The company is selling assets, laying off remaining employees.

Apparently all Musk wanted to do with this was undercut any attempts at high speed rail in California.

          • ElHexo [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
            61·
            11 months ago

            If California was a country it wouldn’t even be in the top 50.

            For my context, you could fit five Californias into my state and it’s not even the largest state in Australia.

            • ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml
              10·
              11 months ago

              True, but 98% of that land is uninhabitable/uninhabited. If counted the area where you have more then one person per 200 miles, Australia would be much much smaller then California. The entire population is centered in 5 cities. Which is reflected pretty decently with the Australian population being 10 million people less then California.

              It’s like how Canada is the second largest country in the world, but no one takes them seriously because it’s all uninhabited wastes.

              I was referring more to African and European states.

  • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
    301·
    11 months ago

    Huh. Surprised they just closed it on its own. I would’ve thought there would’ve been some massive disaster, like the tunnel collapsing or catching fire or something.

      • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
        81·
        11 months ago

        He can’t fail, he can only be failed. Like when his space X rockets blow up on the launchpad, his fans will declare that because this one lasts 0.004 seconds longer than the last one, it’s “great progress”

    • albigu@lemmygrad.ml
      10·
      11 months ago

      I was so hopeful some really angry train nerd would try to find a random unguarded section of the tube and shoot at it with a handgun, causing billions in damages.

      • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
        121·
        11 months ago

        I’m surprised how little anti-capitalist gun violence there is in the US. Why aren’t corporate boardrooms the targets of mass shootings?

        • barrbaric [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          9·
          11 months ago

          The most hardline devoted communists/anarchists/etc who would be most likely to commit ideological terrorism are familiar with the historical failures of adventurism, so they don’t do it. Another big factor is that corporate boardrooms, mansions, yachts, etc, are much more difficult to gain access to than driving down to the nearest wal-mart and opening fire on random poor people. Lastly I’d say people with left-ish political views tend to generally believe suffering inc death/murder is bad and are just less violent in general.

          I do assume some attempts are made and we just don’t hear about it though. Like, there have to have been assassination attempts by chuds on Biden (and Obama before him), right? It’s just suppressed so as to not give people ideas. Stands to reason the same thing would apply the other direction.

          • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
            61·
            11 months ago

            Yeah, excellent points. I guess inexperienced leftists in the US are largely still liberal, and so automatically abhor violence in any form, and by the time they’re educated enough to actually understand leftist theory they understand enough to know that adventurism doesn’t work.

            I would imagine you’re right about the US presidents, probably a lot of assassination attempts we just don’t hear about, regardless of political affiliation.

        • albigu@lemmygrad.ml
          4·
          11 months ago

          I believe part of the reason is that effective leftist (non-anarchist) gun activism mostly revolves around self-defence organisations (think BPP or AIM) rather than combat or terrorism. And history has shown that even the slightest signal of successful organisation from marginalised groups in the US having guns will trigger the most violent of reactions from the State and bourgeois media.

          Another part is how hard it is to have access to the ruling class or their lackeys. You’ll probably never run into a board member of Amazon or Lockheed Martin on the streets (and they’re usually not very well known). My hypothetical train nerd would have a lot of trouble trying to locate and enact the Trolley Problem on US Secretary of Transportation (and Mayo) Pete Buttigieg, even after the East Palestine derailment earlier this year or strike block last year.

          But it’s always worth remembering that the USA has enacted the most all-encompassing surveillance state in history, even if they sometimes suffer from the typical imperialist incompetence form hubris. Most adventurist plots are probably silently caught before the plans are put into motion.

        • PeeOnYou [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
          4·
          11 months ago

          i always wonder the same… like why shoot up schools, bars, marathons, etc when there are fortune 1000 companies everywhere

          also nobody would be too upset if someone took a politician or two with them if they were just going to off themselves

    • SoyViking [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      2·
      11 months ago

      I came up with the idea for the hyperloop when I was 12. At no point did I delude myself into thinking it was anything but a goofy sci-fi technology that would remain completely unviable for a very long time.

    • neocamel@lemmy.studio
      28·
      11 months ago

      smartphones, space travel, organ transplants, & instant global communication have entered the chat.

      • Sodium_nitride@lemmygrad.ml
        181·
        11 months ago

        1. Smartphones were not invented in one go. They were the result of decades of advancement in computer technology. Each step along the way was useful for something.

        2. Space travel was funded by the space race, something into which the 2 world industrial powers put a substantial chuck of their economy into. It was also done for a military benefit and again, was done in multiple steps. Hyperloop, despite being a harder thing to create, was funded by a few private capitals.

        3. Organ transplants aren’t infrastructure. They aren’t even remotely comparable to hyperloop.

        4. “Instant” global communication has been possible for a very long time. The first transatlantic cable was laid down in 1858. The only thing different today is the number and speed of cables.

        • neocamel@lemmy.studio
          16·
          11 months ago

          My point (which everyone seems to be missing) is that all of these things were once considered to be impossible, until they weren’t.

          • ShiningWing@lemmygrad.ml
            12·
            11 months ago

            This literally means nothing, it doesn’t mean you can just ignore any potential problems with a concept and just try to build it anyway

            And even if Hyperloop is possible, it still doesn’t make sense to do, because high speed rail already exists and makes a lot more sense, the US should start building that instead