Honestly glad. Highspeed rail is not going to work in America if it takes 77B and and over 10 years to complete one line. About 10 years ago China had only 1 high speed rail line, now look.
You think a small town in China could possibly ever say no to Beijing? Would a tiny community in an American city in the 40s or 50s be able to stand up to an interstate highway project? Absolutely not, but these small towns along the rail route have been screwing over this project for years to score cheap votes from an ignorant electorate. That's the political climate we live in now, same reason why SB50 has been tabled until 2020, NIMBYs (who unfortunately vote very reliably) plugging their ears and ignoring solutions to the inevitable. It has to work eventually, airports are a huge source of pollution and resulting health problems.
At the end of the day, and this is a tough pill for many progressive types to swallow, the enemy to changes that would benefit most of us isn't just the so called 1% (or 0.1%, etc), it is the upper middle class.
China can do massive infrastructure projects because it has a very efficient authoritarian government. They make a decision and get it done, for better or worse.
With that authoritarianism comes a whole set of externalities: wages, pollution, imminent domain, risk tolerances, disregard for other things etc. none of which would be palatable anywhere in the world.
I suggest there's a way to build a train in CA without having to have Chinese style operating environments.
It's sad though; right on the doorsteps of the Valley itself.
Those are terrible, but realize that the only news that makes it out from China to the US are the negative, and heavily paints China as evil. Everyone I talk to have never been to China, yet think everyone there is brainwashed. People realize a lot of things are terrible about the government, just like in any other country. China has been on an economic boom and radically changing the last half century reaching Western levels of QoL...although Jinping is taking it down a notch.
Imagine living in a country where media filters all about the US down to Japanese internment camps just barely over half a century ago, NSA spying, GitMo waterboarding, homeless-packed cities, and kids getting shot in schools routinely. It's probably what happens in North Korea.
China provides evidence (if we really needed it) that it is possible to organize more effectively.
I am not insinuating any causal relationship between the authoritarianism and the more efficient organization.
I think that as a species we can absolutely do better than all of that, engineer an organizational system that is both efficient and above all _actually_ humane and democratic.
There's a strong argument to be made that a truly benevolent dictator is by far the best form of government. Efficient decisions that are in the best interest of the overall population.
China may have come close to that over the last decade. The question is whether it can maintain that, or whether the power of the authoritarian regime will eventually lead to corruption and decisions that are counter to the overall interest of the people.
That “efficient organization” is done at the risk of being sent to a camp. The Nazi’s were incredibly efficient as well. I’d rather have messy freedom than perfectly efficient government.
Would you look at that! Looks like the proposed rail is going through your property! You have a week to get the fuck out before the dozers begin clearing.
China is able to do this because they trample rights.
