Simulation:Hundreds Killed When High-Speed Collides with Cow

Passenger wrote:My point isn't the sensationalistic "news of the future" malarky, it's the idea that economic value is being destroyed by building it in the first place. The issue worth discussing is whether the public value added by the project is sufficient.

BTW, I will be very surprised if anything like this will be built in the USA under current conditions.

"Public Value" is an oxymoron; a buzz-phrase created by a self-righteous elite who believe they know what would be better for all of us if only they had access to the power to force their "enlightenment" on the rest of the world.

Like a lot of free-market advocates, I can understand that the growth of urban sprawl has created any number of areas where, all other things being equal, the consruction of mass transt systems would make more economic sense. But ours is an open society, governed through a parliamentary process which, over the years, has evolved (some would say devolved) toward one in which the immediate concerns of the electorate, and particularly, that simplistic, short-sighted creature called a "swing voter", take precedence over long-term planning

People tend to conveniently forget that few, if any or our Founding Fathers could envision a political structure in which participation would be extended beyond the realm of white, property-holding males. A substantial number likely believed that an agrarian, rather than an industrialized society, would remain the norm. The framers of the Constitution did not allow, to cite one example, the direct election of Senators, because in that day, the Senate was viewed as a more reclusive and introspective body, where the whims of the populace would be scaled back to meet the limits imposed by economic and societal reality.

As it turned out.the elecorate had a lot more reason and common sense than anyone envisioned at the time. But we may be entering a new sector of uncharted territory; one clouded both by the final end of the post-World War II ascendancy of American economic dominance and a need to plan for the replacement of fossil fuel as the principal feedstock of the consumer-driven economy.

But somehow, I can find it strangely, almost perversely heartening that the same forces that make the checkout counters at supermarkets and C-stores an insult to our intelligence might also fuel the resistance to those in high places and academic ivory towers and yes, the oversimplification depicted in the blog that started this thread (and which, BTW, is NOT part of the weekly content of National Review itself).

The path out of the woods is long, convoluted, and full of obstacles, but then, that's aways been the case.

From my personal expernace there has always been a resistance to the Educated Class. This anti-intelectlism has been voiced by those who make there living with there hands and those who are in the trades. The sometimes hostile reactions to the educated class is due to the fact that those who are in managment have MBAs and never spent time on the line. The days of when railroads were run by railroaders are gone and so are the days when someone could start on the assembly line and work there way up to the front office are gone as well. Only UPS and Lincoln Electric (Makes Welding Equipment on a peice work system) has men and women up from the ranks.

Now what this has to do with cows and how we got here I have no idea

gearhead wrote:From my personal expernace there has always been a resistance to the Educated Class. This anti-intelectlism has been voiced by those who make there living with there hands and those who are in the trades. The sometimes hostile reactions to the educated class is due to the fact that those who are in managment have MBAs and never spent time on the line. The days of when railroads were run by railroaders are gone and so are the days when someone could start on the assembly line and work there way up to the front office are gone as well. Only UPS and Lincoln Electric (Makes Welding Equipment on a peice work system) has men and women up from the ranks.

Now what this has to do with cows and how we got here I have no idea

Read the story

The idea is really a red hearing. Hundreds could have died if it weren't for the skill of the US Airways pilot when his plane sucked a bird and died.

Transportation involves risk, no way around it.

gearhead wrote: The days of when railroads were run by railroaders are gone and so are the days when someone could start on the assembly line and work there way up to the front office are gone as well.

With all due respect I have to rebuke that statement. From the various texts I have read those who managed to work their way up from the road, were in management positions and the positions they received were relevant to the area they had expertise in ( which to my knowledge is still the case, I'd assume ). Many of those people were educated and in fact started in these management positions to begin with. These are people who started as division superintendents, or were in charge of shops. The other track for railroad employees looking for promotions was the clerical track IE: telegraphers, lawyers..., these are the individuals who had the greatest chance of actually making it to the boardroom.

It has always been the case that the person inspecting boilers, rarely, if ever could expect to work their way up to the front office. It was more that with enough hours of service put in they could work their way to management positions within their given trade. That hasn't changed either, and is still applicable today.