• kreskin@lemmy.world
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    17 minutes ago

    Giving it to Musk is a way of guaranteeing it will never get done. Still waiting for full self driving, Elon.

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    Ok Bering Strait, so only geopolitically, geologically, and financially insane.

    Like I kinda see a world where this is a good idea. If ww2 had sparked a long brotherhood between our nations and with europe a high speed rail across the tundras might be a good lower carbon alternative to flying and the Bering Strait is the most land based path between Eurasia and the Americas. Personally I’m not certain a tunnel is better than a bridge for this, but a few days train ride from cascadia to Moscow or Beijing would have plenty of takers if everyone was chill and could take a high speed train ride from Moscow to Madrid (and major cities in between) and from Beijing to Ho Chi Minh City, Seoul, Bangkok, etc. It would leave flying as really only necessary for Australia and island nations like Japan.

    That’s however not the world we live in, and Americans aren’t clamoring to go to Russia or trade with them

  • littletranspunk@lemmus.org
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    9 hours ago

    What I expect to happen is he’ll promise it, get funding for it, do a mile of it, drop everything about it, report a higher wealth value, get into a suspicious one car crash

  • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    Given the distance required, what kind of economic payoff could be possible from such an expensive project? It’s not like overland would be a cheaper transport option than Pacific shipping routes or anything. It’s not just the Bering Strait being the problem with connecting the two after all, but the fact that there’s nothing in NE Siberia or NW Alaska to bother connecting together. Are we making it for the polar bears maybe? Or are people going to drive the thousands of miles from Juneau to Vladivostok to sightsee?

      • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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        2 hours ago

        Honestly a tunnel to northern Alaska would be an amazing trap for invading armies. There’s just miles of rugged mountains before you even find a road. Then you get to deal with Canada…

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        The Soviets had no intention to invade the united states (though they did want us to have a communist revolution, but like that’s just part of communism). This is all capitalist Russia

        • ozymandias@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          4 hours ago

          they worked a lot on boats but couldn’t make them fast enough to get across…. a tunnel would work a lot better

    • dhork@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      It’s not like overland would be a cheaper transport option than Pacific shipping routes or anything.

      I wouldn’t be so sure. Shipping routes may be cheaper, but I bet they would still be longer. I think it takes the better part of a month to get goods from China to the US. I bet this takes more like a week.

      this article article estimates the distance at 8000 miles to the “lower 48”, presumably to Seattle. It proposes high-speed rail service to do the trip in 2 days, but I don’t think that will compete at all with air passenger service . Rather, I think freight traffic will be the real winner, and 7 days is doable at 50 mph the whole way.

      • kreskin@lemmy.world
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        9 minutes ago

        Dont forget the 2000 miles of railroad that’d need to be built, much of it over frozen terrain, and a lot of it mountainous. That in itself would be an engineering marvel even before the bridge or tunnel work.

  • Corporal_Punishment@feddit.uk
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    7 hours ago

    Well Musk, Trump and the rest of the MAGA party are all up in Putin’s ass so building a tunnel from Moscow to Washington would make perfect sense

    • P03 Locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 hours ago

      Surely, Russia of all countries, would understand why it’s a bad idea to invade a region that is cold AF and makes logistics an absolute nightmare. *gestures broadly at WWII*

      Of course, this is the same county getting their ass handed to them by Ukraine, a county 100x smaller than they are.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        Russia absolutely doesn’t understand that, look at maps over time of the country, their control of Siberia is not as old as you’d think. Vladivostok was ceded to Russia in the mid-late 19th century