Too bad we can't have good public transportation
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Americans: "Nice infrastructure. Would be a shame if we had to come over there and liberate it."
I am as American as Pancetta.
It is just the glorification of China that is rubbing me the wrong way.Their buildings are collapsing. Yes, it is built fast, cheap and looks nice.
And then it fails.And the Chinese peope themselves. They suffer.
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Not just trains but all transportation services and systems is severely lacking in this country. Along with crumbling infrastructure and terrible build quality of cars and trucks and you got a recipe for disaster. But no one will care cuz Merica!
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I am as American as Pancetta.
It is just the glorification of China that is rubbing me the wrong way.Their buildings are collapsing. Yes, it is built fast, cheap and looks nice.
And then it fails.And the Chinese peope themselves. They suffer.
the glorification of China
The Chinese government has definitely run ahead of the pack on domestic investment. But you could play the same game with Spain or Japan or Turkiye. The numbers simply would not have been as impressive.
Their buildings are collapsing.
This is a meme from 2008. You won't find any more crumbling buildings in China than you'd find in the UK or Korea.
And the Chinese peope themselves. They suffer.
They'll never know the joys of bumper to bumper traffic
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I wonder if the early proliferation of rural cars / mega expressways kinda fucked us. When your transportation network grows around trains, upgrading the trains/rails makes good economic sense. We just kind of spread out everywhere quickly and made the train locations somewhat irrelevant.
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Given that we here in the US are still trying g to work out from under 150 year old rail infrastructure, I don’t think they need to worry about it for a while.
Rail generally lasts longer than roads even if you don’t maintain it. We’ve proven that
A feature of rail is very high building costs. If they wasted money on building HSR on a lot of places where it's not needed, this means there's gonna be a debt that never gets paid by the utilization of the rail. Bad investment.
So it's not about maintenance, but the up-front cost.
Not doing an investment where an investment would make a lot of money is of course a kind of reverse of this, but which leads to a similar outcome.
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And now wait for five years and see if the Chinese one is still there.
It seems pretty improbable to me that this infrastructure will be replaced in China in just five years.
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This is because public transportation is socialism and we can't have tax dollars going to that pretext for communism. Capitalism is far superior which is why we are instead spending over $150 billion on deporting immigrants, which will help promote a free and open capitalist market.
as much as I'd like to call this a win for socialism, I don't think socialism is actually necessary for good transit. Japan is very capitalist and has private rail networks which are comparable in quality and extent to China's.
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A feature of rail is very high building costs. If they wasted money on building HSR on a lot of places where it's not needed, this means there's gonna be a debt that never gets paid by the utilization of the rail. Bad investment.
So it's not about maintenance, but the up-front cost.
Not doing an investment where an investment would make a lot of money is of course a kind of reverse of this, but which leads to a similar outcome.
You could say the same about pretty much any infrastructure. It’s hideously expensive and will never get paid back by utilization.
- highways
- local roads
- bridges
- air traffic control
- utilities of most kinds
- canals
- flood control
- erosion mitigation
All are hideously expensive and will never get paid back by utilization.
Are they all bad investments?
I claim they all are critical for their indirect benefits to an economy, a society, and rail is exactly the same.
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the glorification of China
The Chinese government has definitely run ahead of the pack on domestic investment. But you could play the same game with Spain or Japan or Turkiye. The numbers simply would not have been as impressive.
Their buildings are collapsing.
This is a meme from 2008. You won't find any more crumbling buildings in China than you'd find in the UK or Korea.
And the Chinese peope themselves. They suffer.
They'll never know the joys of bumper to bumper traffic
Explain the sinking just finished metro. The ghost towns. The buildings collapsing. The bridges decaying because of concrete rot.
There are so many current projects going bad because of the use of bad materials and dodgy practices.
Skipping a geo research before building etc.The Chinese are surpressed by the CCP. More than 90% of the drinking water is not fit for consumption. Aside from the AI cleaned up videos and pictures, there isn't much of a clear sky with the smog.
And where are the birds?
... Also have you seen China. They too have traffic jams.
No country is a wonderland.
And if someone is really really really trying to convince me they are that magnificent, and better than everyone else.
I. Do. Not. Trust. Them.Actions say more than words. And the actions have spoken.
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It seems pretty improbable to me that this infrastructure will be replaced in China in just five years.
Didn't mean replaced. I meant collapse.
Rotted away. Tofu dreg. -
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Yes, but.
It's China. I guarantee you that loads of people got fucked over one way or the other for this improvement. The Chinese government usually doesn't care much for the rights and lives of the individuals
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Yes, but.
It's China. I guarantee you that loads of people got fucked over one way or the other for this improvement. The Chinese government usually doesn't care much for the rights and lives of the individuals
You say that, but medical debt? Homelessness? Ice concentration camps for brown people? Highest incarceration rates, social credit (credit score), pedophile leaders...
Europeans, feel free to complain about China. Americans have no right to complain about China.
Not to be a tankie, but China taking over the US government would be an improvement
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Yes, but.
It's China. I guarantee you that loads of people got fucked over one way or the other for this improvement. The Chinese government usually doesn't care much for the rights and lives of the individuals
Are you suggesting that's why the US hasn't improved trains? Is there something about train improvements specifically that you think is harmful?
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It's true that China's co2 per capita has gone up sharply, however it's still about 30% lower than the yanks. China is also dwarfing other countries with the amounts of renewable energy currently under construction https://globalenergymonitor.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/solar_wind_in_construction_treemap_for_online-1.png
actually China's CO2 hasn't gone up in the past 12 months: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-clean-energy-just-put-chinas-co2-emissions-into-reverse-for-first-time/
it's likely that china has reached its CO2 emission peak, and now they're beginning to fall.
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Didn't mean replaced. I meant collapse.
Rotted away. Tofu dreg.Well I don't really have any reason to doubt the quality of the rail system. It's one thing to go over-budget on transit (which they apparently did); it's quite another to go over-budget and build the whole system to a poor standard where it won't even last.
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And now wait for five years and see if the Chinese one is still there.
It's been 16 years and counting.
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Yes, but.
It's China. I guarantee you that loads of people got fucked over one way or the other for this improvement. The Chinese government usually doesn't care much for the rights and lives of the individuals
Plenty of people got fucked over for America's interstate system. You just don't care about them because they're poor minorities
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Explain the sinking just finished metro. The ghost towns. The buildings collapsing. The bridges decaying because of concrete rot.
There are so many current projects going bad because of the use of bad materials and dodgy practices.
Skipping a geo research before building etc.The Chinese are surpressed by the CCP. More than 90% of the drinking water is not fit for consumption. Aside from the AI cleaned up videos and pictures, there isn't much of a clear sky with the smog.
And where are the birds?
... Also have you seen China. They too have traffic jams.
No country is a wonderland.
And if someone is really really really trying to convince me they are that magnificent, and better than everyone else.
I. Do. Not. Trust. Them.Actions say more than words. And the actions have spoken.
Source: it came to me in a dream.
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I wonder if the early proliferation of rural cars / mega expressways kinda fucked us. When your transportation network grows around trains, upgrading the trains/rails makes good economic sense. We just kind of spread out everywhere quickly and made the train locations somewhat irrelevant.
No the auto industry has lobbied against trains and similar projects. It’s not about the science but more about how our politicians have been selling their souls for centuries.
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actually China's CO2 hasn't gone up in the past 12 months: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-clean-energy-just-put-chinas-co2-emissions-into-reverse-for-first-time/
it's likely that china has reached its CO2 emission peak, and now they're beginning to fall.
This is a good point, however the me meme is comparing to 1996. I think there's some way to go until it drops back that far.
