Private Capital vs Central Planning : memes

[-] TheSlad@sh.itjust.works 138 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Elon has all but admitted that the hyperloop was just a distraction to derail California's public rail plans, and now that that ship has sailed he doesnt give a shit about hyperloop anymore. The Hyperloop concept is literally just a tool that Elon uses to prevent development of public transport in California so that people will buy more teslas instead.

[-] boonhet@lemm.ee 30 points 2 years ago

The Hyperloop seemed impossible form the get go. It had so many issues that are easily solved by... Not putting people in vacuum tubes

[-] TheSlad@sh.itjust.works 20 points 2 years ago

Here let me try to solve all of it's issues:

Get rid of the vacuum idea to reduce complexity and points of failure.
Move track above ground to reduce manufacture/maintenance costs.
Make the "pods" longer and chain multiple pods together to increase efficiency.

Wait a minute... 🤔 🚉

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[-] skvlp@lemm.ee 19 points 2 years ago

A major flaw in our societies is that we allow jackasses like that to come into positions like the one Musk has. Fuck Phony Stark!

[-] TheSlad@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 years ago

Literally all I want is for my government to manage capitalism instead of capitalism managing my government.

I am certain that Elon will try to co-opt Trump's cult following and be his political successor when Trump finally kicks the bucket, and that legitimately terrifies me. Elon will run for pres in the next 20 years I'd bet on it.

[-] uis@lemm.ee 8 points 2 years ago

Literally all I want is for my government to manage capitalism instead of capitalism managing my government.

But that's socialism

[-] OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago

That's literally socialism with Chinese characteristics

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[-] TheSlad@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 years ago

Shhhh if you say it like that people's heads will explode

[-] AnExerciseInFalling@programming.dev 4 points 2 years ago

I would love a source for this to pull up in future discussions

[-] goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 13 points 2 years ago

There's this but musk shills will discard it like anything that doesn't praise musk

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/elon-musk-hyperloop-rail-17486877.php

[-] nickiam2@aussie.zone 67 points 2 years ago

I live in a national park and the Govt just awarded a contract to a private company to build a fiber line to the villages for high speed internet, and the company building the thing will own the network while the govt is stuck paying the bill forever. So stupid imho. No private company should own a network that exists entirely on federal land, and everyone depends on .

[-] boonhet@lemm.ee 10 points 2 years ago

Wait, you live IN a national park?

God damn that sounds awesome. But yeah, the private fiber line sucks. Same happening in my country with most "last mile" connections belonging to exactly one private company. Whereas our neighbours to the south (Latvia) nationalized the entire network and everyone benefits from having competition (same company, Telia, has their prices like 80% lower there than here - claiming that Estonians don't care about price)

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[+] velox_vulnus@lemmy.ml 59 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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[-] DivineDev@kbin.run 24 points 2 years ago

This happens in Europe as well.

[-] boonhet@lemm.ee 17 points 2 years ago

This happens in most European countries as well, I believe?

It works fine as long as the private companies are held accountable for their shit and the high-level planning is done by public offices.

It breaks down when there are no consequences for budget or deadline overruns, or the actual deliverable failing to meet requirements, because obviously private companies are gonna fleece the tax payer.

[-] Johanno@feddit.org 6 points 2 years ago

Well since the privatisation of germanies public transport systems everything went downhill.

We have less lines and lots of late trains. Funny thing is that the private company "Deutsche Bahn" was doing so bad it is now 100%owned by the state but still a "profit orientated" private company that does weird shit in order to fake the numbers.

[-] boonhet@lemm.ee 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I'm not a fan of privatisation of existing systems either. Nor a fan of private companies providing public transport, but in Estonia that works because they have to adhere to strict terms.

What I meant was specifically in the context of private companies building infrastructure that's specced out by the government and will be owned by the government - that it works in Europe.

In the US a large problem is that the private companies can own the infrastructure they build and then deny other companies usage

There is also an example of this happening here in Estonia too - Telia (which acquired Elion) owns way too much of the fiber optic networks, particularly the last mile connections and now you have relatively little competition - if you want an Internet connection at home, depending on where you live, you may only be able to get broadband from Telia.

But at the same time - we also have private companies build our roads and that works fine for us, because the roads still belong to the country and everyone can use them all the same. Our rail network is owned by the government and while there's only one (state-owned) company running people transport on it, many companies can use it for transportation of goods.

[-] Johanno@feddit.org 6 points 2 years ago

As long as the product is owned by the government it works. You can pay a contractor to build it, maybe even manage it, but you can't give the infrastructure to the private company that then has a monopoly

[-] boonhet@lemm.ee 5 points 2 years ago

Exactly.

Public money spent = public owns the end result

Should be exactly this simple.

[-] EherNicht@feddit.org 16 points 2 years ago

This CAN actually make sense… if done right… which it is often not due to corruption.

[-] hungryphrog 22 points 2 years ago

lemmings stop idolising China challenge (impossible)

[-] yogthos@lemmy.ml 30 points 2 years ago

libs stop seething over China challenge (impossible)

[-] RacoonVegetable@reddthat.com 21 points 2 years ago

Are you really saying that Elon is the reason America doesn’t have high speed rail?

[-] yogthos@lemmy.ml 41 points 2 years ago

I'd say Elon is a symptom of an underlying problem which is relying on private capital to provide infrastructure.

[-] bountygiver@lemmy.ml 17 points 2 years ago

he is indeed a part of a problem. Car manufacturers have been quite responsible for dismantling America's public transportation infrastructure.

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[-] Athelstan@persadon.com 8 points 2 years ago

@yogthos
I didn't know California is a private company

[-] yogthos@lemmy.ml 27 points 2 years ago

California isn't a private company, but it relies on private capital to do infrastructure development. Hope that clears things up for you.

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[+] AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee 7 points 2 years ago

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[-] yogthos@lemmy.ml 29 points 2 years ago

Tbf California, unlike China, does use slave labor https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-investigation-c6f0eb4747963283316e494eadf08c4e

[-] StaySquared@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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[-] Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 years ago

Very good point and one that people often forget. It's literally impossible to build high speed rail without first becoming an authoritarian dictatorship.

[-] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 24 points 2 years ago

TIL Germany, Belgium, Austria, France and Portugal are authoritarian dictatorships

[-] Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 years ago

Don't forget Taiwan as well. They have HSR although to be fair it's also a very small country.

[-] yogthos@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 years ago

US is the authoritarian dictatorship here, and it can't build shit. Meanwhile, worker democracy in China is able to build infrastructure at scale. Don't take my word for it though, every western study admits this

[-] Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 years ago

I don't know, man. This sounds like some "the enemy is both strong and weak" BS to me. When they can't build a HSR in California they are an unplanned economy but when I point out the cost of China's flavour of government suddenly the US is a dictatorship?

I've got no issues acknowledging when China does some good things but come on. I was rightfully making fun of the implication of your meme here and you come back with doublespeak. There's really no need to pick a side and defend it at all costs, we can acknowledge the positive and negative things.

[-] yogthos@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 years ago

but when I point out the cost of China’s flavour of government suddenly the US is a dictatorship?

I mean I linked you a whole bunch of western studies showing that people living in China see their country as being more democratic than people living in US see theirs. Furthermore, a study analyzing decades of US policy has found the following:

That certainly does sound like US is a dictatorship of capital to me where regular working class people have little say in the running of the system.

My argument is based on the empirical evidence available, meanwhile I have no idea what you base your position on.

[-] OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 years ago

I'm confused by this, because it looks like China is proving you wrong right now?

[-] Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 years ago

Now I'm confused, what do you mean? I never said they didn't have a great high speed rail network. I think they've done a great job and I've got no problem acknowledging that. I was just poking fun at the implication of the meme.

[-] OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 years ago

Well, China, a participatory democracy with a 95 percent approval rating according to a Harvard study, is in the meme building high speed rail, and you're claiming you have to be an authoritarian dictatorship to build high speed rail?

[-] Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 years ago

Oh right I see what you mean. If you pretend China is a democracy my point is automatically disproven, that is true.

[-] OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Why would I pretend China is a democracy when it empirically is according to any useful measure?

High government approval

Bottom up representation

Policies benefit the masses

Wide range of public opinion represented in government

[-] yogthos@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago

That all may be true, but have you considered the fact that they're savage mongoloids who need enlightened white people to come and bring democracy to them?

[-] OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago

Looks at downvotes

sees number of called out liberals

[-] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 years ago

China managed to overbuild high speed rail, they got so good at it. Their whole system is built to incentive huge infrastructure projects. Which has been good, but now they're getting way into the diminishing returns.

[-] Annoyed_Crabby@monyet.cc 12 points 2 years ago

They're so good at it and got addicted to it they want to build it on other countries too!

[-] yogthos@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 years ago

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