Tbh i just took it as a chance to talk about trains, not so much with the intent to correct you. Maybe someone would be wondering about it, you know ? I didn’t mean to come off as argumentative with you.

Hopefully, the European powers that be will start realizing that Israel isn’t a part of us and we don’t want that Zionist hatred on our streets. Maybe leave it in Israel next time and behave in a civilized manner. Honestly, i don’t want to see football with them or Eurovision with them either.

I’d be ashamed every day if i had to wake up as an Israeli. What a disgrace of a people. Judaism will always have a place in modern Europe but anti Palestinian sentiment does not and i wonder how much longer until both the powers that be and the international community at large realizes European leadership and the European people are not of the same mind when it comes to Israel.

they don’t use those lines for freight (I thought they may).

They won’t use the bullet train lines for freight.

I don’t know why OP is getting downvoted. This comment is correct. The economies of freight on rails are predicated on scale. The bigger the train, the better. It only requires a few locomotives that have the biggest maintenance costs. Cars are unpowered and require less maintenance. A train can transport thousands of tons. An average mid-size train in Europe would carry about 2000 tonnes of freight.

To add an electric motor per ton of cargo transported (as detailed in the article) adds an excessive amount of overhead costs to the cargo transported, in upfront costs, maintenance and environmental impact, making it less competitive than a regular freight line. With the space of the same infrastructure and probably the same investment, you could instead run a freight line, especially considering the distance between Osaka and Tokyo. Over time, the freight line wins out over the individual one ton self-propelled cargo wagons. Remember, every propulsion system breaks down and requires new parts and fixing. The more of them there are, the more complex your transportation system becomes, thus more expensive. An equivalent to a mid sized freight train in pods would require about 2000 electric motors, as opposed to one or two dedicated electrical locomotives.

They should instead improve the trains to be able to run mostly automated. This requires track sensors and advanced signaling.

They won’t. Anything on a bullet train line needs to go at a speed of a bullet train. If it goes slower, it slows down the bullet trains on the line.

Cargo does not require bullet train speeds, only passengers do. The added expense does not translate to a better service. Cargo is not time sensitive like people are, so usually freight trains go under 100 km/h. This requires a whole lot less infrastructure and a whole cheaper locomotives and wagon compositions, as locomotives and wagons that go faster are more expensive and require more maintenance.

No, i meant field medic. As in, giving first aid in helicopters or trucks as they drive away ferrying the wounded from the front lines, brought by their comrades. These are jobs that traditionally they don’t give to women. They put women in the hospitals on the back and use men in the transportation and first aid, although sometimes women do volunteer to do this job like it happened in Ukraine.

As for a mechanic, if you’re fixing an anti air system or a tank, you’re pretty much next to the frontlines. You’re just not shooting at the enemy, but you’re still shot at by artillery or missiles. Combat engineers would be shooting at the enemy, but maintenance personnel are not. Those are specialized military personnel, not draftees. They’re not deployed to push a frontline or defend a position, so they’re not really combat roles. Although I’m not completely sure about it and if someone knows more about this than me, I’d sure like to learn about it.

Being in medical doesn’t necessarily mean you will be taking care of shredded soldiers. There’s tons of jobs in medical, such as ressuply of medicine cabinets, transportation of medical equipment to and from medical rooms, transportation of sick people in medical beds, post operation medicine, feeding and bathing soldiers, etc. If you’ve got a weak stomach, they don’t want to put you in a position where you would pass out, then they have to take care of you too. But i can appreciate that it’s hard on women too, of course. Nobody deserves the misery that war brings.

When you’re drafted though, you’re screwed whether you’re a man or a woman. My father volunteered when my country was at war and they started drafting people so he could avoid the frontlines and got a real nice job working in long range radar maintenance. I think I’d probably do the same if i were in that position. You get to pick where you go if you volunteer.

Any person who, on grounds of conscience, refuses to render military service involving the use of arms may be required to perform alternative service.

So men can refuse service at arms, but they can’t refuse service, so how is that better ? Either way you’re still drafted into war. Possibly into medical service as well. So it’s not harsher, it’s the same or worse, because you could be drafted to maintenance near the front lines, whereas medical is usually a ways back. Or as a woman you could volunteer to maintenance, logistics or recruitment before being drafted, then you’re not forced into medical. You’re likely not even put near the front lines as a woman.

So your statement that it is harsher on women is not correct. It’s actually quite insensitive for the men who die in the front lines for the country.

You mentioned popcorn lung 3 times already and i did look it up and i think you don’t understand what popcorn lung is, so i will write it for whoever is reading because i didn’t know either.

Popcorn lung is a colloquialism for an illness named bronchiolitis obliterans, caused by diacetyl, a product found on early black market vapes that has been banned or discontinued for nearly 10 years now. Most clear market vapes already had discontinued the use of dyacetyl because they knew of the health risks, but only black market vapes were using it as a means to save money.

Moreover, dyacetyl was not being used in nicotine vapes, it was being used in Cannabis vapes, as such, no exclusively nicotine products vaper who used store bought liquids was ever exposed to popcorn lung. So maybe you should read up on what popcorn lung is, before posting several comments about it. I don’t vape but i have family members who quit smoking because of vapes and i don’t appreciate your blatant misinformation about them. If there are legitimate criticisms of vaping, by all means post them, but this is a falsehood you are propagating.

In Europe i haven’t met anyone in my circle of friends and extended circle who doesn’t completely hate Israel and zionism. I don’t push my views on anyone, especially the younger teen family members, but i was pleasantly surprised to see them saying they were going to an anti israeli protest.

The only people who currently have any support for Israel are boomers and even they are going from “supporting Israel right to exist” to “everyone is in the wrong” stage right now. This is highly anecdotal at this point but i hope we’re seeing a shift to acknowledging evil where evil is.

Woah, i didn’t know that. I just lost all respect i had for that guy.

That is some serious cognitive dissonance on Zelenskyy’s part. So let me get this straight, he thinks it’s fine that Israeli murder and steal from innocent civilians and just annex land from another country because they think it should be Israel but disagrees when Russians do the same, is that right ? I would think a former humorist would have a firmer grasp of irony. Zelenskyy is a jackass.

Gotta separate the man from the post though. This is more Ukraine than Zelenskyy.

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And it’s been greatly eroded recently when the powers that be determined some genocides are ok and others are not. A long-standing pattern of selective rules application, ranging from matters of nuclear disarmament, trade sanctions on places for no reason, land seizure for military bases with no permission and indigenous displacement, land seizure for colonization, indiscriminate civilian murder, detention and torture with no trial or accusation, sex crimes against civilians, application of tactics of terrorism and so on.

On the other side, indiscriminate land grab invasions, war crimes, sexual crimes on civilians including children, concentration camps, destruction of civilian infrastructure, genocide and so on.

It feels nobody really needs to follow any rules anymore. Everybody is violating international laws and the conventions that separate us from the worst of the worst evil and it’s disheartening. It’s whoever is the strongest does whatever they feel like with impunity, mostly, and everyone else just shrugs along. We absolutely suck as an intelligent sapient species at a global level and it’s a shame to be what we have become.

Here we go again with Biden investigating and questioning.

I’m sure the outcome of this questioning will be the same as in the previous dozens of times.

Also, those people who go and buy properties in Southern Europe are often older and don’t learn the local language or integrate at all. Instead, they create segregated communities with their own English speaking cafés and restaurants that disrupt the normal fabric of the country.

It is that, but it’s not just that. Whole regions are becoming so dedicated to tourism that investment is going to little else, which doesn’t really create a lot of well paying jobs for the young people. In fact, tourism only pays well to business owners. For everyone else, it’s an incredibly precarious job where you make money sometimes and other times you don’t. Even when you do, tourism is considered unskilled labor for teens and young adults without degrees, mostly. It’s a major cause of low fertility, I’d wager, since poor young people make no kids.

Everything becomes a sort of resort, with businesses catering mostly to tourists, with business owners feeling even apathetic about serving locals, as they pay less and don’t tip. The same is happening in several regions in southern Portugal. A resortification, if you will, of entire regions.

It’s like the whole world designated that country as a holiday country because of the weather and beauty, but the locals also want high paying tech jobs and factories. The government is making too much bank to change it and business owners are making a lot of pressure not to.

Americans better get ready to open up their money bags. This upcoming war ain’t paying itself either.

Money printer goes brrrrrr. How many simultaneous Israeli fronts can the US taxpayer support ? Let’s find out.

I’d wager that the investment of paltry sums compared to the cost of raising a child while public preschools are filled to the brim and there’s a lack of teachers and affordable after school facilities for parents to leave their kids probably has something to do with it. Luxemburg, for instance, is one of the wealthiest countries in Europe and parents there have to register kids for preschool when they’re born to even get a chance at a spot.

I mean, sure, there’s tax breaks for parents and if you’re lucky, something like 200€ per child per month, depending on the country. That’s ridiculously low. Salaries keep stagnating, the cost of living keeps increasing, and young adults basically have to work several internships for free to even get a chance at landing a half decent job and afford a one bedroom apartment. Meanwhile, the pandemic saw the richest people get even richer with their tax rebates and deductions upon rebates and deductions.

This is an economic issue, i believe, rooted in the progressive increase of wealth inequality in our society. It’s just that the help being provided to parents is nowhere near enough. I want to be a dad, but i can’t while wealth keeps being redistributed to millionaires while we get, what, a miniscule tax rebate and maybe a couple dozens to hundreds euros to afford ever skyrocketing rents anywhere there’s a half decent paying job? This isn’t the industrial ages where if half your kids didn’t go to school, it’s fine. The population will decrease until salaries that are in line with supporting children in a developed country start being a reality to the majority of the population.

And that Kurzgesagt video says young people prefer to travel and live life. Man, i wish i was traveling and going to concerts. I barely go anywhere since the pandemic and i have nowhere near the wealth required to even move to a 2 bedroom apartment, furnish a baby room and buy all the required knick knacks to raise a newborn child and i have a pretty decent income.

I wasn’t talking about making diesel at home. That’s pretty much the immediate aftermath of a collapse.

In the case of a societal collapse, eventually, new city states will be formed using salvaged technology and eventually technology produced of their own. My argument stands that to restart civilization, you will more quickly go back to fossil fuels, which are simpler to salvage, manufacture and utilize than high tech solar panels and batteries.

This includes gas vehicles. It’s just a fact that electric vehicles and semiconductor technology are luxuries of the modern era and not long term post apocalyptic tools of survival due to their manufacturing difficulties, durability and maintenance necessities. Just as an example you have Toyotas from the 60s that can still work just fine and i guarantee you a Tesla made today won’t work in 60 years, unless you replace nearly every electronic component of which it depends.

I’m all for renewables and sustainability and ditching fossel fuels, but from an engineering point of view, i just don’t think I’d be trusting in electrical vehicles and semiconductor tech in a post apocalyptic scenario. The reliability just isn’t there.

And diesel generators/fuel refining is most definitely not more difficult to manufacture than semiconductors. Just to make a simple silicon wafer you need more tech than to make a piston engine. Let alone doping it to produce enough photoelectric effect to power stuff with. There’s a reason we more quickly figured out diesel/gasoline engines than semiconductors. You need clean rooms, high tech engineers and a lot of robotics for things we can’t do with enough precision with our big clunky hands at the nano scale. With piston engines a workshop will do and fuel refining is just basic fractional distillation. As a side note, i could most definitely refine diesel at home. I’ve distilled things more complicated than diesel. But that’s beside the point. I understand you meant the average person with no training wouldn’t be able to do it and i understand and agree.

Yeah, it’s true diesel degrades quickly, but oil does not. Depending on where you live, you could more quickly set up a low scale refinery than a solar panel manufacturing workshop. Most likely, people would use coal in most places without access to oil in short distance since it’s more widely available and simpler to use.

Solar panels and batteries require massive supply chains. They require our rarest minerals and highest tech, with highly educated workers to develop and produce and state of the art clean rooms and factories.

If we stop producing them, the current stock will be useful for like 50 years tops. Then it’s back to fossil fuels, I’m afraid. Diesel generators last for a long time, and they’re easier to maintain and produce.

I remember i read a doomer theory stating we should be stockpiling coal for the humans that remain to rebuild society since there is nothing we can do at this point and fossil fuels is the only thing that will outlast the collapse. I’m not that pessimistic, but i can see what they mean.