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posted by martyb on Saturday September 09 2017, @02:52AM   Printer-friendly

India is the latest nation to make plans for its own Hyperloop, with the south eastern state of Andhra Pradesh signing a deal with startup Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) to build a high-speed transport route between two of its major cities.

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies is just one of the startups working away on Elon Musk's futuristic transport concept. When fully realized, such a system would see passengers and cargo flung through near-vacuum tubes at around the speed of sound in specially designed capsules that could cut the travel time between Los Angeles and San Francisco to just 30 minutes.

[...] And now it is making a move in India. The agreement signed between HTT and the government of Andhra Pradesh aims to connect the city centers of Amaravati and Vijayawada, which take around an hour to travel between by car but would take just six minutes by Hyperloop. HTT will start with a six-month feasibility study in October looking at the cityscapes to determine the best route for its transport tubes. If all goes to plan, construction will begin thereafter.


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  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 09 2017, @03:29AM (15 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 09 2017, @03:29AM (#565485)

    as much as india seems like a third-world nation to many of us "westerners", their culture is far more advanced. to many in the far east, westerners are cavemen

    many indians lack running water and plumbing, but they still manage to exist with mere disgust by those in the west

    can you imagine what the west would deteriorate into without plumbing and electricity? "cavemen" would be putting it mildly

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by FatPhil on Saturday September 09 2017, @07:53AM (9 children)

    by FatPhil (863) <{pc-soylent} {at} {asdf.fi}> on Saturday September 09 2017, @07:53AM (#565539) Homepage
    Toilets are apparently hard in even the richest of nations. The Burj Khalifa isn't plumbed. You down pipes into trucks in the basement that drive your shit away.

    Personally, I think if you don't have the level of tech that the Romans had 2000 years ago, you're a backward shithole, quite literally. And any hypotheticals of what the west would be like without that tech are stupid - we do have that tech, you're just playing with a straw man.

    So I definitely agree with the GPP that this is a stupid misapplication of tax-payers' money, vital infrastructure should be given priority over unproven and unnecessary futuristic flights of fancy.
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Saturday September 09 2017, @09:24AM (8 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 09 2017, @09:24AM (#565558) Journal

      this is a stupid misapplication of tax-payers' money, vital infrastructure should be given priority over unproven and unnecessary futuristic flights of fancy.

      Yes, but... if they succeed, can you imagine how much faster they'll get to their destination [funguerilla.com]?

      (grin)

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Nuke on Saturday September 09 2017, @12:45PM (7 children)

        by Nuke (3162) on Saturday September 09 2017, @12:45PM (#565616)

        You don't understand. This is not about relieving the existing railways - the carrying capacity of the Hyperloop will be abysmal. It is partly a whimsey by the politicians (as it is for Musk himself) who have thrown in the towel about dealing with India's real problems and want a distraction for themselves and the media.

        It is also partly about providing transport for an elite, including the politicians themselves. You see, if they increased railway capacity or built a new road between the cities, it would promptly be filled by the same peasants, chickens and goats as fill the existing ones, even if they put futile "First Class" labels on it. A Hyperloop however would be an entirely separate transport system with its own entrance gates and the hermetic seal of the tube itself as a very effective physical class barrier between the haves and have-nots.

        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday September 09 2017, @01:36PM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 09 2017, @01:36PM (#565634) Journal

          You don't understand.

          In case you weren't paying attention: (grin) [soylentnews.org]

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday September 09 2017, @02:39PM (1 child)

          by Phoenix666 (552) on Saturday September 09 2017, @02:39PM (#565666) Journal

          That's also true of India's space program. Why build rocket ships when you can't build toilets?

          Then again, peoples have a deep need to feel proud of themselves, mixed with fatalism about things that have always been. The things that have always been feel impossible to change, while the things that are new and exciting feel possible.

          --
          Washington DC delenda est.
          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Saturday September 09 2017, @02:52PM

            by Grishnakh (2831) on Saturday September 09 2017, @02:52PM (#565672)

            That's also true of India's space program. Why build rocket ships when you can't build toilets?

            You could make similar criticisms of the US: why build rocket ships and space stations and Moon landers when you can't give your people universal healthcare and 1/6 of your children are growing up in poverty without enough food? But it's still correct to pursue the space program; fixing the social ills takes far more money, and also political will which just doesn't exist, and pursuing space programs has created huge economic benefits (from better technology developed) which do help much of the population. We'd certainly be in a far worse economic state now if we had never bothered with a space program or landing on the Moon.

        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday September 09 2017, @02:42PM (3 children)

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Saturday September 09 2017, @02:42PM (#565668)

          HyperLoop isn't really a competitor to road-based or rail-based transport. It's competition for airlines. India already has a class-separated transport system: they have airports and airlines just like any large nation these days. The poor people with chickens and goats aren't riding on jetliners across the country. HyperLoop could very well be an excellent alternative to regional airlines, transporting similar numbers of people per car, but with far less energy and greater safety than a regional or commuter jet. If it gets high-volume and cheap enough, it could probably compete with first-class rail service too (which would leave more room on trains for everyone else).

          • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday September 09 2017, @09:17PM (2 children)

            by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 09 2017, @09:17PM (#565768) Journal

            transporting similar numbers of people per car, but with far less energy and greater safety than a regional or commuter jet.

            This remains to be seen.
            - "far less energy"- creating a vacuum in a long tube doesn't come for free. I'd love to see a comparison of the energy expenditure between the two cases;
            - "greater safety" - mmm... in case of a temporary glitch, the pilots of a plane have some tens of seconds to compensate. The only advantage of a vacuumed tunnel: at 136 m/s (500kph), you'll be dead before you realize something is wrong

            --
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 10 2017, @12:16AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 10 2017, @12:16AM (#565816)

              Plus, I really couldn't care about energy use; what really matters is energy efficiency. A mode of transportation could use more energy but be more efficient. For example, airplanes are simultaneously the most and least efficient mode of common transportation, depending on the plane load. It is hard to beat the passenger-miles of commercial flights and the mile-tons in some freight lines. But on the same token, Richy Rich taking his A380 alone is a horrendous waste of resources.

            • (Score: 2) by Nuke on Sunday September 10 2017, @12:00PM

              by Nuke (3162) on Sunday September 10 2017, @12:00PM (#565937)

              Not to mention the energy (and material) that goes into making those steel tubes.

  • (Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday September 09 2017, @12:32PM (3 children)

    by Nuke (3162) on Saturday September 09 2017, @12:32PM (#565613)

    as much as india seems like a third-world nation to many of us "westerners", their culture is far more advanced. to many in the far east, westerners are cavemen

    India is not in normal definitions of the Far East. I can understand Chinese and Japanese considering that Westerners are vulgar, like not removing their shoes when entering a house, and being loud and pushy (just like Elon Musk in fact); but Indians ..... no, not a shred of credibility.

    India is the nation where it's considered OK to shit in the street, rape women ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-20863860 [bbc.co.uk] or just Google "India rape"), operate telephone scams while the local police don't care, and it produces more than its own fair share of loud and pushy characters, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_Ayyadurai [wikipedia.org] . India does have some nice architecture though, and makes some very pretty jewellery.

    can you imagine what the west would deteriorate into without plumbing and electricity?

    I would not shit in the street anyway. Actually I don't have mains sewerage myself but manage a sceptic tank instead; things are fine thanks. My maternal grandparents had no electricity in their house but neither they nor my mother resembled cavepeople one little bit.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday September 09 2017, @01:47PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 09 2017, @01:47PM (#565638) Journal

      but manage a sceptic tank instead; things are fine thanks.

      I seem to remember they called "sceptic think tanks" nowadays; I'm puzzled, though, how they let you shit on them.

      (grin)

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday September 09 2017, @02:32PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Saturday September 09 2017, @02:32PM (#565660) Journal

      I can understand Chinese and Japanese considering that Westerners are vulgar, like not removing their shoes when entering a house, and being loud and pushy (just like Elon Musk in fact);

      It's good to add nuance to perceptions of India, but this one made me chuckle a bit. Chinese and Japanese are not very much alike in their manners at all. The Japanese are as you describe, but Chinese are more crass than Puerto Ricans in NYC at the Puerto Rican Day parade. They shit and piss in the street, too, and will hawk a giant loogie at the table next to you in a "nice" restaurant and spit on the floor. They'll clamber over you while you're trying to line up to buy a ticket, and think nothing of elbowing you in the balls to talk to a clerk first. The postal workers will open your packages and help themselves to the contents. I've witnessed nice country folk trample a small child when the bus pulled into the station because they wanted to get a seat first. Malthus couldn't have designed a more archetypical society. Now, if you should be invited into a Chinese home, it's different and they will be sweet as pie. Everywhere else, beware, laowai.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Saturday September 09 2017, @05:33PM

      by Aiwendil (531) on Saturday September 09 2017, @05:33PM (#565711) Journal

      I can understand Chinese and Japanese considering that Westerners are vulgar, like not removing their shoes when entering a house

      In the nordic countries you take off your shoes, a quick search suggest this is also the normal thing in eastern europe+russia and canada.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by khallow on Saturday September 09 2017, @12:51PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 09 2017, @12:51PM (#565620) Journal

    as much as india seems like a third-world nation to many of us "westerners", their culture is far more advanced.

    "Culture" has killed [wikipedia.org] people in the area.

    ndependent researchers have estimated the death toll to be around 300,000 to 500,000 people while others estimate the casualty figure to be 3 million. The United States intelligence agency, the CIA and the State Department estimated that 200,000 people had been killed in the genocide.

    Or here [wikipedia.org]:

    Although a partition plan was accepted, no large population movements were contemplated. As India and Pakistan become independent, 14.5 million people crossed borders to ensure their safety in an increasingly lawless and communal environment. With British authority gone, the newly formed governments were completely unequipped to deal with migrations of such staggering magnitude, and massive violence and slaughter occurred on both sides of the border along communal lines. Estimates of the number of deaths range around roughly 500,000, with low estimates at 200,000 and high estimates at 1,000,000.

    and

    The rioting started after an attack on a Hindu temple in Ahmedabad, but rapidly expanded to major cities and towns of Gujarat. The violence included attacks on Muslim chawls by their Dalit Hindu neighbours. The violence continued over a week, then the rioting restarted a month later.[189][190] Some 660 people were killed (430 Muslims, rest Hindus), 1074 people were injured and over 48,000 lost their property.

    During the 1984 anti-Sikh pogroms in Delhi, government and police officials aided Indian National Congress party worker gangs in "methodically and systematically" targeting Sikhs and Sikh homes. As a result of the pogroms 10,000–17,000 were burned alive or otherwise killed, Sikh people suffered massive property damage, and at least 50,000 Sikhs were displaced.

    In the Kashmir region, approximately 300 Kashmiri Pandits were killed between September 1989 to 1990 in various incidents.[201] In early 1990, local Urdu newspapers Aftab and Al Safa called upon Kashmiris to wage jihad against India and ordered the expulsion of all Hindus choosing to remain in Kashmir.[201] In the following days masked men ran in the streets with AK-47 shooting to kill Hindus who would not leave.[201] Notices were placed on the houses of all Hindus, telling them to leave within 24 hours or die.[201] Since March 1990, estimates of between 300,000 and 500,000 pandits have migrated outside Kashmir due to persecution by Islamic fundamentalists in the largest case of ethnic cleansing since the partition of India. The proportion of Kashmiri Pandits in the Kashmir valley has declined from about 15% in 1947 to, by some estimates, less than 0.1% since the insurgency in Kashmir took on a religious and sectarian flavour.

    These are since the end of the Second World War. Indoor plumbing hasn't caused suffering for tens of millions of people, but the various conflicting sorts of Indian culture have.