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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31231 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023

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Container ships are not 18th century tech. Standardized containerization (the physical one, not the VM replacement tech) is one of the major logistic technologies of 20th century that makes possible much of modern consumer life. (I would note that even simple logistic technology like standardized palletization is not universal, see: RU army logistics and why supplying positions away from rail lines is such a struggle for them.) It's not a tech level thing anyways so much as a cost of inputs thing. There needs to be a very good reason to be paying twice or more the cost of an input. Maybe an inland location has benefits that outweighs the additional cost but it has to actually be factored in especially when talking the volumes of inputs for a proposed megapolis.

True but again this point is only mostly relevant to imports. Anything domestically produced would just cut out the ocean voyage. Domestic goods would still be on land routes which I will assume is most of a persons consumption.

A lot of energy potential in the Midwest too which would be a lot cheaper to move nearby.

I think you are getting over caught up on the costs of Chinese goods.

Consider a cup of coffee. Where do you think the beans came from? Where do you think the cup came from? Where do you think the coffee maker came from? I think you are significantly underestimating the international supply chains involved in keeping a city dweller in the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed.

I am not underestimating it. Easiest data is costs of living is cheaper away from coast. Which summarizes a lot of expenses. Most bulky things like building materials are going to mostly be domestic.

And a lot of those Chinese goods already have long shipping paths. Like your jeans there’s a good chance their Texas cotton that was shipped by rail to a port and then to China or maybe it’s Vietnam (with atleast a truck drive to the factory) now to be turned into jeans and then by boat to coastal America. Then by truck to where you live. I don’t think adding 1500 miles of rail to that journey is going to be a game changer when it’s already done that once in the supply chain.

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