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And today the railroad system in the USA sucks compared to other developed countries and even China. It turns out that boom-and-bust capitalism isn’t great for

by pavlov 1y ago

And today the railroad system in the USA sucks compared to other developed countries and even China. It turns out that boom-and-bust capitalism isn’t great for building something that needs to evolve over centuries. Perhaps American AI efforts will one day be viewed similarly. “Yeah, they had an early rush, lots of innovation, high valuations, and robber barons competing. Today it’s just stale old infra despite the high-energy start.”

nradov 1y ago
Nope. USA #1: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/highest-railway-cargo-traffic-in-the-world.html https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/highest-railway-cargo-tr...
lupusreal 1y ago
America's passenger rail sucks, it couldn't compete with airplanes and every train company got out of the business, abandoning it to the government. But America does have a great deal of freight rail which sees a lot of use (much more than in Europe, I don't know how it compares to China though.)
- lazyasciiart 1y ago
  One reason the passenger service sucks is that the freight rail companies own the tracks, and are happy to let a passenger train sit behind a freight train for a couple hours waiting for space in the freight yard so it can get out of the way.
  - lupusreal 1y ago
    The root cause is Americans, generally, prefer any mode of transit other than rail, so passenger rail isn't profitable, so train companies naturally prioritize freight. For what it's worth, I like traveling by train and do so whenever I can, but I'm an outlier. Most Americans look at the travel times and laugh at the premise of choosing a train over a plane. And when I say they look at the travel times, I don't mean they actually bother to look up train routes. They just know that airplanes are several times faster. Delays suffered by trains never get factored into the decision because trains aren't taken seriously in the first place.
  - 9rx 1y ago
    > freight rail companies own the tracks Humans are also freight, of course. It is not like the rail companies really care about what kind of fright is on the trains, so long as it is what the customer considers most important (read: most profitable). Humans are deprioritized exactly because they aren't considered important by the customer, which is to say that the customer, who is also the freight in this case, doesn't really want to be on a train in the first place. The customer would absolutely ensure priority (read: pay more, making it known that they are priority) if they wanted to be there. I understand the train geeks on the internet find it hard to believe that not everyone loves trains like they do, but the harsh reality is that the average American Joe prefers other means of transportation. Should that change in the future, the rail network will quickly accommodate. It has before!
    - lazyasciiart 1y ago
      Ah, a true believer in the invisible hand. What nonsense.
_DeadFred_ 1y ago
China hasn't shown that their railroad buildout will work. My understanding is they currently aren't making enough return to payoff debt, yet alone plan for future maintenance. Historically the command economy type stuff looks great in the early years, it's later on we see if that is reality. You are comparing USA today to the robber baron phase, whose to say China isn't in the same phase? Lots of money being thrown at new railroads and you have Chinese leaders and best and management leaders chasing that money. When happens when it goes low budget/maintenance mode?
- entropicdrifter 1y ago
  The USA today is in a robber baron phase. We only briefly left it for about 2 generations due to the rise of labor power in the late 1800s/early 1900s. F.D.R. was the compromise president put into place to placate labor and prevent a socialist revolution.
9rx 1y ago
> And today the railroad system in the USA sucks compared to other developed countries and even China. Nonsense. The US has the largest freight rail system in the world, and is considered to have the most efficient rail system in the world to go along with it. There isn't much in the way of passenger service, granted, but that's because people in the US aren't, well, poor. They can afford better transportation options. > It turns out that boom-and-bust capitalism isn’t great for building something that needs to evolve over centuries. It initially built out the passenger rail just fine, but then evolution saw better options come along. Passenger rail disappeared because it no longer served a purpose. It is not like, say, Japan where the median household income is approaching half that of Mississippi and they hold on to rail because that's what is affordable.
- ambicapter 1y ago
  Yeah, a cheap transportation option is a terrible thing to have... /s
  - 9rx 1y ago
    It's not that it would be terrible, but in the real world people are generally lazy and will only do what they actually want to see happen. Surprisingly, we don't yet have magical AI robots that autonomously go around turning all imagined ideas into reality without the need for human grit. Since nobody really wants passenger rail in the US, they don't put in the effort to see that it exists (outside of some particular routes where they do want it). In many other countries, people do want board access to passenger rail (because that's all they can afford), so they put in the effort to have it. ~200 years ago the US did want passenger rail, they put in the work to realize it, and it did have a pretty good passenger rail network at the time given the period. But, again, better technology came along, so people stopped maintaining/improving what was there. They could do it again if they wanted to... But they don't.
    - lazyasciiart 1y ago
      What an ironic side thread in a conversation about people who are confidently ignorant.
impossiblefork 1y ago
I think it's unlikely that AI efforts will go as railroads have. I think being an AI foundation model company is more like being an airplane builder than like a railway company, since you develop your technology.
- etblg 1y ago
  Plenty of those that similarly went bankrupt over the years, and now the USA mostly has Boeing that's reached a set of continual crises and being propped up by the government.
  - impossiblefork 1y ago
    Yes, of course, but they usually live for a long time. Boeing tries to compete with Airbus, where the engineers make maybe 70% of what they do in the US, and has upon that made some really bad decisions. Many aircraft companies are profitable.

by pavlov 1y ago

nradov 1y ago

Nope. USA #1: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/highest-railway-cargo-traffic-in-the-world.html https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/highest-railway-cargo-tr...

lupusreal 1y ago

America's passenger rail sucks, it couldn't compete with airplanes and every train company got out of the business, abandoning it to the government. But America does have a great deal of freight rail which sees a lot of use (much more than in Europe, I don't know how it compares to China though.)

lazyasciiart 1y ago
One reason the passenger service sucks is that the freight rail companies own the tracks, and are happy to let a passenger train sit behind a freight train for a couple hours waiting for space in the freight yard so it can get out of the way.
- lupusreal 1y ago
  The root cause is Americans, generally, prefer any mode of transit other than rail, so passenger rail isn't profitable, so train companies naturally prioritize freight. For what it's worth, I like traveling by train and do so whenever I can, but I'm an outlier. Most Americans look at the travel times and laugh at the premise of choosing a train over a plane. And when I say they look at the travel times, I don't mean they actually bother to look up train routes. They just know that airplanes are several times faster. Delays suffered by trains never get factored into the decision because trains aren't taken seriously in the first place.
- 9rx 1y ago
  > freight rail companies own the tracks Humans are also freight, of course. It is not like the rail companies really care about what kind of fright is on the trains, so long as it is what the customer considers most important (read: most profitable). Humans are deprioritized exactly because they aren't considered important by the customer, which is to say that the customer, who is also the freight in this case, doesn't really want to be on a train in the first place. The customer would absolutely ensure priority (read: pay more, making it known that they are priority) if they wanted to be there. I understand the train geeks on the internet find it hard to believe that not everyone loves trains like they do, but the harsh reality is that the average American Joe prefers other means of transportation. Should that change in the future, the rail network will quickly accommodate. It has before!
  - lazyasciiart 1y ago
    Ah, a true believer in the invisible hand. What nonsense.

_DeadFred_ 1y ago

China hasn't shown that their railroad buildout will work. My understanding is they currently aren't making enough return to payoff debt, yet alone plan for future maintenance. Historically the command economy type stuff looks great in the early years, it's later on we see if that is reality. You are comparing USA today to the robber baron phase, whose to say China isn't in the same phase? Lots of money being thrown at new railroads and you have Chinese leaders and best and management leaders chasing that money. When happens when it goes low budget/maintenance mode?

entropicdrifter 1y ago
The USA today is in a robber baron phase. We only briefly left it for about 2 generations due to the rise of labor power in the late 1800s/early 1900s. F.D.R. was the compromise president put into place to placate labor and prevent a socialist revolution.

9rx 1y ago

> And today the railroad system in the USA sucks compared to other developed countries and even China. Nonsense. The US has the largest freight rail system in the world, and is considered to have the most efficient rail system in the world to go along with it. There isn't much in the way of passenger service, granted, but that's because people in the US aren't, well, poor. They can afford better transportation options. > It turns out that boom-and-bust capitalism isn’t great for building something that needs to evolve over centuries. It initially built out the passenger rail just fine, but then evolution saw better options come along. Passenger rail disappeared because it no longer served a purpose. It is not like, say, Japan where the median household income is approaching half that of Mississippi and they hold on to rail because that's what is affordable.

ambicapter 1y ago
Yeah, a cheap transportation option is a terrible thing to have... /s
- 9rx 1y ago
  It's not that it would be terrible, but in the real world people are generally lazy and will only do what they actually want to see happen. Surprisingly, we don't yet have magical AI robots that autonomously go around turning all imagined ideas into reality without the need for human grit. Since nobody really wants passenger rail in the US, they don't put in the effort to see that it exists (outside of some particular routes where they do want it). In many other countries, people do want board access to passenger rail (because that's all they can afford), so they put in the effort to have it. ~200 years ago the US did want passenger rail, they put in the work to realize it, and it did have a pretty good passenger rail network at the time given the period. But, again, better technology came along, so people stopped maintaining/improving what was there. They could do it again if they wanted to... But they don't.
  - lazyasciiart 1y ago
    What an ironic side thread in a conversation about people who are confidently ignorant.

impossiblefork 1y ago

I think it's unlikely that AI efforts will go as railroads have. I think being an AI foundation model company is more like being an airplane builder than like a railway company, since you develop your technology.

etblg 1y ago
Plenty of those that similarly went bankrupt over the years, and now the USA mostly has Boeing that's reached a set of continual crises and being propped up by the government.
- impossiblefork 1y ago
  Yes, of course, but they usually live for a long time. Boeing tries to compete with Airbus, where the engineers make maybe 70% of what they do in the US, and has upon that made some really bad decisions. Many aircraft companies are profitable.