this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
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Then it's good that we don't have them, isn't it? Kool_Newt's post implies that it's due to a failing of capitalism, but this sounds like a win to me. I'd rather my money go towards food and housing than a faster or more comfortable experience doing something I rarely need.
One of the most common flights is US west coast to east coast. Normal high speed rail can't do this in a reasonable time frame. We need something faster if we want to get reduce those flights.
One of the features of capitalism is externalizing the costs, especially of pollution.
Ah, that makes sense. So maglev is overall cheaper but still less profitable because the costs are paid where they're incurred.
Cheaper than flights? You'd have to do the math on it. We may have to accept that some things like travel will be expensive. But right now it's not feasible Wrt to time to take a train or even HSR coast to coast.
Sure, but if it lessens the impact on the climate from air travel and vehicles, then it's a good thing. Especially if they can become reliable and convenient enough that people don't need to have their own vehicles to drive everywhere.
That's the dumbest take ever.
Care to explain why?
It is scientifically proven that high quality public transport, and especially train services, improves the lives of people and improves the economy.
Money spent on food is a total waste. No matter how much food you buy for people, they will eat all of it and will ask for more. Simply because you need to eat every day of your life.
This is also true for housing to some extent, as populations generally tend to grow over time, thus more and more houses will always be needed no matter how much you have built already. But houses take a lot more time to run out of as you don't need a new house every day, only once every few years when the population increases.
But you can build a good railway system in the area once and then people will use it to earn their own money, to pay for their food themselves and to buy their own homes themselves. And they will also pay for railway maintenance and bring profit to the budget as well. It's a one time investment which lasts virtually forever.
The government should invest in long term solutions: infrastructure, education, etc. There's really no point investing anything into short term solutions. Housing can be a long term investment if done properly though. But that's an off topic.
Thanks. So it basically comes down to externalizing costs again. Those who build the trains don't see most of the profits or the costs that come with it, so they optimize for the parts that they do see.
Regarding food, I as an individual need to eat every day, and I need to pay for that food. I'm not going to just not buy food because I'll need it again tomorrow. It doesn't matter if the government provides the food or I buy it myself, it's still money that needs to be spent on it. One could argue that food security also leads to similar second/third order effects by freeing up that mental real estate dedicated to survival and allowing it to be used for positive contributions to the community, though I don't have data to back this up so it's just speculation. Similarly, if the rails are public and built using my tax money while providing me with no value, I would consider it to be wasteful as survival takes precedence over comfort. If it's private and not profitable, then it means no one wants this for the price it takes to build and maintain, so it was a bad idea to have it in the first place. But either way, this is all moot because it's a conclusion reached from incomplete information. I'm down for public spending on this if there are higher order effects that everyone benefits from.