The power, water, sewer, probably others I'm forgetting right now, infrastructure in America is dogshit. It's beyond like "Oh, dump $1T into it, repair everything, we'll be fine!" It's at (and has been for a while I'd say) catastrophic "Stop everything, rebuild everything over the next 10 years. Price tag=infinity."
Of course the right wing basically refuses to acknowledge this (outside their own districts of course). The lighter right wing (democrats, average liberals) pay it lip service periodically, but their solutions are "dump trillions into private businesses who will repair/replace everything!"
leans into mic "Wrong."
The only thing that will actually fix the major stuff that I listed (and beyond that things like roads (ideally rail... but we can't even get commitments for roads. Rail? "Lol. Lmao even" is the only response to expect there atm) and other critical infrastructure that is less required for living the way water and power are but nonetheless are required for modern society and are also in total catastrophic collapse) is... no, no don't say it...
A publicly-funded, publicly-owned, publicly-run by government employees made untouchable to future administrations/congresses, unionized, and paid above whatever the "market price" is for construction work in the same field. It needs to be like the CCC (I think it was called) from the New Deal era on steroids. It needs to have authority beyond even what congress and the president have. I'm talking like the engineers decide amongst themselves (no congressional input, btw) that some NIMBY neighborhood is the most optimal route for the new rail and solar electric station... those fuckers are gone in 12 months. No endless appeals. Give them the "everyone else" treatment not the current special rich guy in Cali who holds up the state railroad because of whatever BS reason treatment.
I fully expect, understand, and also fear the total chaos required for full infrastructure rebuilding... but the facts are facts. It has to be done. Some shit will be demolished; it will suck for everyone. But what else do people want?
All the old copper and iron in the ground will continue to disintegrate into nothing so your literal shit is running down your sewer line but never makes it to the sewer main, it just sort of seeps into the ground? Because that's what happens eventually... then your line backs up and doesn't work. Shit is flooding your house and town. Water lines crumble and leak into the ground wasting fresh water, costing whatever horrific amount in emergency repairs, and stopping water service for maybe days to a week or more depending on specifics of the leak.
Like you can have a controlled rebuild of water lines, etc. now or your shit (literally with sewers) explodes years down the line randomly. It is quite literally an either/or situation because in the infinite timeline, your infrastructure will fail. It doesn't matter how much people cope. We're coasting off huge infrastructure buildout in the 1950-60s and some after that, but the amount of stuff that is 50, 60, 70 years old is insane. The iron that was used in many household sewer lines was rated with an expected lifetime of 50 years in many cases. Maybe more, maybe less, but about 50 years before it rusts too far and develops holes from normal use.
None of this shit is even near happening btw. It's actually getting insanely worse in the last two decades because the publicly owned utilities have been bought out from (often unaware or non-property owners aka "your opinion doesn't count") under residents.
In my hellscape of PA the formerly-public township water authorities (whatever they call themselves, it depends where) were facing the reality I was talking about, crumbling copper piping and such. Then because of a mix of rightoid-brained propagandized morons + motivated, aka probably bribed, local and state legislators they said basically "pfft! We can't afford to replace all this copper, etc.!" Private companies were standing right there to happily buy up these public utilities with vague promises of "Yes, we will have to raise water prices a little, but we will repair/replace all the infrastructure!"
How much of that has happened? Take a guess... about as much as the ISPs built the state-wide fiber network circa year 2000 (somewhere in there) when they got billions to do so. They built it to a couple cities then said "more money, please!," got that money, and eventually concluded "This is impossible due to geography. Yes, we will be keeping these billions of dollars though." Obviously it's not impossible if Japan, Korea, other countries around the world can do it. They just chose to steal the money and no one has done anything for 20 years. Same shit these water companies are clearly doing now.
My water lines have not been replaced, nor is there even a long term plan for them to do so. Like "by 2030 we will redo the entire township." Nothing. Zero commitment from them. But they own it all now! And the price for water oddly keeps going up with no added value! (Water should be free anyway and subsidized by taxes from businesses and the wealthy. Not a per household per gallon rate. Pretty moronic way to distribute water if your goal is to provide water and not just make profit (hmmmmm)).
Like you can have a controlled rebuild of water lines, etc. now or your shit (literally with sewers) explodes years down the line randomly.
if we organize and redo a whole street at a time, we only have to dig it up once. that doesn't make the paving company very much money, now does it? and who wants a nice smooth street instead of a gritty uneven patchwork of constant repairs
Lucky geographic positioning during WWII + absorbing the British empire post war
Unless you meant like "How" in the sense of "by what definition" in which case I'd say that being a superpower doesn't really require the domestic situation to be good. Just that your military and influence is dominant in places across the globe
The US is sinking like that Titan submersible... pressure is building, seams are creaking, implosion seems inevitable and imminent. And we're even being piloted to our doom by a narcissistic billionaire. (I should probably save this analogy. Pretty good one)
The best part of all of that is the really yummy present that's in everything built in that time. My friend and yours, asbestos. Not only do you have to destroy and rebuild but you also have to do so in a way that doesn't poison everyone for decades
Asbestos, lead, all kinds of crazy carcinogens from the past (and present!). That just further strengthens the argument that the workers who undertake this gargantuan task must be unionized with fellow workers leading it. When it's you breathing in flakes of fiberglass and aerosolized rat shit, suddenly mandating the usage (or at the absolute least: availability) of properly fitted respirators suddenly becomes an actual issue of importance not just rhetorical statement to gain popularity.
The power, water, sewer, probably others I'm forgetting right now, infrastructure in America is dogshit. It's beyond like "Oh, dump $1T into it, repair everything, we'll be fine!" It's at (and has been for a while I'd say) catastrophic "Stop everything, rebuild everything over the next 10 years. Price tag=infinity."
Of course the right wing basically refuses to acknowledge this (outside their own districts of course). The lighter right wing (democrats, average liberals) pay it lip service periodically, but their solutions are "dump trillions into private businesses who will repair/replace everything!"
leans into mic "Wrong."
The only thing that will actually fix the major stuff that I listed (and beyond that things like roads (ideally rail... but we can't even get commitments for roads. Rail? "Lol. Lmao even" is the only response to expect there atm) and other critical infrastructure that is less required for living the way water and power are but nonetheless are required for modern society and are also in total catastrophic collapse) is... no, no don't say it...
A publicly-funded, publicly-owned, publicly-run by government employees made untouchable to future administrations/congresses, unionized, and paid above whatever the "market price" is for construction work in the same field. It needs to be like the CCC (I think it was called) from the New Deal era on steroids. It needs to have authority beyond even what congress and the president have. I'm talking like the engineers decide amongst themselves (no congressional input, btw) that some NIMBY neighborhood is the most optimal route for the new rail and solar electric station... those fuckers are gone in 12 months. No endless appeals. Give them the "everyone else" treatment not the current special rich guy in Cali who holds up the state railroad because of whatever BS reason treatment.
I fully expect, understand, and also fear the total chaos required for full infrastructure rebuilding... but the facts are facts. It has to be done. Some shit will be demolished; it will suck for everyone. But what else do people want?
All the old copper and iron in the ground will continue to disintegrate into nothing so your literal shit is running down your sewer line but never makes it to the sewer main, it just sort of seeps into the ground? Because that's what happens eventually... then your line backs up and doesn't work. Shit is flooding your house and town. Water lines crumble and leak into the ground wasting fresh water, costing whatever horrific amount in emergency repairs, and stopping water service for maybe days to a week or more depending on specifics of the leak.
Like you can have a controlled rebuild of water lines, etc. now or your shit (literally with sewers) explodes years down the line randomly. It is quite literally an either/or situation because in the infinite timeline, your infrastructure will fail. It doesn't matter how much people cope. We're coasting off huge infrastructure buildout in the 1950-60s and some after that, but the amount of stuff that is 50, 60, 70 years old is insane. The iron that was used in many household sewer lines was rated with an expected lifetime of 50 years in many cases. Maybe more, maybe less, but about 50 years before it rusts too far and develops holes from normal use.
None of this shit is even near happening btw. It's actually getting insanely worse in the last two decades because the publicly owned utilities have been bought out from (often unaware or non-property owners aka "your opinion doesn't count") under residents.
In my hellscape of PA the formerly-public township water authorities (whatever they call themselves, it depends where) were facing the reality I was talking about, crumbling copper piping and such. Then because of a mix of rightoid-brained propagandized morons + motivated, aka probably bribed, local and state legislators they said basically "pfft! We can't afford to replace all this copper, etc.!" Private companies were standing right there to happily buy up these public utilities with vague promises of "Yes, we will have to raise water prices a little, but we will repair/replace all the infrastructure!"
How much of that has happened? Take a guess... about as much as the ISPs built the state-wide fiber network circa year 2000 (somewhere in there) when they got billions to do so. They built it to a couple cities then said "more money, please!," got that money, and eventually concluded "This is impossible due to geography. Yes, we will be keeping these billions of dollars though." Obviously it's not impossible if Japan, Korea, other countries around the world can do it. They just chose to steal the money and no one has done anything for 20 years. Same shit these water companies are clearly doing now.
My water lines have not been replaced, nor is there even a long term plan for them to do so. Like "by 2030 we will redo the entire township." Nothing. Zero commitment from them. But they own it all now! And the price for water oddly keeps going up with no added value! (Water should be free anyway and subsidized by taxes from businesses and the wealthy. Not a per household per gallon rate. Pretty moronic way to distribute water if your goal is to provide water and not just make profit (hmmmmm)).
if we organize and redo a whole street at a time, we only have to dig it up once. that doesn't make the paving company very much money, now does it? and who wants a nice smooth street instead of a gritty uneven patchwork of constant repairs
How the hell is burgerland even a superpower?
Now I kind of wish that the
stayed as the final boss of western CHUDDery, at least for the most part they had SOME infrastructure.
Lucky geographic positioning during WWII + absorbing the British empire post war
Unless you meant like "How" in the sense of "by what definition" in which case I'd say that being a superpower doesn't really require the domestic situation to be good. Just that your military and influence is dominant in places across the globe
The US is sinking like that Titan submersible... pressure is building, seams are creaking, implosion seems inevitable and imminent. And we're even being piloted to our doom by a narcissistic billionaire. (I should probably save this analogy. Pretty good one)
The best part of all of that is the really yummy present that's in everything built in that time. My friend and yours, asbestos. Not only do you have to destroy and rebuild but you also have to do so in a way that doesn't poison everyone for decades
Asbestos, lead, all kinds of crazy carcinogens from the past (and present!). That just further strengthens the argument that the workers who undertake this gargantuan task must be unionized with fellow workers leading it. When it's you breathing in flakes of fiberglass and aerosolized rat shit, suddenly mandating the usage (or at the absolute least: availability) of properly fitted respirators suddenly becomes an actual issue of importance not just rhetorical statement to gain popularity.