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Great. We need more innovation in the world. Hopefully, India isn't too far behind. China has 28,000 miles of high-speed rail. United States? Close to zero

Great. We need more innovation in the world. Hopefully, India isn't too far behind. China has 28,000 miles of high-speed rail. United States? Close to zero. Low-speed maglevs look interesting: https://crrczelc-europe.com/medium-low-speed-maglev-changsha/ https://crrczelc-europe.com/medium-low-speed-maglev-changsha... For some reason, we just want to drill more oil and make our highways wider. Who's getting to Mars first? https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/09/china/china-mars-mission-tianwen-3-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/09/china/china-mars-mission-tian...

Loughla 2y ago
The US is being defeated by itself. Regulator capture and businesses in bed with politicians for their own self interest. It has always happened to some extent. But technology has enabled it to grow out of hand.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  It's not just that; it's the culture of the people themselves. The OP mentioned high-speed rail. Such a thing just isn't of interest to the American people, because they've chosen a car-based lifestyle, and built every city and town not named "Manhattan" around that model, making rail transit non-viable economically. (HSR might be useful to some people in certain regions, but you still have to rent a car when you get to your destination city because going anywhere in that city (unless it's Manhattan again) requires a car.) This isn't because of regulatory capture; it's the predominant culture of the American people, and has been since the 1950s with White Flight and the rise of car culture. Add on top of this the anti-intellectualism that's been in American society forever, and the more recent terrible state of pre-college education and lack of interest in anything STEM unless it's programming with the goal of getting FAANG salaries and it's obvious why America has fallen behind so far. It's really just coasting on 3 things: 1) a huge population, so at least some minority of people are exceptions to the poor education I mentioned, 2) a lot of immigrant families who actually do believe in education and STEM achievements, contrary to popular culture, and 3) waning economic power that came from past achievements.
  - givinguflac 2y ago
    It’s hard not to choose a car based lifestyle when outside of cities there is basically little or no public transit in many places. On top of that, when many people’s experience with travel by train is the outdated and slow infrastructure that already exists, why would they support more of that experience? I’m not anti- these things, just adding to the context.
    - shiroiushi 2y ago
      Well they could just look at how many other countries do it... I know, Americans hate to look outside their own borders for examples on anything. There's no public transit in many places because Americans don't want it and don't support it, and refuse to build densely enough to make public transit economically viable in the first place. You can't have a good transit system when everyone lives far apart from each other in spread-out subdivisions.
      - pdonis 2y ago
        > There's no public transit in many places because Americans don't want it and don't support it Yes, exactly. This is not a bug, it's a feature.
        Gud 2y ago
        It's not a feature. Come live in a country where the public transport is excellent. Typing this while traveling on the ICE between Zürich and Basel.
        shiroiushi 2y ago
        Americans don't want to live in one of those countries. They don't want to risk having to sit next to one of "those people". It's why they like driving everywhere, and living in gated communities where they can keep out the undesirables.
- meiraleal 2y ago
  Maybe the US reached the limit that free market can get a country to. A planned economy works better for the citizens (and consequently for the whole country) than a lobby-based one.
  - KK7NIL 2y ago
    Right, because this time it's different! /s Raising such speculation without any explanation as to why there's even a limit to free market societies, much less any proof that the US is close to reaching such a limit, is very poor pandering.
  - Loughla 2y ago
    I think history has shown that a planned economy isn't really viable long term.
  - jltsiren 2y ago
    If the US has reached the limit of something (which I'm not sure about), it's the limit of a society organized in that one specific way. The US is an old country. It's far older than the current incarnation of China or most European countries. If a country remains stable that long without having to reinvent itself, it may risk stagnation.
    - bestouff 2y ago
      US has been built by European people. China civilization was already existing long long ago. Where does your special idea of history come from ?
      - jltsiren 2y ago
        I was not talking about civilizations but countries with their current institutions. The current incarnation of China was born in the late 70s, when Deng Xiaoping managed to consolidate power after generations of chaos. Most major European countries collapsed at least once in the 20th century. The UK was the main exception, but it also fell from a global superpower to a regional power. In contrast, the US still has the same centuries-old constitution, and it hasn't faced a serious challenge to its continued existence since the Civil War.
- elzbardico 2y ago
  I am all for pointing government mistakes, for they are legion. But let's also not forget the pusillanimity of our MBA overlords and their mantras: Cut Costs and Stock Buybacks and leverage and merge and acquisitions.
- kasey_junk 2y ago
  Compared to China? I don’t think that’s where I’d bet the difference is.
FlyingBears 2y ago
I am afraid we might be too late for maglev party with self driving on the horizon. Non-functioning last mile transportation and ruined cities (as in for pedestrians and density) are another shadow.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
worstspotgain 2y ago
I don't think high-speed rail is what the future looks like. The platform to beat is the transit agency-owned robo-taxi. Calling it a taxi is a disservice, though. It's really a 1-, 2-, 5-person bus. If needed, it can scale to 10-, 15-, 20-person and so on. Consider the following: - Door to door is massively more convenient than door to hub to hub to door. What's usually overlooked is that it's often more efficient, too. - In many cities, transit can't compete with cars unless it's in sub-15 minute wait range. But to provide that service level with buses/trains, you need to move around 20000lbs/350000lbs of steel whether there are 5 passengers or 50/500. - Once a city offers municipal robo-taxi service, it can completely ban privately-owned cars. This means it can remove all non-commercial parking spaces and convert them to lanes. It also means robo-taxis can travel 1 or 2 feet apart and use optimized routing. This can multiply effective road capacity by 2 or more. IMHO, the real question is whether we need any regional trains at all. Robo-taxis and planes might be enough.
- mcphage 2y ago
  > Once a city offers municipal robo-taxi service, it can completely ban privately-owned cars. I’m sorry, you said they can what?
  - worstspotgain 2y ago
    > you said they can what? Something tells me you and I live in US cities with different attitudes towards this sort of thing. ;-) In Europe, some downtowns are already doing this, even without the robo-taxis to make up for it.
  - fnordpiglet 2y ago
    Yeah there’s no need to do that. Cooperative autonomous vehicles would make congestion near zero. In fact it would be like a self assembling train in all directions. The value of the train goes down dramatically when you factor commuting to and from the stations if you can eliminate human drivers. Vehicles would be high speed and capable of essentially congestion free transit by using basic graduate level control theory. I don’t think China built them something particularly useful in 10 years.
basementcat 2y ago
The Soviet Union got to the surface of Mars first. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_2 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_2 A few days ago, I attended a candidate forum (for upcoming elections to statewide office) that was hosted by a Chamber of Commerce affiliated business group that bragged about how they successfully stopped various public transportation projects. The reality is many Americans have been informed that public transportation is incompatible with a growth oriented economy so they naturally vote against it (or fund groups that file lawsuits and other tactics to slow down the development of public transport infrastructure).
dyauspitr 2y ago
India is pretty far behind. There is a lot of progress economically and socially in India but I doubt it’s at the cutting edge of anything besides digital financial networks.

Loughla 2y ago

The US is being defeated by itself. Regulator capture and businesses in bed with politicians for their own self interest. It has always happened to some extent. But technology has enabled it to grow out of hand.

shiroiushi 2y ago
It's not just that; it's the culture of the people themselves. The OP mentioned high-speed rail. Such a thing just isn't of interest to the American people, because they've chosen a car-based lifestyle, and built every city and town not named "Manhattan" around that model, making rail transit non-viable economically. (HSR might be useful to some people in certain regions, but you still have to rent a car when you get to your destination city because going anywhere in that city (unless it's Manhattan again) requires a car.) This isn't because of regulatory capture; it's the predominant culture of the American people, and has been since the 1950s with White Flight and the rise of car culture. Add on top of this the anti-intellectualism that's been in American society forever, and the more recent terrible state of pre-college education and lack of interest in anything STEM unless it's programming with the goal of getting FAANG salaries and it's obvious why America has fallen behind so far. It's really just coasting on 3 things: 1) a huge population, so at least some minority of people are exceptions to the poor education I mentioned, 2) a lot of immigrant families who actually do believe in education and STEM achievements, contrary to popular culture, and 3) waning economic power that came from past achievements.
- givinguflac 2y ago
  It’s hard not to choose a car based lifestyle when outside of cities there is basically little or no public transit in many places. On top of that, when many people’s experience with travel by train is the outdated and slow infrastructure that already exists, why would they support more of that experience? I’m not anti- these things, just adding to the context.
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    Well they could just look at how many other countries do it... I know, Americans hate to look outside their own borders for examples on anything. There's no public transit in many places because Americans don't want it and don't support it, and refuse to build densely enough to make public transit economically viable in the first place. You can't have a good transit system when everyone lives far apart from each other in spread-out subdivisions.
    - pdonis 2y ago
      > There's no public transit in many places because Americans don't want it and don't support it Yes, exactly. This is not a bug, it's a feature.
      - Gud 2y ago
        It's not a feature. Come live in a country where the public transport is excellent. Typing this while traveling on the ICE between Zürich and Basel.
        shiroiushi 2y ago
        Americans don't want to live in one of those countries. They don't want to risk having to sit next to one of "those people". It's why they like driving everywhere, and living in gated communities where they can keep out the undesirables.
meiraleal 2y ago
Maybe the US reached the limit that free market can get a country to. A planned economy works better for the citizens (and consequently for the whole country) than a lobby-based one.
- KK7NIL 2y ago
  Right, because this time it's different! /s Raising such speculation without any explanation as to why there's even a limit to free market societies, much less any proof that the US is close to reaching such a limit, is very poor pandering.
- Loughla 2y ago
  I think history has shown that a planned economy isn't really viable long term.
- jltsiren 2y ago
  If the US has reached the limit of something (which I'm not sure about), it's the limit of a society organized in that one specific way. The US is an old country. It's far older than the current incarnation of China or most European countries. If a country remains stable that long without having to reinvent itself, it may risk stagnation.
  - bestouff 2y ago
    US has been built by European people. China civilization was already existing long long ago. Where does your special idea of history come from ?
    - jltsiren 2y ago
      I was not talking about civilizations but countries with their current institutions. The current incarnation of China was born in the late 70s, when Deng Xiaoping managed to consolidate power after generations of chaos. Most major European countries collapsed at least once in the 20th century. The UK was the main exception, but it also fell from a global superpower to a regional power. In contrast, the US still has the same centuries-old constitution, and it hasn't faced a serious challenge to its continued existence since the Civil War.
elzbardico 2y ago
I am all for pointing government mistakes, for they are legion. But let's also not forget the pusillanimity of our MBA overlords and their mantras: Cut Costs and Stock Buybacks and leverage and merge and acquisitions.
kasey_junk 2y ago
Compared to China? I don’t think that’s where I’d bet the difference is.

FlyingBears 2y ago

I am afraid we might be too late for maglev party with self driving on the horizon. Non-functioning last mile transportation and ruined cities (as in for pedestrians and density) are another shadow.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

worstspotgain 2y ago

I don't think high-speed rail is what the future looks like. The platform to beat is the transit agency-owned robo-taxi. Calling it a taxi is a disservice, though. It's really a 1-, 2-, 5-person bus. If needed, it can scale to 10-, 15-, 20-person and so on. Consider the following: - Door to door is massively more convenient than door to hub to hub to door. What's usually overlooked is that it's often more efficient, too. - In many cities, transit can't compete with cars unless it's in sub-15 minute wait range. But to provide that service level with buses/trains, you need to move around 20000lbs/350000lbs of steel whether there are 5 passengers or 50/500. - Once a city offers municipal robo-taxi service, it can completely ban privately-owned cars. This means it can remove all non-commercial parking spaces and convert them to lanes. It also means robo-taxis can travel 1 or 2 feet apart and use optimized routing. This can multiply effective road capacity by 2 or more. IMHO, the real question is whether we need any regional trains at all. Robo-taxis and planes might be enough.

mcphage 2y ago
> Once a city offers municipal robo-taxi service, it can completely ban privately-owned cars. I’m sorry, you said they can what?
- worstspotgain 2y ago
  > you said they can what? Something tells me you and I live in US cities with different attitudes towards this sort of thing. ;-) In Europe, some downtowns are already doing this, even without the robo-taxis to make up for it.
- fnordpiglet 2y ago
  Yeah there’s no need to do that. Cooperative autonomous vehicles would make congestion near zero. In fact it would be like a self assembling train in all directions. The value of the train goes down dramatically when you factor commuting to and from the stations if you can eliminate human drivers. Vehicles would be high speed and capable of essentially congestion free transit by using basic graduate level control theory. I don’t think China built them something particularly useful in 10 years.

basementcat 2y ago

The Soviet Union got to the surface of Mars first. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_2 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_2 A few days ago, I attended a candidate forum (for upcoming elections to statewide office) that was hosted by a Chamber of Commerce affiliated business group that bragged about how they successfully stopped various public transportation projects. The reality is many Americans have been informed that public transportation is incompatible with a growth oriented economy so they naturally vote against it (or fund groups that file lawsuits and other tactics to slow down the development of public transport infrastructure).

dyauspitr 2y ago

India is pretty far behind. There is a lot of progress economically and socially in India but I doubt it’s at the cutting edge of anything besides digital financial networks.