China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains • Hacker News Board

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#451

Post by pinkfoot » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 7:55 AM UTC

tanzbaer wrote: post #448

pinkfoot wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The US is the world's largest economy…" If your Federal Reserve stopping adding nonsense imputed and hedonic values to the tune of about ~$7 trillion to your economy's GDP, you would find yourself in second place. Which might make help explain away your confusion :)

Right, because you can totally trust the Chinese numbers...

Not even in the slightest, but there was no CHINESE poster wondering why their CHINESE GDP couldn't fund bullet trains.

The poster was wondering why his/her USA GDP couldn't support bullet trains.

I was being helpful by pointing out that ~$7 trillion of USA GDP literally (in the old sense of the word) did not happen.

Unless you think that $7T of GDP that is assigned to mortgages on the half the houses in the USA that have no mortgage, bank fees on free accounts, fictitious prices of electronics, etc. are the same as the entire value of the Japanese economy…

GDP is a game that all countries play to try convince sovereign bond purchasers that the debt/GDP ratio is under control.

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#452

Post by lenkite » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 7:57 AM UTC

This sort of stuff is impossible in a modern democracy where citizens and opposing interests have too much power to shoot down, infinitely delay or indefinitely increase costs of major infrastructure activities by litigation/protests/lobbying, etc.

Modern democracies simply cannot do large-scale infrastructure.

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#453

Post by GoToRO » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 8:19 AM UTC

tanzbaer wrote: post #449

GoToRO wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different cultures: individualism (US) and team play (communism). Team play always wins if done properly.

What a bunch of BS. Communism is not team play. It's slavery and tyranny. The US has more team play than most places because people are free to pick their teams.

Communism is the ultimate team play. Even the ones that are not thrilled by the idea, are forced to join (torture, killings). Also in my country, there were almost no private property. When communists came to power the first thing they did was to steal all the valuable private goods.

When you pool all the resources together you can achieve much greater things. What ultimately happened was that the smart people really wanted freedom and if they don't have it they just stop contributing. Which is why communism China is not the same as the original communism because somehow they realized the flaws in the original design. Long term I believe China will not be the best overall due to this, but the bigger projects like this railroad, are much easier to achieve in any dictatorship.

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#454

Post by akho » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 8:29 AM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #434

zaroth wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to get glossy eyed over China. Yes, there are advantages to a totalitarian regime where the population isn’t allowed to own land. There are also modern day concentration camps and mass organ harvesting. Unfortunately you don’t really get one without tending to get the other.

There was a time in the west when we build the infrastructure we watch decaying today. I don't think we had totalitarian regimes, concentration camps and involuntary organ harvesting back then.

Which regime do you think built the Autobahn? The American railroads also weren’t built by the nicest, human rights-respecting, non-genocidal, people.

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#455

Post by tim333 » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 8:33 AM UTC

eyko wrote: post #436

zaroth wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to get glossy eyed over China. Yes, there are advantages to a totalitarian regime where the population isn’t allowed to own land. There are also modern day concentration camps and mass organ harvesting. Unfortunately you don’t really get one without tending to get the other.

Almost any European country has, with a much smaller economy, better social wellbeing/coverage and a better high speed rail infrastructure (perhaps with the exception of the UK, unless they commit to HS2) so I'm not sure the comparison you should be making is China. You don't need a totalitarian regime to get modern infrastructure. That's just a ridiculous statement.

Even without the HS2 the UK's train system is quite good. The main gripe from users is it costs a lot.

Eg. looking just now London to Manchester takes 2hr and costs £88 single. I think most brits think I'm not paying £90 for a single I'll drive (3 or 4 hrs), rather than I need it to be 30 min quicker - lets drop $100bn on a new line.

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#456

Post by growlist » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 8:52 AM UTC

saberience wrote: post #28

So, as someone that lived in New York for 6 years and California for 6 years, stories like this are incredibly depressing. The US is the world's largest economy and should be the shining example of amazing infrastructure, high-tech, green cities, and forward thinking policies. California is an especially egregious example in terms of infrastructure investment: If California was a country it would be the world's fifth…

I thought the M25 was bad, and then I experienced LA traffic in rush hour.

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#457

Post by growlist » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 8:55 AM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #209

saberience wrote: post #28

So, as someone that lived in New York for 6 years and California for 6 years, stories like this are incredibly depressing. The US is the world's largest economy and should be the shining example of amazing infrastructure, high-tech, green cities, and forward thinking policies. California is an especially egregious example in terms of infrastructure investment: If California was a country it would be the world's fifth…

> I hate the fact that an autocratic and repulsive Government The Chinese government is much more autocratic yet it obviously does a much better job in building infrastructure The problem with the US government is lobbyism. It does not work for itself, it does not work for the people, it works for big corporations and lawyers.

In democratic countries we need some way of overriding individual rights for the collective good once in a while, but then the problem is that governments inevitably seem to get drunk on the power and start abusing it.

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#458

Post by differentView » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 8:58 AM UTC

HenryKissinger wrote: post #375

Aperocky wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealthy Chinese people can't control what the country does, wealthy Americans certainly have the option if they wanted.

Interestingly enough, the collective net worth of the Chinese leadership is higher than the US leadership by at least an order of magnitude. > The richest 70 members of China’s legislature added more to their wealth last year than the combined net worth of all 535 members of the U.S. Congress, the president and his Cabinet, and the nine Supreme Court justices. > The net worth of the 70 richest delegates in China’s Na…

Richest Americans don't lower themselves to running for public office.

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#459

Post by de_watcher » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 9:01 AM UTC

cwkoss wrote: post #322

NamTaf wrote: post #82

I’m not sure if it’s just lost in translation, but Wuhan to Guangzhou isn’t even 1000 km so I don’t know where they get the 2200 km they’re quoting. That’s likely a figure for GZ to Beijing. I have used the high speed line between Wuhan and GZ (and through to HK) several times. It’s currently a 4.5 hour direct journey (once per day) or a 5 hour journey if you change at GZ or Shenzhen. The HSR is 300ish km/h at the mo…

Would be cool to make a system where the train could drop off tailing cars and redirect them to stops, and pick up new cars which are accelerated to a matched speed and then linked, removing need for the train to fully decelerate at intermediate stops.

A similar system could drop off middle cars...

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#460

Post by cambaceres » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 9:05 AM UTC

growlist wrote: post #457

qwerty456127 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hate the fact that an autocratic and repulsive Government The Chinese government is much more autocratic yet it obviously does a much better job in building infrastructure The problem with the US government is lobbyism. It does not work for itself, it does not work for the people, it works for big corporations and lawyers.

In democratic countries we need some way of overriding individual rights for the collective good once in a while, but then the problem is that governments inevitably seem to get drunk on the power and start abusing it.

We do have a way, it is called elections.