Nostr Web Client

i don't recall exactly where i read about that, was a story on zerohedge i think. just pointing out how incredibly government-controlled and not-libertarian the entire project of the US highway network was. they were sorta trying to argue that self driving cars might make roads better, but they were of the opinion that railway was far better and functioned very well before the government took over transport.

the same thing happened all across the world as well. trams were phased out, railway stations closed, rail lines abandoned, very often just left to get covered in weeds. the only kind of rail that didn't get wiped out was subways, but IMO subways are very fucking dangerous, for all kinds of reasons not the least of which being how easy a hydrogen explosion could be set off in one.

anyway, it just makes me think that there is a military strategy reason behind it. that is, that a land force is strengthened by a functioning passenger and freight train network, and tricking people into supporting its dismantling is a sabotage attack that seeks to keep the control of the land power from sea and air power.

Comte de Sats Germain 6mo ago

To some degree, definitely. I'm just not sure how far they purposely went with it. The US highways system was entirely planned around it being an airstrip for military operations, if necessary.

I think part of the reason trains are less favored now is the economics of a single provider. As long as there's competition, the passenger or freight space purchaser wins. But there was a wave of railroad bankruptcies which left a single provider in a lot of regions. I'm pretty sure its all the government's fault - first for inflating liquidity with credit money and getting the crash, and then by regulating and subsidizing. A free market can't survive a Democratic government... The only thing free markets need is to be left alone, and that's the only thing a democracy can't do.

There was a deliberate attack on a Japanese subway that killed a bunch of people - the attacker made a chemical and put it in the ventilation. That's all I remember, but its enough to make me nervous on subways. That and all the thugs. Its just not safe.

Reply to this note

Please Login to reply.

Discussion

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 6mo ago

yeah, i it was a poison gas attack. yes, subways are extremely vulnerable to gas attacks. methane or hydrogen would be incredibly destructive if you could get it to fill enough of the space then detonate it at the edges, a whole city would have huge swathes collapsed.

anyway, yeah, what happens, is based on the power structure and keeping people ignorant of the nature of power is the first task they have. everything else is just auxilliary to that goal.

what changes the situation can only be where either the whole thing collapses (which is going to happen when the oceans wash everything away) or some people who know these things, show up with far superior firepower and run a process of adjudicating evidence of crime that this crime scene earth has, and putting all of the perpetrators, and their accomplices one place, and the rest of us, to a new place prepared for us. preferably that already had the disaster cycle just pass.

outside of those two scenarios, there is simply to just be small and unimportant and live on the edge of that road network where it's improbable there will be any strategic value to fucking with your life.