’s not that the build quality is bad, it’s that maintenance has been skipped for so long that everything is falling apart.
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“muddy water is also poisonous” is a bad thing to say when I say “you shouldn’t drink arsenic”
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No, we don’t. Switzerland is one of the safest countries for trains, we invented and implemented multiple security systems for trains, riding a train here is completely safe.
I know you probably assumed I’m from the same country as you (“we”) and that your country isn’t that save, but this assumption is wrong.
“We” don’t have plenty of domestic derailments to go around.
Well, I’m not psychic, so for lack of appropriate context I’m going to naturally assume that you’re talking from the perspective of an American in the thread about how China is destroying the United States (California specifically) in high speed rail production.
Now that I know better, feel free to disregard my comment.
Yeah, but I never gave you a reason to assume that.
I simply talked about how insecure Chinese rail is. Nothing about the US or California. Frankly, you chose to just jump to conclusions, nothing natural about it.
If literally half the people online were Swiss, and had been since your childhood, it would be very natural of you to assume that most of the time when you’re talking to someone, you’re talking to a Swiss person.
You can try to paint him rude or assumptuous or anything, but I very much fail to see that. Yea there are those Americans who assume too much, too often, but this wasn’t one of those times, and your reply with the “I’m not American how dare you” while not even saying you’re Swiss is tonally really dickish and arrogant, but that’s just my personal opinion on the matter.
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I guess you haven’t seen the videos of people balancing coins on the windowsill while going 300+km/h.
I have seen these, I have seen the Videos where the whole train was shaking (presumably on a less “prestigious” route that wasn’t getting the sole attention of the CCP) and I have seen the Videos where a landslide destroyed tracks, no warning-system picked it up and a train derailed.
Oh interesting, so you know they’re extremely good at building infrastructure, but they still have some that’s not great, so choose to act like that’s all that exists, and it’s definitely going to kill you. Totally not a fed. Nope, just a regular guy here.
Also, communism is when natural disasters? Really, that’s a stretch.
Yoi’re Strawmanning.
Is Bejing paying you to do this?
No, they’re awful at building infrastructure. They’re able to build it really really fast, but they’re always prioritizing speed over longevity, leading to bad infrastructure that eventually collapses.
Just think about it: in Switzerland we often take longer to survey the ground than it takes the Chinese to build the whole thing. This can’t work
- you’re strawmanning. I never made this about communism, you did.
I never made this about natural disasters, I was always very clear I was talking about early warning systems
You know, the kind that stops a Train if the rails literally snapped apart
But seriously, how much does the CCP pay for this? Just keeping my options open.
You’ve seen the tracks so smooth a coin doesn’t fall over at 300km/h and you call that “awful at building infrastructure”? Curious.
But they’re fast, so it must be poor quality, right? The appeal to “just think about it” without seeking actual information is a classic.
You are maliciously ignoring / misinterpreting what I’m saying, so I’ll say it once more and then be off:
I can build you a Car that can go 200 km/h within 3 weeks
Does that make it better than a VW that takes years to develop?
No, because that car was actually tested. It has undergone a lot of testing to make sure it is safe to use in various conditions. My car didn’t do that.
Replace “my car” with “Chinese railway” and you should get the Idea
East Palestine was just last year.
Jesus, stop the whataboutism
And besides, I’m from switzerland, so you need to get a new accident to whatabout
My point is, train accidents happen everywhere.
And my point is that most countries have systems that try to prevent those accidents, while China doesn’t apparently
Nevermind, I just saw your bio, and the way you’re accusing people in this thread of being paid by the CCP.
I won’t waste my time.
Because I’m swiss or because I’m a pan-european nationalist?
I’m sorry I’m not a chinese ethno-nationalist, my dude.
I’m sorry I don’t think that I’m better than other people because of my birth and instead openly embrace my brothers. I’m sorry my country is not currently committing a genocide against a minority.
Edit: Lmao, I just looked at your Profile and I’m 70% sure you’re paid by Bejing. The other 30% you’re a “useful idiot”. (don’t get mad at me, the KGB themselves called you that)
Defending North Korea? get out of here, you clown!
have you not been paying attention the past decade? shit is crumbling here. Overpasses falling apart, trains derailing and starting enormous chemical fires…
Drinking water that is flammable.
The lie that we are doing well is propped up by massive amounts of personal and public debt.
with how deperately you’re trying to defend china / deflect from china with whataboutism, I am starting to think you may get paid by bejing 🤔
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No, nothing is crumbling “here”. I want actual Proof that shit is crumbling “here”.
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No, “we” (you) are definitely doing well. pretty well even. Only second to the EU.
Public “debt” isn’t really a problem as long as its in measures. A country isn’t a zero-sum game, spending money isn’t “wasted” or “lost” money, it’s “invested” money. “Debt” is a Term used to make “investment into the future of the country” sound like a bad thing. which is a very conservative thing to do. which is funny, considering how you’re looking up to china.
I mean: just look at your beloved china. They’re also accumulating massive debt in order to invest into the country and pump up the economy. In the most simple example: You need money to build a port, you need a port to sell stuff, and you need to sell stuff in order to make money.
Anyways, I always said I would rather be poor in ww2-Britain than be rich in Nazi-Germany. I would still rather be poor in the US than in China.
You should really really be grateful for what you have. I don’t mean you shouldn’t strive to make your country better, but also realize that you live in a amazing country.
Consider that maybe I am the unbiased one, and you are the one lying to yourself because of propaganda. Imminent Domain means the US Government owns EVERYTHING in your possession and can take it at any time they want. You own NOTHING
I want this country to be great again, and that means MAKING PRODUCTS HERE. AND HIRING AMERICAN SUPPORT STAFF… call any of the 3 biggest companies in the US and you are talking to a foreigner. Stop complaining about competition and START GOING AFTER THOSE SELLING OUT OUR COUNTRY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Palestine,_Ohio,_train_derailment
Im not going to do all your research for you. there are countless examples of the US crumbling. go to WV, its a third-world state where over 50% of 20 year olds are on Fentanyl and government welfare 100%
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California actually spent billions on a high speed rail without laying a single mile of track. I guess someone got rich from that.
You have to spend billions before laying track. That’s true of any high speed rail. They’ve done a lot of groundwork and built a lot of structures, and they should be laying some track relatively soon.
Wait, can I see a news report about this?
and they should be laying some track relatively soon.
Dude, they started that project ten years ago!
Yeah they’re really taking their time with it.
Actually now that I think about it, I think it’s been 19 years since I remember first hearing of the project and being excited about it.
they have to build all the structures and clear hundreds of miles of flat straight land to put the tracks on first
So you’d prefer a single mile of track? I mean, depending on where the track was, that might be pretty cool.
1 mile, straight up.
One, please.
Single or return?
Let me get back to you after November
So you mean… when September ends (and October and then yeah…)?
Specifically November 6th
Musk lied. Enough said.
to bolster car sales for decades
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.
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.
“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
Add it I needed more reasons to hate him
