Eurasian Railroad Development

in a bit saner world...

Beijing to London freight delivery in 2 days as well as peaceful integration of Middle Eastern economies are some of many possibilities. Recent APEC meeting in Vladivostok should accelerate the long awaited development of Trans-Asian Railway project. 




Developing infrastructure has always been risky if you're not well protected by geography or by standing armies. The German-Ottoman/Baghdad-Berlin railroad link construction plans threatened British shipping interests and thus helped start the 20th century. And as Libyan experience shows, any small country outside Western alliances determined to become the "next Norway" of this or that particular region has a high chance of being bombarded by warplanes.

Having said that, transportation links are as essential as monetary unions when it comes to strengthening regional political integration. This point has been brought so often on this site that we may as well be called The Infrastructuralist. In fact, current political gridlock and disunity within USA would be a lot less intense if this union put as much effort into high speed freight/passenger delivery as is usually put into decades long military occupations. Transcontinental railroad continued being built even during American civil war and was instrumental in political integration of United States. That was big for its time but the key issue of the 21st century is connecting and creating harmony between the various poles of the multipolar world.

This primarily means socioeconomic and cultural integration of Asia and the West the way California, Texas, and New York (and more recently, France and Germany) have been united by transport. Elites understand the supranational symbiosis that transportation links bring and even the potential for a larger and more dynamic economy to swallow up neighbors. Because of that, we often even see reluctance to begin projects such as the Korea-Japan undersea tunnel even if it is mutually enriching.

Such notions need to be put to rest. Fears of freight links are not the same as fears of removing all trade protectionism. Tight railroad links and busy rail arteries can co-exist wonderfully with 20% tariffs (as shown by repeated successes of protectionism over the last 200 years). What is more dangerous than easy freight movement among neighbors is not so much mutual digestion by historical enemies. The danger is that lack of cooperation on transnational freight movements creates:

1) Economic and popular disharmony potentially leading to violence (some blood vessels in the regional body blocked, some deprived, some oversaturated, some non-existent, etc. inefficiencies, inequalities, bottlenecks, and chaos is the order of the day)

2) Stops spin off processes from getting off the ground whether economic (creating cooperation where economies of scale can be tapped) or political war averting ones (see below)

Full high speed railroad Eurasian integration is the obvious next step that United Nations saw as an essential violence preventing project for the largest land mass on earth. Projects of this nature always require soothing relations beforehand. Obviously Pakistan and India need to find ways to cooperate, as well as South and North Korea, Japan and Russia, Japan and South Korea, Iran and Arab neighbors, Israel and Egypt, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Georgia and Russia, Turkey and Russia, and Afghanistan sufficiently stabilized so as not to build railroads and pipelines around it.

In effect, in a world with nuclear weaponry, the shareholders of various railroad monopolies have to pressure for peace in order to get more business. High level governmental working groups approaching something as mundane as transborder high speed railroad development create a foot in the door towards preconditions for peace. Seoul and Pyongyang seem to be the early adopters of this understanding with railroad construction connecting their two countries (along with a free trade zone lubricating the project) being used as an ignition towards eventual reunification. Although some critics point to France and Germany being the most interconnected in terms of transportation in 1913, interdependence before conflict appears more of a historical exception rather than the rule.

post-scarcity civilization will think of how to tap
and transport resources from still
overlooked northern peripheries

Considering the current historical conditions in the Middle East (a patchwork of barely consolidated "states" each in its own historic development that roughly mirrors Europe anywhere from 1850s to early 20th century), a supranational government approach combined with links to indigenous civil society and business groups with infrastructuralist mindset and demands is essential to potentially prevent early 20th century Europe 2.0.

Let's quote from a previous article that compared 3 fastest rail lines in the world to better grasp a future Eurasian land bridge.

"The "best" is determined here by a combination of:

A) Average speed in between terminating points since the faster the distance covered, the more a train system cuts into air industry's profits. This in turn pushes airplane makers to conceptualize cheap travel by hypersonic passenger aircraft which in turn benefits humanity.

B) The distance that the high speed line covers since the longer the line, the bigger the project in terms of resources and parts and the more economies of scale are utilized. A society's commitment to triggering economies of scale for heavy industry shows its determination to improving the welfare of its citizens. Ultimately, going as big as possible with infrastructure projects (see Erie, Panama, Suez Canals and Transcontinental/Trans-Siberian railroads) is not just cheaper but creates mass employment (during transition to post-scarcity mechanization), rapidly stimulates real physical economy, and gives a super boost in wealth creation."

Industrial cartels behind the Chinese government also seem interested in free trade zones at the end of 3 major high speed Eurasian railways that are being proposed. India and southeast Asia being China's South America and Russia being China's Canada appears the immediate future for the region. Beijing needs to approach the situation in an integrative developmental language that FDR would have used to build common prosperity and avoid the imperialist mindset. The possibilities of freight entering North Korea from Russian Federation and then entering South Korean land to continue on via the underwater tunnel to Japanese consumers would do more for peace than 6 party talks ever did. Recent decision by the Kremlin to forgive 11 billion dollars of North Korean debt appears to be part of this particular mission. Energy and transportation projects can go through when borders are finally delineated and decades long issues forgiven. The Christian Orthodox Patriarch on a visit to Poland recently used the word he considered the most important. It was "forgiveness".

An economically booming region connected by Beijing, Tokyo, Taipei, Seoul, Pyongyang finally healing with high speed transport links would be an example to follow across the world from central Europe to Middle East to Africa. It is said people get used to a good thing very quickly and the Customs Union between Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan demonstrates that as passengers don't worry about being searched and stopped as their train crosses the border. As Mexico continues to grow in economic power, eventually the planners behind North American Union need to consider similar easing of restrictions and add high speed rail in addition to the high speed highway linking the continent.

Besides break of gauge, the way high speed tracks should be constructed should take into account possible future conversion to Mag-Lev standard. This means wide clearance around the track to allow parallel Mag-Lev construction once sufficient number of fission reactors are built to support it. Dual use construction or built in expansion for potential dual use is essential. Any type of transcontinental infrastructure built in 21st century should have major upgrades in mind to save on costs. Historically, once a major project begins, the tools for it itch to find use elsewhere as the pipe laying ships for Nord Stream already want to be used to lay pipes between Russian far east and South Korea and Japan. Initial investor capital creates a critical mass and a snowball effect for specialized machinery built for the original task. Governments and sovereign wealth funds are essential to create this type of ignition. Elites like Sarkozy, various think tanks, and The Pragmatist itself have already discussed an international Tobin tax to fund a truly global infrastructure development bank. It would rapidly help in what was previously thought as unapproachable "mega" projects such as terraforming the Sahara Desert, Gobi Desert, Central Asian Desert, etc.

2-3 trillion dollars (or 4% of world's GDP) to properly connect the far East and Western Europe will rapidly pay for itself through reversal of austerity mindsets, direct energy savings for the most populous landmass on earth, airplane construction cartels finally pushed towards development of cheap hypersonic freight and passenger jets, and greater lubrication for business than even economic and monetary unions. Even if European Union got its finances in order, it wouldn't function well if people still used horses and buggies. At the risk of the article sounding like another high speed commercial, there are also possibilities for passenger (and even freight trains!) that are always in motion and that unload their cargo onto another regional/city train system. Schemes like this can make high speed function smoothly with normal speed as well as allow experiments for non-stop high speed train systems of smaller size to operate within large urban areas.

As Immanuel Wallerstein's World Systems Theory and global climate change efforts (requiring world climate system approach) take hold in popular imagination, we'll see world systems finally applied to planetary transport and energy grids as we progress further.

Terraforming The Sahara Desert

click to enlarge

Sahara desert is almost the size of United States and Europe. Making it arable and livable is the first great infrastructure project of this century.



Funding! ("I'm sure the article proposes something neat but how will we pay for it?!")

Alright alright ye jaded reader, first things first. International Tobin Tax on financial transactions. When working with Tobin Tax rate of 0.1% (as suggested by Nicolas Sarkozy), plenty of funding becomes available for megaprojects, especially those that are fundamentally transnational in nature. Overall amount of financial transactions has steadily been rising to be 70 times the official global GDP ($ 63.12 trillion in 2010). This allows a United Nations body receiving the tax to collect $4.5 trillion annually. That's substantially more than say, nominal GDP of Germany ($3.6 trillion) and the number will increase if Asian financial centers continue to expand to accommodate neighboring growth and to compete with London.

Transforming 9,400,000 sq miles of Sahara desert will increase world's agriculture capable land by 20% and arable land by 70% (if taken to that level). Benefits of terraforming this particular region include:

1) Promoting regional and global cooperation. Helping narrow the Arab North African and Black Central African geographic, cultural, and economic divide. Creating a breadbasket to be shared by over 10 large countries previously polarized by this divide. Thus...

2) Helping consolidate African Union as a political and economic block. Thus...

3) Allowing African Union to become a powerful pole in a multipolar world. A pole that is able to sustain its own population (which is set to double) and to be in a better negotiating position when exchanging natural resources for advanced machinery from other continental unions.  And of course...

4) Wiping out hunger close to its source and creating food export potential for nearby Indian Subcontinent and parts of Asia. Allowing more land to accommodate continent's industrialization and population rise that comes with it. Thus ultimately...

5) Lowering chances of major regional or global wars, reducing chances of imperialism 2.0 on African soil, and creating additional mechanisms necessary for some form planetary governance (that finally brings about world peace and significant reduction in weapon systems expenditures).

Global Political Feasibility

Pushing for a creation of global Tobin Tax (or any transnational tax) collecting body in the UN security council has primarily Britain as an obstacle. Britain has historically relied upon financial parasitism and used various economic and physical pressures against societies that attempt rapid infrastructural development. Small financial centers like Singapore can be browbeat into compliance via combined pressure of the Security Council. Britain can be pressured by making it clear that its soft power projection ability will be severely damaged for decades to come if it obstructs life saving funding mechanisms for transnational projects. It is way past time for majority of the world's population to make it clear to London that it can no longer defy major developmental powers without consequences. Of course Britain, being militarily occupied by United States, can also be pressured in more crude 20th century ways. At the very least, Britain needs to agree to not interfere in transnational infrastructure projects.

Tobin Tax has a more "volunteer" feel to it as opposed to funding global infrastructure projects via direct income taxation by state governments. The popular mood in post financial crash Western world will also increasingly allow for it. That is especially true if the sheer amounts that can be collected are explained by heads of key states. In elite priming magazines like Foreign Affairs we already see a major shift towards open mindedness concerning global experimentation. Some recent examples of mainstream suggestions are global debt jubilee for first world and a call for a hybrid economic post-liberal system (made by Francis Fukuyama of all people). In their desperation to reverse decline, create domestic jobs, and wrestle some leadership from Beijng and Moscow, elites in DC, London, and Paris should be more open towards terraforming. Their countries have the best technologies and talent for it. It also allows them to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to all the incessant harping of global warming.

Even a partial planetary funding mechanism for arable land increase will find eager sponsors in New Dehli and Beijing. Chinese government is already beginning to implement decades long North to South river reversal project as well as efforts to stop and reverse the spread of the Gobi desert. They will have the mass workforce, expertise (quantitative edge versus Western qualitative), and machinery to contribute in Africa for resource swaps. India's interests in helping construct a breadbasket in the Sahara is self explanatory.

Regional Political and Physical Feasibility

Sahara desert region has the least amount of "not in my back yard" mentality, the least amount of people living in the desert's overall periphery, and less potential for great power rivalry hampering the terraforming efforts (as opposed to say, Saudi or Iranian deserts or the Central Asian plains by the Aral Sea). The nation states touching the desert are generally poorly armed and can be collectively pressured to cooperate with sufficient incentives (unfortunately appeals to wipe out hunger on the continent don't work that well). Over 25 countries are directly affected by the Sahara question. Once the process begins, Sub-Saharan African elites may begin to take over and get creative with it (possibly partially being inspired by the way South American societies are collectively getting out from beneath the USA boot.) Nearly double digit GDP growth in many African states over the last decade helps in this regard.

click to enlarge

Governments of North Sudan, Egypt, and Algeria will require projects to keep their youthful populations occupied and will get on board with breadbasketization of their back yards (even if UN/China/India require a certain long term agricultural quota promise in return for the investment funds allocated). Nigeria, the continent's most populous country and a sort of regional superpower, has a chance to really shine as well. The new Libya perhaps has the greatest amount to contribute with its experience of building world class Great Manmade River.

Southern Europe (France/Italy in particular) have an interest in a stable expanding North Africa that provides a market and corporate opportunities rather than refugees and illegal migrants. France will be looking for ways to expand its influence/leadership into the area to compensate for Germany's present and future expansion of influence/leadership in central Europe. It will be proper since Sarkozy was the first Western world leader to talk about the sheer possibilities of global Tobin Tax.

Process (steps should be conducted simultaneously)

1) Arresting the spread of the Sahara by combining and massively augmenting local transnational projects already in process. Even a sliver of Tobin Tax money can dramatically speed up the process of drawing a permanent line in the sand (ha ha) by bringing world class technical personnel, equipment, and desert coordination. This would be the fight against the 1930s Dust Bowl on steroids. Thousands of kilometers of trees (and possibly genetically engineered specialized vegetation) and bacteria hardened dunes  will create a permanent border.

2) Creating ocean fed artificial great lakes (think Lake Nasser supersized) at the furthest extent of sea level parity ground. This will feed rain clouds that travel deeper into the Sahara.

3) Connecting fresh water bodies of Lake Nasser and Lake Chad by a canal to improve economic communication within eastern Sahara region and to bring economic development closer to terraforming zones. The task itself it just 4-5 times the scale of Erie Canal undertaken in early 19th century. Additionally there must be proper understanding and measurement of the enormous quantity of water under the Sahara and making use of it to supply working settlements in Northeastern Sahara.

4) Making use of bacterial dune hardening as canal and artificial lake "edges" to protect new construction from sand and to prevent sand storm formation. Only a fifth of the Sahara has sand dune formation problem and it can be decisively solved via mathematical "cutting" in proper locations. Making use of the Niger river to feed a series of artificial lakes as well in western parts of the desert.

6) Mass introduction of hardy species, fungi, and plants into reclaimed areas to create new ecologies.

The first stages can be summarized as stopping, partially reversing, cutting up, and making Sahara psychologically and physically manageable to humanity. Stages after that will require mass produced small fission reactors to power human advance towards the Tibesti Mountains.

PS: The word terraforming is more marketable than geoforming or geoengineering as it touches on "space race on earth" concept mentioned in the previous article.

Politics in the Age of Technology Induced Social Fragmentation

Most of world's people culturally live in different time periods ranging from 1820s to 1970s (Western time). This should be taken into account in international relations to avoid conflict and to speed up transnational construction projects.




When forging political coalitions to push through great infrastructure projects in the near future, we need to take into account continued rapid acceleration of two opposing social trends:

 
Trend A: Continued disintegration of unitary mass culture.

Mass culture was previously spread among the majority by top down mediums like television/newspapers or concepts like religion/geographic nationalism. As the demographic still affected by these mediums and concepts gets older and/or poorer, mass culture will become increasingly peculiar and less unifying for the whole population. In a way, that is worrying since the glue holding the diverse personality types will really only continue to exist among the diminishing baby boomer block.

Horizontal Internet communication allows the diverse rich spectrum of human breeds to not only find those similar to themselves but also to only communicate and interact (socially polarize) among those like themselves. Thus we see emergence of micronations and tribes within these micronations to a level unseen before. This explains why there is greater amount of difference within Millennial generation than there is between Millennials and Boomers. We see such technology enabled socially polarized clusters reflected in rising acuteness of various movements (libertarians, atheists, etc). There is little to dampen the fervor of these micronations since social media and search engines increasingly cater to people's informational preferences thus isolating, reaffirming, and making them more "acute" by the day. All of this of course was said when newspapers, television, and radio came into being since people could select among the channels, stations, or papers. Horizontal, socially emergent, bottom up, and cheaply widespread nature of the Internet is a qualitative step above these past mediums. There is possibility of major disruptions comparable to immediate post-Guttenberg press period.

At the very minimum, a cutting edge hybrid of proportional representation and direct Internet enabled democracy will need to be provided so at least the major personality clusters (SJs, SPs, NTs, NFs) can have political parties to represent their sensibilities. However, it is not sufficient to just provide the tools for these social clusters, tools that allow a political release valve for their feelings and energies. We need to start thinking of a unifying strategy and platform to prevent major paralysis stemming from intergenerational bias, intercultural bias, and particularly 21st century biases (micronationalism versus globalism and "inter-era bias"[see below]).


In the Western world, the disintegrative trend has started among the elites many decades ago, moved on to the professional upper middle classes in the 1960s, and is finally reaching majority of the population. The process of atomization and cultural disintegration described above is rolling like an accelerating wave from most culturally developed countries to all areas of the world. Four decades ago, Alvin Toffler's Future Shock and Between Two Ages made it clear that world's population lives in overlapping "eras" (preindustrial, industrial, post-industrial, technocratic [post-capitalist]).

One could be upper middle class in Nigeria living in industrial period culturally reminiscent of America in the 1840s, one could be lower class in Berlin living in early technocratic period, one could be an Afghan elite living in a pre-industrial stifling society, one could be a rural educated kid in Bahrain independently discovering the values of the hippy movement of 1960s America, etc. Russian Federation for instance, displays many cultural tendencies of late 1940s early 1950s USA. The overlaps and permutations are endless and there is great urgency to avoid mass psychological disturbances and violent frictions from reactionary conservative movements.

It is the shared responsibility of the trend setting Millennials at "ground zero" of cultural atomization (North America) to figure out how to lead productively in the informational spheres like TedTalks, documentaries, conferences, and newest mass media. With their proper informational leadership, they can show how to go forward as a global society without becoming stifling or reactionary.

Trend B: Continued increase in popular desire for more collectivism and community among those who already spent years living in very fragmented atomized societies.

An example of this was seen in the manufactured "Reagan revolution". As minority of the population (Ivy Leaguers who discovered their ego and hedonistic potential that comes with it) grew tired of the rest of society not catching up with them and the loneliness that comes with it, they chose to reabsorb themselves into a new form of corporate nationalism (that emphasized endless individual material expansion and dropped the need for collective sacrifice of prior exhausted FDRist nationalism). In the years ahead, we will see top down and bottom up calls for a still newer nationalisms that try to remedy mistakes of the American experience of both 1930s-1970s period and unfortunate 1980s-2008 period.

One possible solution and an inverse of Reaganism may be material nationalism (such as communal claim to land and key natural resources within nation states), physiological nationalism ("we are all human! and no matter how diverse got common physical needs!"), psychological nationalism ("we got common emotional needs!") and a mix of all 3. At the same time, the middle classes will insist on continued room to build hyper individualism (if desired) and further personal autonomy in psychological, interpersonal, and material realm (example: perhaps the people collectively own the land but you own your own unique shelter and property on this land).

It is possible that the educated intuitive suburban youth in the Western world will continue to further individualize and create ever more acute microtribes indefinitely but the shared viral experience of global information will increasingly provide a sense of a real global community and desire to be part of it somehow.


Reconciling the Trends Politically

At first it seems that we have a recipe for endless conflict. First, the perpetual exponentially increasing friction within Trend A. Then the clashing of Trends A and B as some more backward segments of global intelligentsia strive to break free of mass community and older nationalisms while cutting edge intelligentsia tries to reassert some new postmodern community and high tech inclusive nationalisms.

Just as hippies in say, Indonesia, sell out and discover their own version of Reaganism, all of a sudden they see a trend coming their way from Japan that puts everything into question once more. Most human personality types can only psychologically handle and absorb so many paradigm shifts and trends in their lifetime (much less a decade).

This is why political platforms of the near future should be as broad and deep as possible. The material, psychological, and physiological nationalisms mentioned previously can be scaled up to the whole globe or scaled down to a small city. Lets review the MPP:

Material: (Land and key resources like minerals in the land are our collective commons and are to be managed by us as we democratically see fit)

Psychological: (We are all humans and have commonalities like need for self-esteem, autonomy, love, influence, etc. And these desires will be provided for via proper political representation and management of the collective commons)


Physiological: (We are all humans and have commonalities like need for water, food, shelter, and some material matter to manipulate with tools, turn into tools, etc. And these desires will be provided for via proper political representation and management of the collective commons)

These three obviously blend together and play off each other and are broad and deep enough to provide a common political platform for a majority of human personality clusters. A society can safely be federal, unitary, decentralized, part of a supranational unit, diverse, homogeneous, etc as long as these three nationalisms are emphasized politically. Cultural, ethnic, and value nationalisms will still exist and play a major role but unlike MPP they provide for major source of unhealthy friction. De-emphasizing them will be a major challenge and calling for word's elites in the decades to come (just as de-emphasizing and separating religion and state was for elites in centuries prior).


As could be guessed, mass infrastructure development is to play a major role in putting MPP to the forefront of popular attention and to make MPP possible. In essence, to create a new type of global "glue" that would hopefully go a long way to neutralize the frictions of Trend A and frictions between Trend A and B and to put the energy generated by these frictions towards productive use.

Although 21st century will be marked by top down elite emphasis on collaboration and cooperation, even competition can still be allowed to co-exist when it comes to infrastructural achievement. This would sublimate the psychological tendencies of more aggressive human personality clusters into a socially healthy mass effort. A way to think of this is a sort of "space race" right here on earth (example: "we beat them in building this amount of fourth generation vertical farm complexes!"). Ethnic, cultural, intergenerational, and inter-era differences will still manifest themselves in the types of infrastructure projects that communities build. And of course, in an awful potentiality of resource wars. More on that in a future article. Resource wars are serious business.

Super Summary: Infrastructure as key word and mantra so we don't forget why civilization is possible at all

Infrastructuralist focus is needed to make 3 new forms of healthier scalable 21st century unifying nationalisms possible (MPP). Infrastructure itself is scalable and can range from microcomunity level to planetary level. Infrastructure focus redirects the friction within Trend A and friction between Trends A and B towards productive efforts. Infrastructure pushes towards more informational sharing and friendly cooperation between communities that operate on different political scales and whose people live in different cultural "time periods".

Infrastructure sets short, medium, and long term national goals that pushes cooperation between different personality clusters and creates unity among them that doesn't stifle them on a personal emotional level. Having and building the means towards more energy, food, shelter, and resources is less disagreeable than national goals stemming from one dominant ethnic or cultural faction. In order for infrastructural focus to be had at all, short, medium, and long term goals need to be quantified and put out for the public to manage (example: quadrupling arable land within 20 years, eliminating a certain desert within 10 years, etc).

Finally, for these goals to be properly decided on and implemented, a major technocratic reform towards a more advanced proportional representation and direct democratic hybrid political system is to be undertaken.

Ideology Causes Societal Stagnation

When the ruling 20% of the population (NTs/NFs) overwhelmingly relies on heuristics and ideological shortcuts, the resulting storm of cognitive laziness rots society from the top down. Progress in the 21st Century will require development of a guiding yet non-ideological framework




Before diving into construction possibilities of such a framework, a few words about why this blog is titled The Pragmatist. The name was selected to be in stark opposition to the widely hated The Economist ("free" trade/ neoliberal claptrap/ capitalist propaganda arm of the British intelligence). The Economist has done more harm via cognitive pollution of world's elites than most state propaganda arms can ever aspire to. Countless countries were left in ruins by the sort of rigid one dimensional Trotskyist-esque globalization peddling that a pretentious rag like The Economist provides.

A silver lining to this was that The Economist's underlining assumption (that a certain type of development is the best) has stagnated jolly old England via its rulers. This is similar to the way the Chinese empire was stagnated by rigid adherence to traditionalist Confucian train of thought in the 19th century. If Chinese elites of old had a similar magazine, say The Confucianist, it would undoubtedly deal with alternative modes of development with the same contempt and dismissive patronizing attitude. Just like their Chinese brethren before the Opium Wars, Anglo elites of today consider the rest of the world to be barbarian even if these barbarians are developing more advanced technology and infrastructure. They may not be into the beauty of calligraphy but the various non-development obsessions (and thus unbecoming of ruling elites) are eerily similar.

Why would this stagnation of the English speaking world be a blessing in disguise? For starters, from a global perspective, the socioeconomic decline of United States and United Kingdom will do as much to discredit capitalism as the decline of Soviet Union did to discredit communism. Thus we will finally exit the era of great ideological jihads that marked much of the 20th century. This will seem incredibly unfair to many in the Western world who will think the decline occurred because some idealized branch of capitalism in their heads was not adhered to enough. They have their counterparts in the former Soviet space. For majority of humanity at large however, it will mean mental liberation from rigid "isms". Failure of US will trigger bitter factional struggles in the cities of Berlin, Paris, Moscow, Tokyo, New Delhi and Beijing. It will mimic similar struggles after Soviet collapse and the tidal wave of social change will be tremendous.

In fact, because both superpowers were so intertwined with the ideological systems they mouthed, the discrediting of capitalism will usher in greater change than discrediting of Soviet communism. There will be nothing to fall back on in the minds of both ruling elites and everyday thinking peoples of the world. Chinese and Russian leaderships of today are pragmatic and heterodox yet they still have FDR's social democratic industrial capitalism embedded in the back of their consciousness. China will not be able to fill the void left by US in the minds of world's elites the way US filled the void of SU.

[Note: Democracy will not be similarly discredited since the financial/corporate oligarchies in UK and US provide far less democratic input than the oligarchies of continental Europe. US doesn't have the very basic minimum democratic principle of proportional representation allowing more than two parties. UK's horrid non-inclusive first-past-the-post system makes a mockery of allowing political competition. Lack of democratic input will be singled out by future researchers as the main structural reason why the Anglo kleptocracies reached the levels of irreversible stagnation that they had.]

Well that was more than a few words but The Economist is the devil, it needed to be said. The point is that human intelligentsia wont be free to develop the rest of the herd with ideological "isms" lurking to unconsciously frame all perception. It appears that left brainers are more prone to adapting "ism" systems. That is unfortunate since they tend to be overly represented at the top of various ruling hierarchies.

The more one "educates" oneself about his or her ideology the more neural connections are created within the brain, making it easier to retrieve data. Since left brainers have more sequential processing than right brainers, their brains get the most easily reshaped by system based socioeconomic thought. In other words they build a sort of a neural muscle that aids in spouting one dimensional propaganda. Similar to an athlete just working out one muscle group while letting the rest of the body atrophy. Often having such a brain circuit devoted to a an "ism" feels empowering since:

1) Most of the population (80% who aren't NT/NF) haven't delved into internalizing a system to such an extent. They think anybody with an elaborate enough system must be an expert
2) Half of the intelligentsia (NFPs/NTPs) are right brain dominant and sample data from across a variety of systems and experiences. Their style of conversation relies on drawing horizontally from a wide range of fields. To a left brainer system peddler it would appear that they are dodging the conversation.

In any event, a person deep into system based ideological thinking is prone to debate mode of conversation rather than mutually beneficial discussion where tangible learning can occur. A sort of an interpersonal cold war mentally becomes ever present. An "us versus them" dynamic develops within the intelligentsia. We saw where that leads entire societies.

Previously I touched upon the criteria by which future leaderships will be judged:

1) preservation/expansion of human autonomy
2) speed in construction of energy plants needed for continental infrastructure projects in irrigation, transport, farming, etc.

Providing more infrastructure can never truly become an ideology any more than providing more water and food can be an ideology. If you talk to anybody whose cognitive processes are deeply caged by an "ism", it is highly unlikely that they'll mention the result of less shelter, food, water, energy as the benefit of their ideology. And of course minority death cults can be readily recognized and dismissed out of hand (this unfortunately includes some "post-industrialist" factions of the green movement). Thus we have infrastructure as our first guiding point that is flexible enough depending on the needs of a particular region/climate.

What the ideologues of course differ on is how to get to more infrastructure for humanity. We can't simply use the process of elimination of what's easier in terms of how to proceed. This may open the door to tyrannical political suggestions. Yet how do we make the above mentioned preservation/expansion of human autonomy a guiding point without it becoming a rigid "ism"?

This is a complex topic that I'll attempt to tackle in the next article. Obviously provision of shelter/food/energy and giving more cutting edge democratic proportional representation builds autonomy of the individual. Yet we can't just say "our guiding point should be infrastructure and we should build more infrastructure and build it quicker in a way that keeps expanding the autonomy of all individuals (second guiding point)". Although it may appear as if there are no trade offs with our guiding points, many political factions can easily spot trade offs that can occur (sacrificing humans in name of infrastructure construction or sacrificing infrastructure construction in the name of humans).

Therefore, the relationship between the guiding points needs to be very carefully developed to preemptively deflect accusations from ideologues of various stripes (namely libertarians and those who want to emulate Chinese dictatorship).

Mega Engineering and the Economy

Nature doesn't cut back during an economic depression. The idiocy of infrastructural austerity will remove humans from vast stretches of formerly inhabited territory.





It appears that Washington DC is waiting for a new Dust Bowl style event before pushing for mass scale infrastructure projects. Annually increasing water shortages in the southwest, flooding, and tornadoes remain an abstraction to these congress critter geriatrics. They forget that the only thing keeping our economy still functioning (in the face of mass scale looting, funding cuts, and inflationary policies) is the 1930s-1960s era dams, levees, bridges, etc. Would we consider a country like Saudi Arabia to have any economy without its irrigation, its water infrastructure, and its highways? Without constant and often accelerating human effort, the desert would reclaim the whole country. It is the same everywhere. If the current socioeconomic system doesn't quickly roll back and increasingly dominate the environment where the homo sapien dwells, then the socioeconomic system must be thrown into the dustbin of history.

United States still has a major trick up its sleeve, namely the most massive military industrial complex in the world. This enormous job creation behemoth has done a good job at keeping many domestic high tech factories, research labs, and assembly lines running. As I have written, rather than rapidly dismantling the military-industrial complex as many now want, we need to rapidly transform it to serve in the name of infrastructuralism, of physical nation building right here in North America. National guard and army corps of engineers are already often providing relief efforts during natural emergencies (inadvertently created by neoliberal "economic theorists".) We need to utilize the industrial capacity of the military to begin to mass manufacture tools, equipment, and advanced machinery needed to start reclaiming territory from mother nature and to fortify existing human habitats.

We should remember that FDR asked for emergency powers to begin putting large amounts of humans on the offensive against the elements. Quickly arranged industrial armies began to pro-actively open up entire regions to human settlement and development. In the process, a superpower economy was created. Modern technology and macro engineering allows us to make the efforts made in 1930s look like a beaver dam. iPads and social networking start ups on the other hand are a pleasant superficial distraction, not the basis of building tangible human power.

The future US president (or presidents depending on the country splitting or not due to living through a form of debt default) must put to use the technological knowhow accumulated from trillions of dollars spent on "defense"/empire. They must do so quickly to co-opt brain drain abroad and to prevent former defense contractor blue collars losing managerial skills.

We understand that mass amounts of energy will be required for this type of national rebirth. Energy difficulties and shortages will continue in the short term even if the government takes the necessary steps to nationalize key strategic industries (agriculture, mining, energy, transport, middlemen distributors like Wall-Mart, etc). Such nationalizations will make it easier to begin efforts to mass produce hundreds of small fission reactors which will be vital to the infrastructuralist thrust of the future. At the very least, the factories that assemble military vehicles should begin to work in concert with "government motors" (hur hur hur) to mass produce electric vehicles to be used in strategic sector logistics.

It is not enough to simply prevent a humanitarian catastrophe born out of higher prices for energy, inflation related loss of savings, and tinpot dictator wannabes like Scott Walker. It is not enough to prevent a scenario of millions of internally displaced people once gas goes over $200 a barrel, something that may occur even if food is distributed for free to all (since millions would need to drive to food distribution points, something harder to do with rationed gas).

A "reach for the stars" inspirational goal should be provided by a forward looking faction of the ruling elites to galvanize, focus, and concentrate efforts. Macro engineering provides such a vision. Chinese have already began a long term multi-generational effort to reclaim the deserts for human settlement. The final product will make the Three Gorge Dam look like a footstool in terms of human advancement. Both Russians and Americans have very similar continental scale irrigation projects already planned out and ready to go. Not only will efforts like American NAWAPA and Russian Northern River Reversal create dozens of millions of jobs and build powerful economies of the future, but they will greatly reduce this shameful bullying by nature. Humans will stand on their two feet again instead of cowering like rats before the elements.

It appears that millions of young nihilistic Americans are willing to do hard labor for basically free to "find themselves" and escape the humiliating and meaningless service sector drudgery of the dying capitalist world. Lets give these humans a rallying cry, something like "Screw the Cubicle!". I guarantee millions of volunteers would be found (plus there'd be lifetime stipend of food/shelter and retirement at 40). Once the economic crisis enters terminal velocity, real national or subnational leaders will emerge (who cant even be compared to the current mass murderer in chief).

Nevada desert can be turned into a lush forest and/or farmland. It is only a matter of exponential construction of fission/fusion/solar power sources and technology already in existence. If that is not inspirational, nothing is. Sahara and Gobi deserts are to follow.

"But.. but.. Colonizing the Western hemisphere is too expensive!! Colonizing Siberia is too expensive!! Erie canal is too expensive!! Suez and Panama canals are too expensive! Transcontinental and TransSiberian railroads are too expensive! Hoover dam is too expensive!! Man on the moon is too expensive! We want to live in cheap mud huts! Public education for all is too.. blah blah blah"

Such luddite human traitors always get silenced when their children are enjoying a brand new civilization (that grew out of seeds that turned out to be relatively cheap in the long term).

Fastest Train Lines in the World

In the spirit of the previous pro-infrastructure article, lets take a look at the best high speed train systems in the world. We'll go by the widely used definition of high speed as at least 200 kph/125 mph. The "best" is determined here by a combination of:

A) Average speed in between terminating points since the faster the distance covered, the more a train system cuts into air industry's profits. This in turn pushes airplane makers to conceptualize cheap travel by hypersonic passenger aircraft which in turn benefits humanity.

B) The distance that the high speed line covers since the longer the line, the bigger the project in terms of resources and parts and the more economies of scale are utilized. A society's commitment to triggering economies of scale for heavy industry shows its determination to improving the welfare of its citizens. Ultimately, going as big as possible with infrastructure projects (see Erie, Panama, Suez Canals and Transcontinental/Trans-Siberian railroads) is not just cheaper but creates mass employment (during transition to post-scarcity mechanization), rapidly stimulates real physical economy, and gives a super boost in wealth creation.

As such, these 3 lines satisfy the criteria for greatness:

1) Wuhan-Guangzhou High Speed Line (China)
(922 kilometers and longest in the world)

Fastest rail line in the world going an average of 194 miles per hour(313 km/h)! Think of the inefficiency and time spent going to/from airports. The waiting to get on the planes and scanned/handled like cattle or being stuck in car traffic interrupted by a maximum speed limit of 55 miles per hour. The Wuhan-Guangzhou line uses two trains: CRH2 and CRH3. It opened for business just a couple months ago so you're looking at the cutting edge conventional non-magnetic land transport in the world.

2) Paris/Lyon-Marselle/St Charles TGV High Speed Line (France)
(750 kilometers long)
(Average speed between end points is 250 km/h or 155 mph!)

France hasn't been idle. They have beat the Chinese in test run speed records (even if now recently second place in average speeds for daily use) and seem determined to become European leader in train infrastructure. They are definitely in a good geographically central position to link up Spain's and Germany's growing networks. All their investment in nuclear power (close to 80% of France is nuclear powered) only helped with these energy intensive projects.

3) Shin-Osaka - Hakata Line (Japan)
(554 kilometers long)
(Average speed between end points: 242 kph/150 mph!)

Japan's Nozomi Shinkansen continues to deliver with a respectable third place. Japan was one of the world's earliest innovators in high speed train technology and is now in the process of moving on to large scale MagLev. This society's territory is one of the best networked in the world and yes, the are heavy into nuclear power as only fission today can deliver the power for true citizen comfort and land travel affordability.

Most of the world's homo sapiens have seen trains like these in science fiction movies and it is hard to wrap one's head around the sheer speeds these land rockets bring. It was really mind blowing to find out that some Chinese airlines cut their fares up to 80% to compete with the newest lines. Looking at these heavy industry marvels (operating on just standard rail gauge!) gladdens the heart and shows that macro scale technological and social progress continues at least in some regions of the planet. Japanese and the French are edged out of the top rank for now since Chinese started building their networks later and thus had newer tech in mind and on hand. We can ignore the magnetic levitation trains at the moment because they are still used on relatively short routes from airports and such.

China now has the world's longest high speed train network at 3,300 kilometers of high speed track as a sum of a number of prominent lines. Japan (2,459 km), France (1,700 km), Germany (1,290 km ) and Spain (1,270 km) follow behind. If one looks at populations of these countries however, France dominates with about 38,000 citizens per kilometer of high speed line while China lags far behind with 400,000 citizens per kilometer. France if of course helped in this since it has the highest % of its energy derived from a modern indigenous nuclear power plant system (it is no wonder why neutral Switzerland and France's neighbor was chosen as the site for the world's biggest and most energy intensive supercollider). Nuclear power infrastructure always goes hand in hand with next generation transport systems.

Shockingly, India, Russia, Brazil, and United States do not have any high speed lines at all as one would expect from countries of such geographic and economic size. We can expect a massive wealth outflow from them in the near future as they try to catch up by buying foreign technical help and/or fleets of trains. Of course it is still rather silly to see engineering marvels on dingy normal rail.

It makes a lot more sense for societies that lag in high speed networks to go straight into MagLev and go into it big. Here is a glimpse of the future spanning entire continents (and yes freight train MagLev will make deliveries of heavy industry parts more efficient than ever):

Filthy 59th Street Lexington Subway Platforms Show Best Why American Civilization is Ending

An incredible third world experience at a widely used subway platform in the pride of enjoy of America that is midtown Manhattan. Come visit it and try to find one elsewhere in the world that is worse.

Nothing illustrates the economic and moral bankruptcy of the country that calls itself a superpower better than the midtown Manhattan subway complex on Lexington avenue. I recently had the misfortune to find myself there after a light rain. Above the station, the area is filled with rather impressive corporate high rise structures and large window stores. The stores seem to be large corporate middlemen chains that satisfy American desire for goods that their economic/political system is unable to provide. They link foreign manufacturers with shoppers eager to try on things made in Italy, China, and even Malaysia. These large open chains are staffed with local peoples such as minorities living on the outskirts of New York and white college graduates unable to find employment in their field. But that's a story for another day. I am mentioning the flashy above ground consumer bazaars to provide a contrast to what goes on underground. After all, midtown Manhattan is not only one of the supposedly most sophisticated areas of American civilization but one of the wealthiest to live in

I descend about 2 floors down and find myself on a platform where local trains stop. The air got noticeably stuffier and less pleasant. I see that the instead of columns going to the ceiling there are just steel beams that are just occasionally recoated with paint. I am distracted however and find that I am on the wrong platform for the uptown headed train. I find an underpass and go through it. The underpass is rather rather narrow and filthy. There's various dirty doors on each side. If somebody was shown a picture of such a passage, they would think they are looking at a hallway of a third world local holding prison. It definitely had an oppressive yellowish atmosphere of a structure where the authorities don't care if its underfunded since the people using it don't matter. Considering it's just a quick underpass I really didn't give it much thought as I emerged on the other side.

Missing an uptown local train leaving the station as a mob of people squeezed into it with great urgency, I decided to try my luck with the uptown express train. I followed the sign leading to its stairwell. It turned out that the express platform is much deeper underground (compared to the cheap trench construction American standard) and even has an escalator. Escalators are absent on most other stations throughout the city and even this seemingly deep tunnel only had one up escalator. However, there do seem to be decrepit elevators at some points for pregnant women, those with baby carriages, and the elderly. As I descended, the air got more oppressive and I began to feel this urge to almost go back up due to the increasingly stuffiness and dankness around me. I saw people begin to ride the escalator from below. Great, another train missed. That gave me a great educational opportunity to observe what lay ahead of me in great detail.

As I exit on the uptown express platform, the first thing that strikes my eye is how low the ceilings are. They are already low as a rule of thumb in NYC, but this deepest station takes the cake. As I look on what is just a few feet above me, I see brown rust and grime stretching in all directions covering everything. Huge protruding paint flakes covered with layers of industrial dust are everywhere and are rather uniform. It doesn't appear to be just one patch but every single bit of the ceiling.

It then occurred to me that the garbage and dirt above me is not an isolated incident or result of some construction project. It appeared to have been the NORMAL state of the platform. Unlike the thick steel beams every few meters, authorities didn't care enough or didn't have the funds to pay anybody to rip off the flakes and throw some paint on the ceiling. Such state of disrepair perhaps can be expected in underground sewage systems, old Soviet factories, or unused World War 2 bunker hallways and such. It was incredible sight to see at a mass transit hub. My entire attention was transfixed on the dark flaky garbage colored ceiling. The sheer unpleasantness of it was mesmerizing since it was everywhere without contrast to "repaired" patches or something resembling a ceiling of an often used complex. I thought about how very tall tourists would literally be touching their heads to filth.

My gaze slowly drifted down to the metal wall separating the two train tracks. The uneven rust and thick cover of industrial dust did not end. Visualize one of the large machines working at a landfill to scoop or bulldoze the garbage and dirt. The texture and color of both the ceiling and separator walls was same as the bulldozer's unwashed blade. It had similar clumps of unidentifiable matter stuck on to it. If one takes into account the floor and track (to which I'll get to in a moment), over 75% of the surface at a Manhattan midtown subway station was the same as one within a garbage compactor.

Numbly I turn my attention down and see water and garbage.

No I am not in Mumbai, Tbilisi, or Mexico City. This is an important city in United States and home to thousands of millionaires. There were literally pools of water and piles of garbage a couple yards away from me alongside the entire length of the visible train tracks. There was probably more water there than usual because of the rain but I have come across subway stations where water is always present regardless of conditions outside. I thought to myself that at least there's no water dripping onto the platform itself. As I walked further where there was a cluster of waiting people, there was liquid dripping from some source in the ceiling onto the waiting area. The ghastly visual was complete with a large crushed cockroach by the stairwell opening and a rat that scurried amidst the garbage and water bottles by the tracks. Some of the water bottles in question had such a thick layer of industrial dirt on them and seemed to be so embedded into the ground to suggest possibility of weeks or even months of being there.

What brought a nauseating feeling was not the fact of being in a dungeon the interior of which is not even suited for an overcrowded prison in Pakistan or Iran. It was the fact that such a garbage filled filthy dungeon is totally accepted by millions of transit users in one of the richest cities of a supposed superpower. Millions of people spend thousands of hours of their life waiting down there and enjoying the scenery with all of their 5 senses. I had a strong urge to videotape and take photographs of these scenes just in case they get closed down tomorrow because of some public health decree. Of course they wont disappear since they've been getting slightly more filthy every year due to continual fiscal situation within NYC governance. And then an absurd realization came over me that if people were to stand with their gaping mouths while taking many pictures, they could theoretically get stopped by the authorities. I am not sure whether post-911 camera photography ban is still in place but the mere legalistic possibility added to the absurdity.

The people at the platform were not he happiest looking bunch. Their facial expressions were those of downright misery and hopelessness. There was some unfriendly anger scattered on the faces of the business suit wearing whites in their 30s, but most in the waiting cluster had a resigned unhappy look. Importance of portable music is clearly on display here. It is amazing that residents of New York City (city that the world thinks itself very familiar with from endless movies and overfly shots of the skyscrapers) could come to a point where they accept the squalor of their infrastructure. Their faces tell that they feel it, are subconsciously unnerved by it, but have trained to suppress it and become resigned. Some individuals, finding nothing pleasant to look at, fidgeted and paced while occasionally leaning to look for the train. There were no overhanging electronic screens like in London (which doesn't have the best subway in the world mind you) to notify when the next train is coming or when any trains are coming. It seemed we've spent a long time down there but it was just a few minutes.

It's a wonder that the MTA transit strikes don't happen more often considering the average salary of about 50 grand for those toiling for years in the garbage and rodent filled darkness. Perhaps the threats of fining a million dollar per day against the unions and other Giuliani era tactics work after all.

The train that arrived was the new silver model used on the green line. It was already caked with splotches of brown dirt and it seemed unthinkable that there could be an older model in its place. Of course most NYC trains are indeed the older dimmer lit models used more often to service connections to minority neighborhoods. Those trains don't have the cutting edge technology of telling you what time it is or what the next stop is without the occasional garbled barking from the wired audio. The people on the train weren't much happier and greeted the newcomers with looks of downright hostility. The whole miserable experience was only ended with climbing out into the rainy street outside.

No words can describe the platform in question adequately. Please, whenever you happen to be in NYC, visit the 59th Street Lexington green line uptown express waiting area and see for yourself. It is the best illustration of the infrastructural rot found throughout the whole organism that is United States. Don't mind the surface coating of middlemen stores stuffed with products produced by foreign factories. Get underground since that's the real America. If midtown Manhattan station has the lowest functional minimum of funding and maintenance (while serving millions of residents and serving as window to the world for millions of tourists), what hope for livability do cities like Detroit have? Below is a picture that is not as bad as the station I described but gives a taste for the average quality found elsewhere in the New York system.