One of the biggest problems facing conservative parties around the world is that many of them are so pozzed and broken that nobody wants to vote for them since it's just a vote for the same progressive policies as the left wing parties but slightly less honest about it.
That's one of the reasons the Conservatives in Canada faced in the last election, and one of the problems the Republicans continually face. People don't want to just vote for different colored socialists, they want to vote for something fundamentally different.
That's one of the reasons the Conservatives in Canada faced in the last election, and one of the problems the Republicans continually face. People don't want to just vote for different colored socialists, they want to vote for something fundamentally different.
I'd be interested in seeing how that wager works out. I might be overestimating the amount of construction required to convert an average piece of rail to high speed rail. On the other hand, I do know from some previous research into rail accidents that higher speed routes often require route redesign. For example you need to redesign corners because something you can safely take at 40mph is suicidal at 200mph. Also, as I keep on mentioning with the paths in northern Manitoba, you could end up needing to do a lot of work on a piece of land including bringing in a lot of carbon intensive material, replacing relatively carbon neutral crushed rock with a stronger foundation. I'm also not sure if a high speed train would require additional barriers to keep wildlife or people or debris away from tracks compared to standard rail.
I did a bit more research, and it looks like high speed rail lines would likely require significant ground work (digging up existing areas and replacing what was there with an engineered underlay, as well as improving drainage in marginal areas such as my often referenced manitoba track), and instead of traditional track and timber rail ties, they'd use something like a ballastless track, which is continuous cement with steel mounts for tracks, so anywhere you go you'd be doing a lot of work and using a lot of cement where you used none, and a lot more steel per meter.
As for roads, that's a good question too. Asphalt is a highly recycled material, but it isn't free either, and some new asphalt needs to be added. Also, how does a highway compare to a high speed rail in terms of what's required? Trains are heavier than anything on the road by far, but I'd guess there's a lot less traffic on any given train line than a given road.
Overall, my mind is still imagining trying to replace new york to LA, and the costs involved with those, since I don't think either of us disagree that existing rail could likely be upgraded in relatively small regions I mentioned at the beginning that already have viable rail systems that have proven themselves. My argument has been that for something like the new york to la route, an airplane may be the most environmentally conscious method because while you burn a lot of fuel you don't need to build or maintain any infrastucture between the points.
I did a bit more research, and it looks like high speed rail lines would likely require significant ground work (digging up existing areas and replacing what was there with an engineered underlay, as well as improving drainage in marginal areas such as my often referenced manitoba track), and instead of traditional track and timber rail ties, they'd use something like a ballastless track, which is continuous cement with steel mounts for tracks, so anywhere you go you'd be doing a lot of work and using a lot of cement where you used none, and a lot more steel per meter.
As for roads, that's a good question too. Asphalt is a highly recycled material, but it isn't free either, and some new asphalt needs to be added. Also, how does a highway compare to a high speed rail in terms of what's required? Trains are heavier than anything on the road by far, but I'd guess there's a lot less traffic on any given train line than a given road.
Overall, my mind is still imagining trying to replace new york to LA, and the costs involved with those, since I don't think either of us disagree that existing rail could likely be upgraded in relatively small regions I mentioned at the beginning that already have viable rail systems that have proven themselves. My argument has been that for something like the new york to la route, an airplane may be the most environmentally conscious method because while you burn a lot of fuel you don't need to build or maintain any infrastucture between the points.
The CO2 in a tree is gathered over years and years, whereas rotting can occur in a relatively short period of time. It ends up back in the air, and plants around them which take years and years to gather carbon through photosynthesis won't collect it immediately.
Moreover, you can't say for certain whether a spot will even stay a forest on geological timeframes, and the odds are it will not. There have been 5 mass extinction events on earth, and 3 of them happened since the end of the carboniferous period. The End Permian event was caused by volcanic activity releasing large amounts of CO2 and H2S which caused acid rain and ocean acidification (killing 96% of species), the End Triassic event was caused by underwater volcanic activity which caused global warming and a change in composition in the oceans (killing 80% of species), and the End Cretaceous event was caused by a meteor impact which caused global cataclysm including global cooling (killing 76% of species). Besides that, there have been 13 other mass extinction events if you include the current Holocene mass extinction event. Antarctica was once part of a massive forest and today is an icy waste, and Australia was once almost entirely forest and today is mostly desert.
That's why the coal exists for the 60 million years after plants evolved to grow cellulose and before something else evolved the ability to digest cellulose, and essentially disappears. During the carboniferous period, anywhere there was forest (particularly swampy forests), that carbon essentially became part of the landscape and over 60 million years accumulated and was exposed to anerobic conditions thanks to the swampy conditions, and if the forest died, the carbon remained because there was nowhere for it to go and often got driven underground by geological processes over millions of years. I'd expect that millions of years of sedimental deposition by itself (even through processes like wind) would be enough to cover up the tree beds over time. The reason it stops after that is the tree beds don't stick around and become deposited carbon, they become CO2 through the metabolic processes of fungus.
By contrast, the process of life producing rock such as carbonates is a long term place for carbon to go. The white cliffs of dover for example are formed from the bodies of millions of years of aquatic life forms dying and falling to the ocean bed, and the parts that don't rot, oxidize, and aren't eaten by other creatures end up sticking around and packing down, creating entire mountains of carbon impregnated rock.
Honestly, one of the biggest shocks in my life was reading geological history and realizing that stuff we think would be important ended up being meaningless, while stuff we think of as insignificant ends up becoming incredibly important when you're talking about geological timeframes.
Moreover, you can't say for certain whether a spot will even stay a forest on geological timeframes, and the odds are it will not. There have been 5 mass extinction events on earth, and 3 of them happened since the end of the carboniferous period. The End Permian event was caused by volcanic activity releasing large amounts of CO2 and H2S which caused acid rain and ocean acidification (killing 96% of species), the End Triassic event was caused by underwater volcanic activity which caused global warming and a change in composition in the oceans (killing 80% of species), and the End Cretaceous event was caused by a meteor impact which caused global cataclysm including global cooling (killing 76% of species). Besides that, there have been 13 other mass extinction events if you include the current Holocene mass extinction event. Antarctica was once part of a massive forest and today is an icy waste, and Australia was once almost entirely forest and today is mostly desert.
That's why the coal exists for the 60 million years after plants evolved to grow cellulose and before something else evolved the ability to digest cellulose, and essentially disappears. During the carboniferous period, anywhere there was forest (particularly swampy forests), that carbon essentially became part of the landscape and over 60 million years accumulated and was exposed to anerobic conditions thanks to the swampy conditions, and if the forest died, the carbon remained because there was nowhere for it to go and often got driven underground by geological processes over millions of years. I'd expect that millions of years of sedimental deposition by itself (even through processes like wind) would be enough to cover up the tree beds over time. The reason it stops after that is the tree beds don't stick around and become deposited carbon, they become CO2 through the metabolic processes of fungus.
By contrast, the process of life producing rock such as carbonates is a long term place for carbon to go. The white cliffs of dover for example are formed from the bodies of millions of years of aquatic life forms dying and falling to the ocean bed, and the parts that don't rot, oxidize, and aren't eaten by other creatures end up sticking around and packing down, creating entire mountains of carbon impregnated rock.
Honestly, one of the biggest shocks in my life was reading geological history and realizing that stuff we think would be important ended up being meaningless, while stuff we think of as insignificant ends up becoming incredibly important when you're talking about geological timeframes.
Both men and women fundamentally misunderstand both themselves and each other, I think.
There's big fat men who aren't rich who get with hot girls and even marry them (and have long happy marriages with them). There's big fat women who get with successful men and even marry them (and have long happy marriages with them).
According to the prevailing theories, these things simply shouldn't be possible, but they do happen. Because while undoubtedly there's a lot of tangible stuff in relationships such as looks and wealth, there's a lot intangible stuff as well.
As a counterpoint to the big fat men and women above, consider Hollywood movie stars and starlets, who have world class looks and overwhelming amounts of money, and even some intangibles like charisma, but often can't keep a relationship together.
There's big fat men who aren't rich who get with hot girls and even marry them (and have long happy marriages with them). There's big fat women who get with successful men and even marry them (and have long happy marriages with them).
According to the prevailing theories, these things simply shouldn't be possible, but they do happen. Because while undoubtedly there's a lot of tangible stuff in relationships such as looks and wealth, there's a lot intangible stuff as well.
As a counterpoint to the big fat men and women above, consider Hollywood movie stars and starlets, who have world class looks and overwhelming amounts of money, and even some intangibles like charisma, but often can't keep a relationship together.
Calling construction an upgrade doesn't mean it doesn't use material. Especially if the upgrade requires fundamental reconstruction, so for example tearing up all the old rail lines on gravel and timbers and replacing them with a much higher quality steel on a cement foundation (which admittedly may not be required, but for things like the northern manitoba route I spoke of you'd basically need to do that to even get the trains running at normal speed, let alone high speed).
Coal almost exclusively comes from an era hundreds of millions of years ago called the carboniferous period before any organisms learned to digest cellulose. After that period, wood that would just sit there and sink into coal beds instead gets converted back into CO2 by fungi.
I mentioned (though and it was an edit so you may have missed it) that you can't do high speed rail on normal rail infrastructure and so you'd need a lot more material. It'd need to be stable enough to handle the loads of high speed rail as well as I'm sure a number of other factors you don't need to consider with standard rail. If it was that easy they'd just pop a new train on the old tracks more or less.
Typically I'm a free market guy, but certain things sort of need to be set up as common goods, and if they aren't then you're just getting crony capitalism where the state steals people's money at the barrel of a gun, builds a thing using the power of government to steamroll people who own the land, then hands it to their friends. Even if someone else had billions of dollars to build something similar they can't because they can't steamroll through all the stuff you would have needed.
Even if you use renewable energy (and let's pick a version like hydroelectric energy that we know can run for centuries once built), you have to consider the total environmental cost of building and maintaining massive rail lines.
In 2009 I did a study showing that if you used 30% of all renewable and nuclear energy on earth at that time you could replace the cement industry's use of fossil fuels with electric. The thing I didn't notice at the time is that the creation of cement inherently releases CO2 even if no fossil fuels are burned. In the year since, I've come to realize that limestone is in fact the only real geological term carbon sink, and stuff like trees don't hold carbon for very long in geological timeframes.
In the same study, I showed you could replace hydrocarbons as an energy source in producing steel if you used another 30% of all renewable and nuclear energy on earth at the time. The thing I didn't realize at the time is you can't create steel without coal because steel is iron and carbon, and the carbon comes from a derivative of coal.
In both cases, fossil fuels are also required to gather the raw materials. Mining is a fossil fuel intensive operation. Some people might counter with "but look at this mine that's fully electric!", but I'm aware of such mines and usually they aren't telling you about the fossil fuels they use. One mine I'm aware of claims to be "fully electric" but burns a city worth of propane every day in the winter to heat their mine air. It also conveniently leaves out the ancillary fossil fuel use since you don't deliver 30T rock trucks (or other supplies) hundreds of kilometers into the middle of nowhere with Tesla transports.
When you're talking about tens of thousands of kilometers of rail, the amount of steel and cement required are almost beyond human comprehension.
I forgot to mention that a high-speed rail system needs to have a much different level of workmanship compared to a regular rail. For example there are rail systems up in Northern manitoba, but those trains barely move, and so if you wanted to turn those into High-Speed rail you'd have to create a powerful foundation which would likely be made out of steel and concrete along with the rails themselves.
Even if you use renewable energy (and let's pick a version like hydroelectric energy that we know can run for centuries once built), you have to consider the total environmental cost of building and maintaining massive rail lines.
In 2009 I did a study showing that if you used 30% of all renewable and nuclear energy on earth at that time you could replace the cement industry's use of fossil fuels with electric. The thing I didn't notice at the time is that the creation of cement inherently releases CO2 even if no fossil fuels are burned. In the year since, I've come to realize that limestone is in fact the only real geological term carbon sink, and stuff like trees don't hold carbon for very long in geological timeframes.
In the same study, I showed you could replace hydrocarbons as an energy source in producing steel if you used another 30% of all renewable and nuclear energy on earth at the time. The thing I didn't realize at the time is you can't create steel without coal because steel is iron and carbon, and the carbon comes from a derivative of coal.
In both cases, fossil fuels are also required to gather the raw materials. Mining is a fossil fuel intensive operation. Some people might counter with "but look at this mine that's fully electric!", but I'm aware of such mines and usually they aren't telling you about the fossil fuels they use. One mine I'm aware of claims to be "fully electric" but burns a city worth of propane every day in the winter to heat their mine air. It also conveniently leaves out the ancillary fossil fuel use since you don't deliver 30T rock trucks (or other supplies) hundreds of kilometers into the middle of nowhere with Tesla transports.
When you're talking about tens of thousands of kilometers of rail, the amount of steel and cement required are almost beyond human comprehension.
I forgot to mention that a high-speed rail system needs to have a much different level of workmanship compared to a regular rail. For example there are rail systems up in Northern manitoba, but those trains barely move, and so if you wanted to turn those into High-Speed rail you'd have to create a powerful foundation which would likely be made out of steel and concrete along with the rails themselves.
"Hello Mr. Grizzly bear, please let me elucidate my many logical reasons you should not try to eat me."
I've run a number of open source projects over the years.
Let me tell you how I organized stuff with the other contributors: I didn't. There were no other contributors. My projects weren't popular, and it's possible I'm the only one who used them.
There are a lot of people who have created projects like mine. And if we're being honest, part of the reason is I'm not very talented as a developer and my project didn't really scratch an itch people had, and I didn't put much work into advertising them.
So if someone else was more talented, produced a project people liked, and put the work into building their audience, why wouldn't that person whose talent, judgement, and hard work created the thing get to choose how the project is run? It's a sort of entitlement thinking that I should have a say in how something I couldn't create and didn't create should be run -- I had an equal chance to anyone else to create something cool and I blew it.
That isn't to say that every open source project shall or should be run like a dictatorship. Rather, it's to say that people who want to swoop in and implement "democratic control" of something after the fact are being unreasonable.
Let me tell you how I organized stuff with the other contributors: I didn't. There were no other contributors. My projects weren't popular, and it's possible I'm the only one who used them.
There are a lot of people who have created projects like mine. And if we're being honest, part of the reason is I'm not very talented as a developer and my project didn't really scratch an itch people had, and I didn't put much work into advertising them.
So if someone else was more talented, produced a project people liked, and put the work into building their audience, why wouldn't that person whose talent, judgement, and hard work created the thing get to choose how the project is run? It's a sort of entitlement thinking that I should have a say in how something I couldn't create and didn't create should be run -- I had an equal chance to anyone else to create something cool and I blew it.
That isn't to say that every open source project shall or should be run like a dictatorship. Rather, it's to say that people who want to swoop in and implement "democratic control" of something after the fact are being unreasonable.
One of the very long term effects of the Northern European style nuclear family structure where the eldest son isn't guaranteed to get the inheritance is that people are constantly moving and so you're going to have the least amount of inbreeding possible for a population. To make it and become worthy of starting a nuclear family, men will leave their households, their neighborhoods, their cities, their provinces, even their countries, and start up new families, and so there's the highest likelihood for two people who start a nuclear family to be unrelated.
The worst family structure for inbreeding would be endogenous clan structure (multi family household and cousin marriage is allowed), since you're going to be part of a family that has been there for a long time and you'll be interacting with other families who have been there a long time. This would include orthodox Jewish civilization as well as Muslim civilization. Inbreeding starts immediately, and by design. Royalty is similar to this as well.
The next worst would be exogenous clan structure (multi family household and cousin marriage is not allowed) since you would be trying not to marry your cousins, but you'd still be tied to the local geography and so a few generations down the line you'd be mixing bloodlines whether you like it or not.
One important thing is that the world today only tends to think about one goal at a time, and the world isn't so simple. Inbreeding is one thing to be aware of, as well as levels of innovation and general economic prosperity (people point out the higher inherent wealth in sharing a household, but by staying where family is instead of going where opportunity lives, overall family wealth will improve), societal stability and others.
The worst family structure for inbreeding would be endogenous clan structure (multi family household and cousin marriage is allowed), since you're going to be part of a family that has been there for a long time and you'll be interacting with other families who have been there a long time. This would include orthodox Jewish civilization as well as Muslim civilization. Inbreeding starts immediately, and by design. Royalty is similar to this as well.
The next worst would be exogenous clan structure (multi family household and cousin marriage is not allowed) since you would be trying not to marry your cousins, but you'd still be tied to the local geography and so a few generations down the line you'd be mixing bloodlines whether you like it or not.
One important thing is that the world today only tends to think about one goal at a time, and the world isn't so simple. Inbreeding is one thing to be aware of, as well as levels of innovation and general economic prosperity (people point out the higher inherent wealth in sharing a household, but by staying where family is instead of going where opportunity lives, overall family wealth will improve), societal stability and others.
It took me a while to realize what you meant and when it hit I laughed out loud and confused everyone.
It's definitely the anthropologic fallacy at work, and it's much easier to anthropomorphize an ai when it can form a sentence, which is typically a skill we associate with humanity and human intelligence.
https://minnesotareformer.com/2024/02/27/in-dozens-of-minnesota-schools-entire-classes-are-failing-to-meet-minimum-state-standards/
High school students in a lot of these cities seem to "graduate" like v-tubers.
High school students in a lot of these cities seem to "graduate" like v-tubers.
I might be wrong, but based on the first chapter, Tolkien writes way longer chapters than many authors so far. Pretty sure it was over an hour to read that chapter out loud.
The thing is, whether you have a multi-generational home is extremely cultural, and so you have lots of different cultures that do that but many don't.
One of the reasons that many cultures have the multi-generational home is that there are obviously benefits to it, including being able to aggregate wealth, but it also has some negative sides such as aggregating a lot of power in the hands of whichever family member happens to own the house, a lack of flexibility since individuals are tied to their extended family.
Here's my favorite video on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RFFwhbVqeU
One of the reasons that many cultures have the multi-generational home is that there are obviously benefits to it, including being able to aggregate wealth, but it also has some negative sides such as aggregating a lot of power in the hands of whichever family member happens to own the house, a lack of flexibility since individuals are tied to their extended family.
Here's my favorite video on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RFFwhbVqeU
Quite a while back I just started referring to the dollar store as the dollars store, because anything that you buy is going to be several dollars.