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.
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.
Not to mention he puts “PhD” in his handle.
These people take social media way to serious, bragging about your fake degree on twitter is really funny.
Look at the fucking followup tweet?
“Ohh no a bunch of people are telling me I’m a dumbass. First day here losers?”
I don’t need to be lectured by a guy with a bluecheck about poor economic decisions
What’s his PhD in, bootlicking?
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 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
Sorry sweetie, you wouldn’t understand, I have a PhD, didn’t you look at my Twitter display name?
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
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 instant disqualify you from ever talking about transit ever again
Didn’t even melon admit hyperloop was a scam to prevent Cali from building hs rail?
If Trains were invented today, they’d be really useful, because we wouldn’t have invented Cars either.
“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%.
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.
, particularly outside China
capitalists mad 'cause bad
Yeah, but what if China had invested its HSR budget into Bitcoin instead?
Ah yes, the perfect investment strategy
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.
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
Infrastructure has to be built unless you’re transporting stuff by donkey
oh please don’t give them the idea to do donkey-uber
hills or mountains
Switzerland famous for not having trains
Also, as if digging through hills and mountains has ever been an issue since the invention of dynamite.
Japan, famous for not having trains
Fuck the US even figured it out
Americal railways are in such shit condition and so poorly used, that ‘figured it out’ may be a bit too much.
America is so trash at building trains that they needed the Chinese to do it even back in the 1800s
Prior to World War II, we had it figured out. The destruction of “it” was an intentional political project (insert comparison maps of a major city’s trolley lines in 1921 compared to 2021 here).
