Asklemmy

43945 readers

570 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

235

Why are maglev trains still rare? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

137 comments fedilink hide all child comments

They were invented decades ago.

They have fewer moving parts than wheelbois.

They require less maintenance.

There's obviously some bottleneck in expanding maglev technology, but what is it?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Joker@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Where are all the maglev trains in non-capitalist countries? Sooner or later, in any system, someone has to do a cost benefit analysis and decide whether it's worth it. It's not just about profitability. There are plenty of situations in the US where something is unprofitable but still funded because the benefit is worth it.

[–] lol3droflxp@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago

Dude, without capitalism we’d be living in flying maglev RVs on mars with free robot labour bro

[–] outstanding_bond@mander.xyz 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Three of the six currently operating maglevs are in communist china

[–] howrar@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

China is very much capitalist and has been for at least three decades now.

[–] kool_newt@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

Where are all the maglev trains in non-capitalist countries?

There aren't really any non-capitalist countries except maybe like N. Korea, which is not known for deciding things on merit.

There are plenty of situations in the US where something is unprofitable but still funded because the benefit is worth it.

I suppose, in some rare cases where there is not heavy lobbying and massive industry resisting it in an effort to preserve their power and wealth.