"If trains were first invented today, they would never be built. No rail-less nations are building rail networks. No, China doesn't count because they're the Paragon of poor economic choices."
If the paragon of poor economic choices is overtaking you economically, how truly below awful is your country doing?!
Dude's Australian. His brain is beyond poisoned.
Every problem with rail this person lists is also a problem with every other form of transportation. You also have to lay roads, docks, or airports to get stuff where you're going. Infrastructure has to be built unless you're transporting stuff by donkey.
Rails are still less expensive to build and maintain. Railroads are something like 2/3 the cost of equivalent lengths of highway, and yet have greater cargo capacity and fuel efficiency.
Nah, everyone knows that cars and roads used to roam wild in the americas until they were domesticated by the intrepid settlers of america.
Infrastructure has to be built unless you're transporting stuff by donkey
oh please don't give them the idea to do donkey-uber
your donkey jockey Erin is .8km away and will deliver ass transport shortly
"We're sorry, but your DonkeyUber has been struck by an 18-wheeler while trying to cross the freeway. Please hold while we find you a new animal."
Donkeys also require infrastructure. You ever been hiking? The difference in exertion from even the shittiest of gravel roads compared to roughing it through actual untreated terrain is insane and even the shitty gravel road is by all means a herculean effort
You also have to lay roads, docks, or airports to get stuff where you're going. Infrastructure has to be built unless you're transporting stuff by donkey.
Only one solution remains then. REJECT MODERNITY, RETVRN TO TRADITION
Hell, donkeys didn't hit peak efficiency until the Royal Road/Silk Road was thoroughly established
Ben Norton was dunking on this absurd take
Many hard science programs in the US indoctrinate graduates with neoliberal economic dogma while leaving them politically and historically illiterate. But because they have PhDs, they arrogantly believe they know everything, and make extremely stupid comments like this, showing they are actually deeply ignorant about many things. Just because you worked for NASA doesn't mean you know anything outside of your narrow field.
This loser also has "hyperloop" in his bio, which should instantly disqualify you from ever talking about transit ever again
And if China is the paragon of poor economic choices, then how is it considered a threat to US hegemony?
Enemy simultaneously too weak and too strong.
Schrödinger's Russia's Fallacy Paradox
Planes are bad because you need to land at an airport and there aren't airports everywhere.
Cars bad because you need to dig in order to make 20 lane wide highways.
The only good transportation is the helicopter.
Specifically an Osprey.
The only good transportation is a Lada Niva 1985
nah, dont be silly, roads or airports dont need to be built, they just sort of appear.
The only good transportation is boat, and even boat is bad because the entire planet isn't water.
This mf said enjoy digging as if they’ve ever had to pick up a shovel and dig to make a living.
also thank god all these roads and tunnels were here through the grace of god
When the concepts of scale and efficiency defy your understanding
He's a Hyperloop enthusiast. So yes.
i really appreciate that a blue check indicates a post that you don't need to take seriously.
Look at the fucking followup tweet?
"Ohh no a bunch of people are telling me I'm a dumbass. First day here losers?"
Want to create car-length transport on rail roads? Can’t.
What car brain does to a MF.
Besides, we already have a work-around for that, as well as the “what if the railroad doesn’t go there?” problem: Auto train. Train can take you 90% of the way and then take the personal vehicle the last 10%.
Gonna be honest here the Auto train is an incredibly dumb idea born out of car consumerism. There's absolutely no need to ferry a lot of cars somewhere on a train inherently, they could just have cars there you could rent
I get the economics of this, car rentals are expensive and all, but it's not a good idea generally
Yeah it’s not really something that makes sense en masse, there’s a reason Amtrak runs it as a specialty line to a tourism hot spot. Point is, if it was absolutely necessary and personal vehicle rental wasn’t an option at the destination station, the option is on the table.
Or you could just have a bus station integrated with the rail station.
Literally the most efficient form of land-based transport ever invented. Steel wheels on steel rails have very low rolling resistance.
NAH, it's bad because you can't clog up the lines with masses of inefficient, tiny, personal trains.
Also, you have to dig through hills and mountains to lay track - you definitely don't need to do that for highways (except for all the ones that you do)
“THE PARAGON OF POOR ECONOMIC CHOICES”?
Economically, there were initial concerns, particularly outside China, over the high-speed rail's cost, debt and profitability. However, research by the Paulson Institute has estimated the net benefit of the high-speed rail to the Chinese economy to be approximately $378 billion, with an annual return on investment of 6.5%.
, particularly outside China
capitalists mad 'cause bad
for the record the long term average of the s&p 500 is 6.45%, and that is considered a good investment. 6.5% is a smidge better but it should be noted that transportation historically is not very profitable by nature despite the value it provides, so the fact that they have been able to get such good returns for the economy at large is pretty impressive.
This is good context, and I typically avoid the profit conversation on topics like this altogether.
Not everything can be or should be designed and operated around profit. Providing a service costs money. When something is a public service, the benefit that the public receives from operating that service isn't profit, the benefit they receive is the service.
The whole point of transitioning towards socialism is that we want to be able to organize our labor and put the resources that we generate as a society towards projects that give some kind of benefit to us, not just towards projects that can turn a profit for people who privately own the economy.
Yeah, but what if China had invested its HSR budget into Bitcoin instead?
Ah yes, the perfect investment strategy
This is what happened with bike lane too. Naysayers say that bike actually block people from parking their car and penalize small businesses.
But in reality local businesses profit actually goes up after the lane is set up
What's his PhD in, bootlicking?
Looks like he's a Math Guy out of University of Syndey. Which does not give me much respect for their math department.
Can't imagine a doctoral board giving this guy more than a sharp kick in the ass for delivering a dissertation in this style.
Is he the reason we don't have high speed rail between Sydney and Melbourne? It's absurd how many flights there are between both cities.
When society treats these people like the infants they are, we might actually make some progress. Instead, we entertain every crackpot idea with mountains of VC money and government grants while shunning superior, already-existing technology. And I'm sure it would surprise these morons to find out that trains are still improving significantly and we're not still riding what were essentially steam powered bombs. I know it's all to sustain car supremacy but fuck, I just want one city council to treat the carbrains and NIMBYs like the adult children they are. Escort them to the play room with the hot wheels and lincoln logs and tell them to make their model town and city council will take a Polaroid and hang it on the fridge.
Every single year on my 10 feet above see level flat road highway has half its lanes closed for 1-2 months in order to repair the potholes that form every single year from weather and weight.
This moron thinks digging isn’t a vital aspect of building roads?
I wonder what he thinks all those rock faces right next to roads are.
This isn't the type of person that's ever had to consciously engage with the earth on its own terms. They walk on pavement, they get on an airplane and arrive at their destination (abusing workers if there's a weather related delay), they definitely don't dig holes.
Shouldn't rail be more necessary than ever with global population having risen 8x since the invention of the steam locomotive and a consistently increasing % of people living in urban environments? Cars are more useful when you live in a sprawled out town in the middle of fucking nowhere and there aren't a thousand people in your area trying to get to work at the same time as you.
The roads here are just disintegrating they took all the money away from the department of transportation and are trying to make everyone go back to the office
Sorry sweetie, you wouldn't understand, I have a PhD, didn't you look at my Twitter display name?
If trains were invented today itd be incredible for trains as seen by how every hyped up vaporware transportation invention is just a train but worse
The American economy is dependent on massive freight rail networks.
first of all, considering any technology's efficiency in a vacuum is nonsense, so jot that down. If trains are efficient because the infrastructure already exists, then they are efficient, full stop.
second, that's not an opinion, it's just wrong. Trains are a way to move a maximum of weight along a predetermined route continually for a minimum operating cost. Maybe their only competitor is pipelines, and that only works for fluids. In every complex system the easiest way to reduce overhead is by bundling operations. Shipping everything in North America by long haul truck would require less coordination, but it would also cost more labor power, take more time, and destroy the environment more.
This idiot isn't actually a PhD, is he?
Physicist
Ah. So literally just some guy that paid for twitter.
Hyperloop
Scratch that, he's a guy that's trying to build a train but worse, and he probably got an email telling him he has to pay for twitter.
e: Also he has a fake company trying to bilk investors with a magic bullet perpetual energy machine. The dickriding is spectacular
If Trains were invented today, they'd be really useful, because we wouldn't have invented Cars either.
Why do idiots assume that that every faucet of life will be replaced by trains just because someone advocates for them? Why do they project their myopic mindset to everyone?
They think if we have freedom to choose the transportation type of our choice, that we'll take all their cars and they can't go anywhere.
reading these tweets after finishing this post in c/indigenous has really got me thinking thoughts
"Bad economic decisions"
The lizard people will never forgive China for standing up for itself. They kept the Qing alive indefinitely because it forced masses of starving and immiserated people to become guest laborers, "coolies" for Western capitalists. Reform Era economic liberalization wasn't enough; Unless Dow Chemical is dictating the environmental policy of Guangxi, China will always bear the original sins of authoritarianism and bad economics, regardless of how prosperous or stable it is.
Replace train with literally anything, its a damn fail cargo tanker (which also would never be built) of a take.
I am fucking unhinged and can come up with an extensive list of why cars are garbage.
Matter of fact, I think I’m going to begin that list shortly. So many places to begin
I don't need to be lectured by a guy with a bluecheck about poor economic decisions