And then you projected that all of western civilization is in decline because the US hasn't prioritized high speed rail. Among other things, this completely ignores the countries within the "West" that have high speed rail as well.

That's what people are taking issue with, not that you pointed out that China has high speed rail.

We've been surpassed in PPP, Global Trade, Industrial Output etc. China's steel production is 1 billion tons a year, the US 80 million tons. They poured as much concrete in the last 10 years as we poured in the 20th century. In just a few years we will be surpassed by GDP and witin 25 years China's GDP will be double the United States.

China's rise is not disputed.

The other poster with the analogy about a child's height is 100% accurate.

China doesn't care. You do what you're told. If you complain too much, you disappear; if the project has an atrocious safety record, they are not reported and no such records exist (or blame a low-level official); if an entire neighborhood was destroyed without compensation, shut up and deal with it. You can get what you want, just how many bodies are you willing to bury to get it?

You need to destroy neighborhoods to built road infrastructure, though. This is because "I/O operations" on high-speed roads with massive bandwidth à-la-USA requires ungodly amounts of space.

Here is the infrastructure needed for high-speed rail : https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/FXD1-J00..., plus one train station per city. The switches can be built outside.

Here is the infrastructure needed for traditional highways: https://i0.wp.com/usa.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sit...

If the infrastructure that was built was not horribly inefficient due to an almost ideological opposition to mass transit, there wouldn't have been neighbourhoods destroyed wholesale, and the precedent leading to the gargantuan opposition we see right now would simply not be present.

You clearly misunderstand what the First Amendment is about. It's a restraint on government, not a restraint on everyone else.

Around 1865 we reached the conclusion that it is the duty of the Government to protect some people from having their freedom taken away by some other people. Since then the Constitution started imposing restraints not only on the ability of the Government to curtail your freedom, but also the ability of your fellow citizens to do so. And this is a good thing.

But lately we started regressing. I'm talking about the cancel culture.

Do you think that if one day a person were to be physically tarred and feathered by a crowd of puritans because of some perceived transgression, that is ok? But then if the tarring and feathering is in the digital world, and much more permanent (nothing is forgotten on the internet), is that ok?

The end result is that people learn there are some things you can say, some things you can't, and some things you must say.

I guess Hong Kong's problem is they just haven't experienced China's rail system yet. /s

Its actually not that hard and Chinese content platforms are a breath of fresh air

Me thinks you would be surprised at what works

The state there takes a paternal approach, like a literal parent, or teacher or school principle (or unit commander, or HR department). It isn’t that unrelatable, we all grew up in similar restrictions. When everyone agrees that is what the role of the state is, nobody is trying to be a freedom fighter to alter that

That's sort of like saying Chinese politics is a breath of fresh air because you don't have to worry about picking a side and hearing the various parties arguing with each other.

they have a heavily neutered internet and it is a pleasant experience

its a walled garden, at the country level, do you want a sticker because of your awareness of Beijing?

there is simply a life beyond imagining it as oppressive all the time, when the reality is that you just hang out in communities in your niche and you dont have to worry about it being randomly politicized. A large part of the mindshare in the west is trying to figure out how to do that, checking out the other internet is probably good for your mental health

If you consider car-centric society barbaric, you've never experience barbarism, or understand what the word even means. Hyperbole is not helpful.

Being factual and a little more subtle goes a long way.

I live in an urban area and enjoy not having to drive long distances (or at all) to run errands, but I don't see them as an extenstential threat to humanity as many posters here apparently do.

I still haven't figured it out.

Barbaric is a fun word, but one that would be easy to twist the other way. In one system you get to be crammed into a little train car with dozens of other people, in the other system you have some privacy and personal space and a seat...

Again, pros and cons all over the place... the US doesn't have good trains because it built other systems instead due to the point in time in which many of its cities developed, and they are "good enough" that most people would see little benefit from ripping it all up to replace it with trains.

It's worth noting too that "they make the trains run on time" is literally a cliche about certain types of government at this point, not some unique accomplishment.

If you have enough money for both options, then it's not surprising that the option which costs at least an order of magnitude more provides a slightly more comfortable seat.