• Once the US has one working world-class HSR line (probably Brightline West, or possibly CAHSR), the appetite for more lines will increase. HSR will have become something that is common for Americans to ride when not on holiday to Japan or Italian hilltop towns, and reflexively dismissing it as “it wouldn’t work here because we have too much (space/liberty/big cars)” won’t work anymore. New plans will be proposed (a midwest network connecting Chicago to Cleveland and St. Louis?) and old ones (such as the Texas one) dusted off. And the Canadians will notice and jump on the bandwagon (given that a big chunk of their population would be reached by a line from Detroit/Windsor to Quebec City makes it a no-brainer).

    •  sunzu   ( @sunzu@kbin.run ) Banned
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      2 years ago

      Yes, Biden provided some funds for some of this but let’s get real, that money likely will get stolen. We are lucky if they make boston to washington a real HS…

      one can dream but for now, I want whatever this person is high on lol

      • Is it the case that the US fundamentally can’t do what, say, Spain and South Korea and Algeria have been able to, and that they have been able to do with, say, NASA, the military and numerous private corporate logistics systems, or just that they haven’t done it yet?

    • We have a new Brightline in Florida that goes from Orlando to Miami and has about 5 stops in between. It’s not super fast (it takes about 3.5h, which is similar to driving), and it can get expensive for a family, but not having to drive on I-95 in South Florida is worth every penny.

      it seems to be very popular so far.

    •  davel [he/him]   ( @davel@lemmy.ml ) 
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      2 years ago

      I’m not optimistic that that will happen under the next Biden or Trump administration. US corporate media avoid mentioning China’s HSR, but they can’t keep things under the rug forever.

      •  sunzu   ( @sunzu@kbin.run ) Banned
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        2 years ago

        Media is having hard time explaining away China’s concrete results across several sectors.

        While China was investing and developing, our dear leaders in US and EU stole the money and now sitting with dicks in their hand looking to the working losers to pay up again to “compete” with China.

              •  sunzu   ( @sunzu@kbin.run ) Banned
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                2 years ago

                I am talking about regular wage slaves who accept the status quo.

                Boomers, that guy doing free OT, people who got nothing to hide, people who can afford because they are not poor, homeless chose to be that way… etc

                •  davel [he/him]   ( @davel@lemmy.ml ) 
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                  2 years ago

                  Working class boomers lived in a unique moment in world history, which will almost certainly never recur, but they didn’t know it and still don’t. That unique moment was post-WWII America, when the rest of the industrial world was destroyed by war, the New Deal/Keynesianism/US labor militancy had not been completely crushed yet, and the socialist alternative to capitalism in the Soviet Union was looking like a viable alternative to capitalism still. These factors, combined with US colonialism/neocolonialism allowed the US working class to have super-profits never seen before or since, but the Boomers assumed that this was and would always be the new normal.

    • I’m not that optimistic, because “construction costs” in US are a big problem. As the line is announced, the land prices skyrocket and the government have to pay multiple times the old value to buy get the land.

      •  d-RLY?   ( @dRLY@lemmy.ml ) 
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        2 years ago

        You aren’t wrong, I mean just looking at how it is making just getting a home while those homes are treated like Wall Street stocks. But the longer that the shit gets pushed out, the more it will cost anyway. Especially as private corps are literally buying up everything. So the corps should be just forced out without pay period. And the only people that should get paid anything are actual people and not the fake persons that we allow corps to be legally seen as. Only other exception would be if land is native land, and plans for shit should be forced to not go through it.

        Are the ideas above legal? Hell no, but fucking corps aren’t people and they already get their money from fucking over people and from getting all the tax cuts and exemptions for everything anyway. We have already been letting corps own the current rail lines and is a shining example as to why they should be purged for the benefit of the people.