In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :
Again, the people this affected are very much alive and America has done FAR worse with slavery and the Native Americans. It's absolutely outdated, but that doesn't mean people just stopped being racist- much in the same way that a pattern of thinking may be a logical fallacy, but it doesn't mean people still don't use said fallacies.
This makes little sense in the context of the current discussion. It could be argued that almost every significant historical event has influence on modern day life, but we don't bring that up in every modern discussion. You didn't mention that your Tesla was built on land taken from the Ohlone Native Americans. Germany has a well developed high speed rail system. Can we discuss that without discussing their questionable history? America has done far worse? China had slaves TODAY. Ironically, slaves that are likely connected to the production of your Tesla- along with many of the other goods that we buy.
Doesn't matter. It was systemic, and he was one part of that system; he and others did the same things all over America, and only now is it being focused upon.
It does matter, for the reasons above and many more. I said your examples are not comparable, because not only are you a comparing a city with a nation, you are comparing them 70 years apart. Apples and oranges literally have more in common with each other than your examples.
Well the video was so good as a response, you'll find the original video it was against was taken down by it's creator.
So what? You linked an opinion response to another opinion that no one here shared. Are you trying to tie that argument to mine simply because the subject is the same?
As for expense? All I hear is the dollar value, but I always have to search for long-term impact. The cost of an electric bullet train is obvious, but what traffic benefits does it provide? What does that lack of exhaust do to public health? Does it's regular use change your tax base by say, condensing a living space? How much longer-lived are your roads if you take thousands of cars off of them? What deficiencies does the project expose, both with people and with government planning? Are they correcting those issues or ignoring them? What infrastructure benefits are happening to make this line? And when it gets completed, will it lead to bigger and better down the line? And when does the constant screeching of "it's too expensive" eventually become a self-serving prophecy, to keep us from building anything?
You understand what money is, right? It's a medium of exchange to trade goods and services. Dollars are finite and represent a finite about of resources. So it does matter what things cost. Spend too much on a poor solution and you don't have enough left for a better solution.
What I'm getting at is- I have heard for decades the constant whining of "It CoStS tOo MuCh!!!!1!!111!!" about any potential improvement to society without ever hearing anything else, and then days later was having it arrive in my ER because something was ignored out of convenience or worthless political ideology. Even just a page ago someone was trying desperately to ignore ideas because they were "European" or "Chinese" in origin- it's all a worthless cope by people who have been duped for decades into putting on blinders about what we spend taxes on, being told to think that austerity measures EVER work from people who profit from them- meanwhile expensive but world-beneficial things like our military are somehow different. My point is, as an American taxpayer and someone who's only JUST getting out of the "Working poor" class who's tax dollars already go to millions of tiny works I'll never see, I don't really care about cost if the long-term math works out to society getting better.
But you do care, you are just being too short sighted to see how much failed projects like this work against your goals. They could have spent the money on countless other projects with better results. This project is many times over budget, won't go where it was supposed to go, won't go the speeds promised, won't serve the number of people promised, and is decades behind. And you are defending it, because somewhere, well down the line, it might do some good. And that is the trap. Some good. By that definition, we should have unlimited budgets on just about everything that does "some good." How would you feel about your Tesla under the same circumstances? You sign on the dotted line, and they charge you 5x the agreed upon price. And you can't have it for 3 years but your payments start next month. And it won't drive into some of the major cities. And top speed is cut to 55mph. But think of all of the good you are doing!
For the record, I predict California's high speed rail project will be obsolete before it is completed. I'm not very optimistic on self driving cars, but I think a self driving express lane down highway 5 from Sacramento to LA is much more probable than high speed rail linking the same cities.
