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this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2025
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What's it with these railway based China propaganda posts?
Yes the US sucks.
Yes you can get a lot done in a totalitarian system.
But: China also sucks.
Other democratic countries all manage to have perfectly fine rail systems, it's not solely the domain of totalitarian governments- just functioning governments.
Much like healthcare, it's literally just the US government that fucks it up.
For those who want to go the "well Europe/Japan/Korea/China/etc had the advantage of being bombed flat in various wars which made rebuilding for rail easier", we STILL have plenty of unused, unmaintained rail in the US. We could do this. Hell, you wanna solve unemployment numbers going up? Public works to rehab the right-of-ways that the big companies aren't using, rehab the rails they ARE using, and suddenly we can AT LEAST enable 100mph trains across the country in less than a decade, and probably bring back passenger rail if we wanted to invest in more rolling stock.
Of course, this means we'd have to lift the steel tariff. And rehab steel mills. And also nationalize good portions of the railway (I'd suggest the entire rail network, and lease usage to the freight companies).
A really sad fact is that rail lines used to connect even the most rural of communities. Many cities removed rail lines to put in roadways.
You can still find rails to a lot of farms in Idaho because that's how produce used to be shipped.
The big rail companies are a major reason rail sucks in the US. They were given the land for their lines nearly for free with the promise they'd provide public transit. Well, they stopped that. So the US created Amtrak to relieve them of the obligation of public transit with the promise that Amtrak trains would get priority. Well they constantly break that law which makes Amtrak suck with constant delays.
Heck, these companies are at least supposed to be in charge of maintaining the lines, and they don't do that either. The US has a crazy number of derailments and a big reason for some of them is that the tracks receive little maintenance.
These are still multi billion dollar companies and they do what all giant companies do and nickel/dime everything.
It's actually worse than that- amtrak was a reagan thing, which was meant to intentionally fail so they could give the passenger rail lines to big freight companies as well.
It was literally meant to fail so they could privatize it, but Amtrak pulled off a miracle. Amtrak is actually really, really good in places they can own their own rail- it's why they're really not allowed to build or own their own rail anymore.
There's a stark difference between Chinese propaganda and information about positive things in China.
You can post about good aspects of the Chinese society without mentioning the government, let alone glorifying it. Same goes for the USA. If I post that I like American national parks, does that constitute American propaganda? Are we only allowed to hate on those two countries?
Just because the Chinese model is incompatible with the European or American ones, doesn't mean there's nothing we can learn from it.
Except hostile architecture exists in China, too, so it is actually propaganda..
Actually, yes. Fuck Yellowstone and fuck Yogi the Bear. I'm gonna go ahead and hate everything in the US and everything in China. EU rules, other places drool! Downvote me if and you dare! I've got a baguette and I'm not afraid to use it!
His name is Yogi Bear, not Yogi the Bear
You don't have to be authoritarian to accomplish these things. Even the US built some truly amazing infrastructure very quickly following WW2. They just chose to make it all car based. It was impressive from an engineering perspective, but not very smart
Yeah. Can we take Japan as an example perhaps? They've got excellent high speed rail too. Also better urban planning in general.
In Fact, China uses the same kind of hostile architecture:
Cope
Right? There are other examples.
Because Americans have been complaining "but America is big" when you try to compare other countries, so an example for a equivalent science should be used. Also another notable thing with China is their development is recent enough to show that it's never too late to start the change.
People moaning about tankie propaganda are missing the point that it’s not about how amazing China is, it’s about how American politicians are letting their people down.
The “because totalitarianism” argument is a non-starter - plenty of functioning democracies have built effective high speed rail. China is being given as an example because they’re a similar size while having much less money; it’s a counter to the “we’re too big” excuses usually made for why small European and SEA countries are also able to do it.
I feel like you can make the point without felating dictatorships and making the false statement that they don't do the same shit.
Propaganda doesn't mean false, it's used to manipulate public opinion whether true or false.
So, was this used to manipulate public opinion? I dunno, kinda
If it'll manipulate public opinion into demanding good public transport then great.
This example is also false because China also employs hostile architecture. Hell, they manufacture the stuff for the US.
Incorrect! You see, there was no example offered by me that China does or does not employ hostile architecture, not even the slightest hint of implication.
Why bring up a bad thing thats true for both countries and leave one of them out?
Guangzhou, China
Please note that this is not my post and I did not agree that this claim was even accurate, I have zero idea as to the accuracy of that photo, and it doesn't matter, as both claims and more can all be "propaganda"
It doesn't need to be your post to answer that question. The reason why they would do that is because this is blatant propoganda, no need to be on the fence about it.
How does the USA have immense road infrastructure then?