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Private Capital vs Central Planning (lemmy.ml)

submitted 3 months ago by yogthos@lemmy.ml to c/memes@lemmy.ml

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[-] TheSlad@sh.itjust.works 140 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months 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 3 months 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 21 points 3 months 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 3 months 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 10 points 3 months 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 9 points 2 months 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 6 points 2 months ago

That's literally socialism with Chinese characteristics

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

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

[-] AnExerciseInFalling@programming.dev 4 points 3 months ago

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

[-] goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 13 points 3 months 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 68 points 3 months 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 3 months 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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[-] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 months ago

Its not stupid when its bribery

[+] velox_vulnus@lemmy.ml 59 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

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[-] DivineDev@kbin.run 24 points 3 months ago

This happens in Europe as well.

[-] boonhet@lemm.ee 19 points 3 months 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 3 months 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 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months 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 3 months 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