Strip out the 1890s racism; replace it with internationalism; recognize that an international passenger railroad would carry not resources from the Periphery to the Core, but rather grandmas, refugees, tourists, chaiwallahs, Rwandan DeFi entrepreneurs, Shaivite pilgrims, seasonal laborers, vloggers, qat sellers, NGO workers, Jehovah's Witnesseses, and university students -- and maybe it's not actually so bad an idea.