“We need data centers and unregulated AI to compete with China, but we don’t need their transportation infrastructure” is an opinion I cannot reconcile.

boggles my mind that we're trying to complete with china by doing what america has always done, but more. while china automates blue collar work, we automate white collar work. while they make higher ed accessible, we defund it further. while they build infra, we let it die.

Data centers enrich powerful investors and speculators, which is the sole driver of all US economic policy decisions. Public transportation is a long-term investment in the public, which is completely ideologically unacceptable to the US ruling class.

Billionaires aren’t gonna get richer or more powerful building trains. They are however going to if we let them build their data centers

We can sell HSR federally like the interstate system and insist we will use eminent domain to supersede the fragile sensibilities of state and local government that try to stall the corridors. The corridors will go through unimpeded. Start a culture war against NIMBY brats.

Florida actually build high speed rail, while California has spent billions and hasn't laid a single mile of track. You're barking up the wrong tree, you need to bark up the Democrat tree.

Oh? You want to tout Brightline?

Oh? You want to tout CHSR? Build a thing first, and THEN use that to finger wag at conservatives.

Jeff I’m so glad you think Florida republicans are the reason Brightline exists, that also means that it’s eventual bailout will be funded by them as well. Obviously they should support the project they take credit for?

Republicans are the reason Brightline exists and Democrats (or the politicians at least) are the reason why California HSR doesn't exist. It's not about want it's about regulations. Republicans have much less of them, even if they don't like the project. Democrats do.

If you don't agree with data centers, you are either a woke anti-American retard, or a traitor lying on purpose. Which one is it?

Best we can do - in the vein of American Exceptionalism - is everyone gets a car and a data center

Can we please have both?

We don't have the train infrastructure because of the government preventing companies from building them out or regulates them to death. People like you are asking for the same fucking shit for AI data centers.

These things are not mutually exclusive We should have both

Two completely different things, buddy.

We have airplanes and self driving cars you ridiculous parasitic manlet.

We don’t have 1.4 billion people to make this work

Nor does Trump (and other politicians) think we need China's dedication to solar panels.

We can have the best of both worlds by deregulating our transport infrastructure.

We have private land rights in the US. In China they just take your land to run new train lines. We don’t want that.

Or their healthcare Or land rights Or worker protection Or government desire to crackdown on corruption Or widespread jobs etc et al

We can't do transportation infrastructure because of our laws. Data centers we can do.

it would be nice if just 1 of the trillions going into AI went into highspeed trains.

That’s because it’s bullshit. It’s selective rhetoric.

High speed rail makes democratic mobilization possible… which is why America doesn’t have it.

Can’t even compete with green energy as well

You couldn’t pay me to get on a Chinese bullet train

We need both, but data centers are built by private companies, HSR isn't.

They don’t want that bc it involves existing around other people especially minorities

You put quote marks around a paraphrase Trump never said. High-speed rail does not appear in his statement, shown in the screenshot posted by Amit, through your own quote of Amit's post. There is nothing to “reconcile” because Trump never presented the two topics as a paired policy. He argued for data centers as an AI-competition issue. You introduced the rail comparison. In gact, Trump has not spoken negatively about Chinese high-speed rail. He has repeatedly praised it. In 2016 he said China has trains that go 250–300 mph while the U.S. has “chug, chug, chug” and “old stuff.” In 2017 he told airline executives that China and Japan “have fast trains all over the place.” In an August 2024 interview he called Chinese high-speed rail “unbelievably fast, unbelievably comfortable” with “no problems,” adding that America has “nothing like that… not even close.” His criticism has been aimed at the California project’s cost overruns and delays, not at China’s system. The inconsistency you describe is one you constructed, not one Trump stated.

Follow the money! Lobby pays you for strong ROI. The only one gaining from transportation are everyday citizens.

We can't compete with China on transportation infrastructure. Communists can build anything they want, any time they want with zero opposition. Farmer: "Hey, that's my family farms!" China: "That's where your family used to farm." Nothing they can do about it. China won.

Infrastructure? We have the largest highway system and dozens of major airports. Just you we won't all join the bullet train band wagon doesn't mean Americans struggle to travel. Your obsession with trains has compromised your ability to think logically.

AI and AI compute actually makes money. Public transportation is heavily subsidized and costs so much to build and maintain.

Fun fact, those trains need data centers to function