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days of future past
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 25 May 2026
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Fuck AI
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A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
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Ehh, this post just makes me wish they had finished a badass canal network
or kept and expanded on the rail route
They did keep and expand on the rail routes! The US had an awesome rail network, including extensive passenger rail, until roughly the 1950s.
We still do.
Who is John Galt?
Yup, large automakers bought up a lot of rail lines, especially local inter- and intracities, and tore out the tracks as part of the highway program. My hometown had extensive tram lines (and a halfway built subway that we ran out of money for in the 20s) that got ripped up when I75 got built.
A lot of cities also just did this of their own accord, partially to enforce segregation and redlining. Awful harder for black and brown people to get to your Rich White Neighborhood if there's no train or bus service to easily take them there.
Americans aren't car brained, they're trapped in a system they didn't build and can't control.
A distinction without a difference.
A mouse raised in a cage will be cage-brained.
Too many USAians can't imagine life without driving a car, the same way that mouse can't imagine a forest.
How do you expect someone to imagine life without a car, when they live in an area where you have to drive three miles to get to the nearest store, and there are no sidewalks or bike lanes?
Can you really shame the caged mouse for being unable to imagine a forest?
Not to mention that they were able to run the new interstate highways right through Black neighborhoods.
Who framed Roger rabbit?
That's atrocious.
Large automakers built privately-funded highways? I didn't know that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy
Who framed Roger rabbit
I think we all know who.
Something something forcing a shiny, new technology into places it doesn't belong so that big corporations could profit, disrupting whole communities, and causing massive environmental and health problems. Can't quite put my finger on what the analogy might be, though...
There's also a fundamental infrastructure problem in that it's more impressive to say "I've just signed off on this impressive new project on which we are breaking ground" than to say "We are continuing or maintaining the project that the last guy built." New is sexy. Old and functional is boring.
That's fair, and personally I love the idea too, but as someone who grew up in a city with a major commercially-significant canal, it's a bit overrated in reality and you are probably underestimating the traffic chaos it causes. Bridges can cause huge delays, are vulnerable to extremely dangerous allisions, and strictly limit the size of ship that can get through the canal. Even with tunnels, which likewise limit the size of truck that can go through, the constant maintenance (and cost, and lack of expandability over time) is a real bummer. If you're willing to limit it to relatively small ships like they do in Europe it's potentially manageable without too much fuss, but if you want big bulkers and container ships traveling deep inland you're going to find your road network ends up chopped up into loosely connected islands with big delays and traffic bottlenecks real quick. It's a pretty big compromise.
Trains do a much better job of interoperating and coexisting with existing road networks without majorly disrupting them. (and for what it's worth, canals mess up train networks just as bad if not worse than they mess up road networks)
Is media literacy this bad where you are?
my guess is they like boats. reasonable.