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Meanwhile China has built 42,000km (26,100 miles) of high speed rail. https://www.travelchinaguide.com/china-trains/high-speed/rail-network.htm https://www.tra

by nojvek 3y ago

Meanwhile China has built 42,000km (26,100 miles) of high speed rail. https://www.travelchinaguide.com/china-trains/high-speed/rail-network.htm https://www.travelchinaguide.com/china-trains/high-speed/rai... US is now cursed by their own success. Eisenhower jump started the highway to connect all of US as the largest transport infrastructure project. We have been riding the success of that for a massive economy. We are on the plateauing side of that S curve. cursed because we spent a ton of money and got into debt with trillions spent for wars without much to show. Now we don’t have to money, nor the will to invest in the next S curve infrastructure project. Meanwhile China is pumping out infrastructure at speed of thought.

panick21_ 3y ago
The reality is that the highway project has gone to far. It has been institutionalized with a gigantic lobby behind it. The highway are done, and have been for decades. And even before that a huge numbers of highway built made no fucking sense and were a negative for the economy. And state DoT are literally just highway building departments with a fetish for destroying cities. You are not riding the plate of the S curve, continued investment in that nonsense is an active negative. > Now we don’t have to money, nor the will to invest in the next S curve infrastructure project. How about this. Stop spendign such an mind blowing amount of money on highways and other roads, and instead invested in financially smart things like walking, bike, buses and trains.
Eisenstein 3y ago
Why do people say 'we don't have the money' for stuff like infrastructure? We never have a problem finding the 'trillions of dollars for wars'. It seems there is only ever a problem coming up with funds these days when it is to invest in things that help our own citizens (outside of just throwing money at them).
- godelski 3y ago
  Why even mention wars? We have the money for Hyperloops, Solar Freaking Roadways, Boring Company, and so much more... you know... terrible ideas that clearly won't work, don't even pass a sniff test, but we throw millions or sometimes billions at. I'm totally okay with pushing the bounds of what we can do as humans, and even encourage it. But running on hype is not a sustainable system and arguably fraudulent (I believe it is). The Bloomberg article sure makes Hyperloop look like it is... I different version of hype applies in a different way. With the systems destroying themselves through compounding "compromises" to get political allies. It's a Vox video, so high level but not a bad intro[0]. Tldr: easy to derail (pun intended) any political project, and the bigger the project the easier it is to derail. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0dSm_ClcSw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0dSm_ClcSw
- larksimian 3y ago
  It's easier to steal pentagon contract money than money issued for highways or train tracks therefore military contracting has a higher profit margin therefore that's what the lobbyists advocate for.
- thelastgallon 3y ago
  They do have money. But off by a few orders of magnitude. Proposed Texas high-speed Houston-Dallas rail lands $500K in federal funds: https://energycapitalhtx.com/high-speed-houston-dallas-rail-federal-funds https://energycapitalhtx.com/high-speed-houston-dallas-rail-... That 500K should be enough to build 1/4 of a bathroom: https://slate.com/business/2022/10/san-francisco-toilet-million-noe-valley-design-review.html https://slate.com/business/2022/10/san-francisco-toilet-mill...
- belter 3y ago
  Because the debt is now due? "U.S. Debt: Visualizing the $31.4 Trillion Owed in 2023" - https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/us-debt-31-4-trillion-owed-in-2023/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/us-debt-31-4-trillion-ow...
  - dctoedt 3y ago
    > Because the debt is now due? The so-called Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) credibly posits that because the U.S. borrows in its own currency (dollars), it can simply "print money" as needed — as long as the U.S. economy has sufficient unused productive capacity to absorb the resulting increase in demand. [0] [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/06/business/economy/modern-monetary-theory-stephanie-kelton.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/06/business/economy/modern-m...
    - pydry 3y ago
      MMT is basically modern day heliocentrism - objectively correct, but threatening to established wealth and power structures and therefore Wrong.
  - pohl 3y ago
    A few years ago we had an opportunity to borrow at a negative interest rate. Should have leaned into that opportunity. Also we’re under-taxing bajillionaires and politically-active but tax-exempt megachurches.
    - thegrim000 3y ago
      If the government sent out a hit team to forcefully rob every single last penny of net worth every US billionaire has, what impact would that income have on the national debt? I'm pretty sure it'd be extremely negligible.
      - Eisenstein 3y ago
        'Tax the billionaires' is a red herring. Nobody should use that or engage with it. The issue is that they exist in the first place.
- sonicanatidae 3y ago
  You're right. It's not about how much money is available. It's always about the choices of where they spend it and those choices rarely benefit the citizens, somewhat ironically.
  - awill88 3y ago
    It’s not even just about choices, it’s about consensus and we’ve forgotten how to see a win from a partial loss. We no longer know compromise at a federal level
    - Nevermark 3y ago
      As you say, we have forgotten consensus building. And we have forgotten the rational can-do optimistic spirit of problem solving via hard work, (the ideal of) objective thinking, and the hunger for adopting ideas from anywhere. A lot of this is the result of power centralization in our social and political sphere's. Winner take all dynamics are so immediately and decisively rewarding, that long term, collaborative and independent thinking have become self-defeating (for the political and socially powerful). Technology can solve many problems. Unfortunately, that can include shifting the price of growing problems into the future and onto the powerless. Enshittification of the whole planet and human condition. It isn't technology's fault, and if/when society gets shocked into organizing better, we are going to need every technological edge we have accumulated to turn things around.
    - int_19h 3y ago
      Not just federal. Federal is where things are most obviously broken, but the same is going on all the way down to the bottom, just slower. I live in a town of ~8k and local politics (over local issues!) is insanely partisan in a way it wasn't even 10 years ago.
    - godelski 3y ago
      I don't think it is so much about win/partial loss but considering large views or long term thinking/strategizing. Especially true in politics because we've developed a system where a representative is only concerned about the timeframe of an election cycle, rather than concerned with what they can do for the people. And we hold them accountable by that metric. So any project that is longer than an election cycle can end up being a game of hot potato where the last one holding it loses. In reality there are several members to blame. It's like how people judge a president based on the economy yet often policies they make don't actually have large effects until years later (definitely some are shorter term, but also remember that effects compound and set a stage). World is too complicated and we're too dumb. We can be not as dumb, but that's not quite easy because complexity is de facto hard.
xnx 3y ago
Planes are better than high speed rail: faster, flexible routing, flexible capacity, proven technology, doesn't require billions in upfront infrastructure, less habitat disruption, lower carbon footprint.
- wtfwhateven 3y ago
  how are trains not a proven technology??? planes are faster, have flexible routing, and cheaper upfront cost sure the rest is simply not true. how do planes have "flexible capacity"? how do trains not have flexible capacity? wtf?
  - xnx 3y ago
    Good questions. > how are trains not a proven technology??? The US currently has nothing that would be considered high speed rail by the rest of the world. It could be built here, but it would cost billions and take decades. Hofstadter's law strongly applies to major infrastructure projects in the US. "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law." > how do planes have "flexible capacity"? how do trains not have flexible capacity? Planes can be put in service or redistributed to serve a certain route in hours. Extra train engines and train cars cannot be moved nearly as easily.
    - jokteur 3y ago
      Exactly the same thing with trains. I live in Switzerland, and they are adapting the capacity of the trains route by route, and to the time of the day. The train I take every day to work has 12 cars in rush hour, and 4 cars off-peak, sometime 6 cars in the middle of the day, or 10 cars just after rush hour. They put extra trains in rush hour, have trains in standby is case of a breakdown of other trains, and they even introduce special trains dedicated for events (football games, big concerts, sports event). How is this "not flexible" ? The only valid point is that the US forgot how to efficiently build huge infrastructure projects. But it is not an impossible thing to solve. Sent some experts to France, Spain and ask them how to manage high-speed project within reasonable costs. France is building the Grand Paris Express (a lot of tunneling, more than 200km of tracks) for a reasonable cost, and is now reusing tunnel boring machines to build another project in Toulouse.

by nojvek 3y ago

panick21_ 3y ago

The reality is that the highway project has gone to far. It has been institutionalized with a gigantic lobby behind it. The highway are done, and have been for decades. And even before that a huge numbers of highway built made no fucking sense and were a negative for the economy. And state DoT are literally just highway building departments with a fetish for destroying cities. You are not riding the plate of the S curve, continued investment in that nonsense is an active negative. > Now we don’t have to money, nor the will to invest in the next S curve infrastructure project. How about this. Stop spendign such an mind blowing amount of money on highways and other roads, and instead invested in financially smart things like walking, bike, buses and trains.

Eisenstein 3y ago

Why do people say 'we don't have the money' for stuff like infrastructure? We never have a problem finding the 'trillions of dollars for wars'. It seems there is only ever a problem coming up with funds these days when it is to invest in things that help our own citizens (outside of just throwing money at them).

godelski 3y ago
Why even mention wars? We have the money for Hyperloops, Solar Freaking Roadways, Boring Company, and so much more... you know... terrible ideas that clearly won't work, don't even pass a sniff test, but we throw millions or sometimes billions at. I'm totally okay with pushing the bounds of what we can do as humans, and even encourage it. But running on hype is not a sustainable system and arguably fraudulent (I believe it is). The Bloomberg article sure makes Hyperloop look like it is... I different version of hype applies in a different way. With the systems destroying themselves through compounding "compromises" to get political allies. It's a Vox video, so high level but not a bad intro[0]. Tldr: easy to derail (pun intended) any political project, and the bigger the project the easier it is to derail. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0dSm_ClcSw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0dSm_ClcSw
larksimian 3y ago
It's easier to steal pentagon contract money than money issued for highways or train tracks therefore military contracting has a higher profit margin therefore that's what the lobbyists advocate for.
thelastgallon 3y ago
They do have money. But off by a few orders of magnitude. Proposed Texas high-speed Houston-Dallas rail lands $500K in federal funds: https://energycapitalhtx.com/high-speed-houston-dallas-rail-federal-funds https://energycapitalhtx.com/high-speed-houston-dallas-rail-... That 500K should be enough to build 1/4 of a bathroom: https://slate.com/business/2022/10/san-francisco-toilet-million-noe-valley-design-review.html https://slate.com/business/2022/10/san-francisco-toilet-mill...
belter 3y ago
Because the debt is now due? "U.S. Debt: Visualizing the $31.4 Trillion Owed in 2023" - https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/us-debt-31-4-trillion-owed-in-2023/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/us-debt-31-4-trillion-ow...
- dctoedt 3y ago
  > Because the debt is now due? The so-called Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) credibly posits that because the U.S. borrows in its own currency (dollars), it can simply "print money" as needed — as long as the U.S. economy has sufficient unused productive capacity to absorb the resulting increase in demand. [0] [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/06/business/economy/modern-monetary-theory-stephanie-kelton.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/06/business/economy/modern-m...
  - pydry 3y ago
    MMT is basically modern day heliocentrism - objectively correct, but threatening to established wealth and power structures and therefore Wrong.
- pohl 3y ago
  A few years ago we had an opportunity to borrow at a negative interest rate. Should have leaned into that opportunity. Also we’re under-taxing bajillionaires and politically-active but tax-exempt megachurches.
  - thegrim000 3y ago
    If the government sent out a hit team to forcefully rob every single last penny of net worth every US billionaire has, what impact would that income have on the national debt? I'm pretty sure it'd be extremely negligible.
    - Eisenstein 3y ago
      'Tax the billionaires' is a red herring. Nobody should use that or engage with it. The issue is that they exist in the first place.
sonicanatidae 3y ago
You're right. It's not about how much money is available. It's always about the choices of where they spend it and those choices rarely benefit the citizens, somewhat ironically.
- awill88 3y ago
  It’s not even just about choices, it’s about consensus and we’ve forgotten how to see a win from a partial loss. We no longer know compromise at a federal level
  - Nevermark 3y ago
    As you say, we have forgotten consensus building. And we have forgotten the rational can-do optimistic spirit of problem solving via hard work, (the ideal of) objective thinking, and the hunger for adopting ideas from anywhere. A lot of this is the result of power centralization in our social and political sphere's. Winner take all dynamics are so immediately and decisively rewarding, that long term, collaborative and independent thinking have become self-defeating (for the political and socially powerful). Technology can solve many problems. Unfortunately, that can include shifting the price of growing problems into the future and onto the powerless. Enshittification of the whole planet and human condition. It isn't technology's fault, and if/when society gets shocked into organizing better, we are going to need every technological edge we have accumulated to turn things around.
  - int_19h 3y ago
    Not just federal. Federal is where things are most obviously broken, but the same is going on all the way down to the bottom, just slower. I live in a town of ~8k and local politics (over local issues!) is insanely partisan in a way it wasn't even 10 years ago.
  - godelski 3y ago
    I don't think it is so much about win/partial loss but considering large views or long term thinking/strategizing. Especially true in politics because we've developed a system where a representative is only concerned about the timeframe of an election cycle, rather than concerned with what they can do for the people. And we hold them accountable by that metric. So any project that is longer than an election cycle can end up being a game of hot potato where the last one holding it loses. In reality there are several members to blame. It's like how people judge a president based on the economy yet often policies they make don't actually have large effects until years later (definitely some are shorter term, but also remember that effects compound and set a stage). World is too complicated and we're too dumb. We can be not as dumb, but that's not quite easy because complexity is de facto hard.

xnx 3y ago

Planes are better than high speed rail: faster, flexible routing, flexible capacity, proven technology, doesn't require billions in upfront infrastructure, less habitat disruption, lower carbon footprint.

wtfwhateven 3y ago
how are trains not a proven technology??? planes are faster, have flexible routing, and cheaper upfront cost sure the rest is simply not true. how do planes have "flexible capacity"? how do trains not have flexible capacity? wtf?
- xnx 3y ago
  Good questions. > how are trains not a proven technology??? The US currently has nothing that would be considered high speed rail by the rest of the world. It could be built here, but it would cost billions and take decades. Hofstadter's law strongly applies to major infrastructure projects in the US. "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law." > how do planes have "flexible capacity"? how do trains not have flexible capacity? Planes can be put in service or redistributed to serve a certain route in hours. Extra train engines and train cars cannot be moved nearly as easily.
  - jokteur 3y ago
    Exactly the same thing with trains. I live in Switzerland, and they are adapting the capacity of the trains route by route, and to the time of the day. The train I take every day to work has 12 cars in rush hour, and 4 cars off-peak, sometime 6 cars in the middle of the day, or 10 cars just after rush hour. They put extra trains in rush hour, have trains in standby is case of a breakdown of other trains, and they even introduce special trains dedicated for events (football games, big concerts, sports event). How is this "not flexible" ? The only valid point is that the US forgot how to efficiently build huge infrastructure projects. But it is not an impossible thing to solve. Sent some experts to France, Spain and ask them how to manage high-speed project within reasonable costs. France is building the Grand Paris Express (a lot of tunneling, more than 200km of tracks) for a reasonable cost, and is now reusing tunnel boring machines to build another project in Toulouse.