Cosmopolitan Railway | Hacker News Reader

Cosmopolitan Railway

en.wikipedia.org

43 pointsbenbreen16 comments

A more recent incarnation of this, which I used to see promoted by pamphlets in SF is an international rail project pushed by the LaRouche PAC, with a long view towards a Bering Strait tunnel.

Re-visiting this idea at this specific moment is interesting. Partly it was presented as an investment in a cooperative relationship with Russia.

> Former Alaska Governor Walter Hickle spoke out strongly at a Moscow Megaprojects Conference in April in 2007, in favor of “big projects as the alternative to war,” and in particular, of the Bering Strait tunnel and the benefits of Russia-U.S. collaboration. They “together will change the world.”

https://larouchepub.com/other/2020/4744-the_alaska_to_albert...

Ok, I glanced over the original publication [0]. This is basically outlining a vast railway network spanning the entire globe. Its primary purpose is the efficient colonization of the world by the Aryan race. I am not even kidding:

> It is along this belt that the principal railways of the world have been placed, and which the Cosmopolitan Railway will in due time connect. The grand distinction of modern times is the supremacy of the Aryan nations. During the last five hundred years, the races that have acquired new territory and have planted new colonies, that have made grand discoveries in the scientific world and have invented machines, that have written books which the world will not willingly let die, and have collected tho wisdom of the ages in vast libraries, are all members of the great Aryan family of nations.

[...]

> Doubtless the discovery of America, which afforded the Aryans such vast fields for colonization, retarded the reclamation of Africa and Asia. But a new migratory wave within the last decade has swept over Arya, and before it shall have subsided, the greater part of old continents will doubtless be dominated, colonized, and rapidly civilized by that race, which, starting from the mythologic twilight through Aryana Vaejo, has established itself in every part of the world where the sciences and the arts industrial and aesthetic have attained greatest perfection. What Roman roads and aqueducts were to the greatest of ancient empires, the railroads and the systems of irrigation are to the Aryans of the nineteenth century. The most advanced and comprehensive of the age is a cosmopolitan railway which girdle the globe. Not till that shall be accomplished will Aryan supremacy be secured.

[0] https://archive.org/stream/cosmopolitanrai02gilpgoog#page/n6...

It's interesting to me that the wikipedia article posted makes no mention of this connection to Gilpin's racism and colonial desire.

Additionally, the wikipedia article on William Gilpin doesn't mention the Cosmopolitan Railway, or any of Gilpin's racist notions.

Seems like a good opportunity for a contribution

More interesting to me is that it was written in 1890 - which doesn't make it "not racist", but it's about a half century before the word "Aryan" acquired its current connotations.

I'm going to have to spend some time at some point learning about the history of that word and concept prior to the Nazis.

So this is using "Aryan" in exactly the sort of manner that the Nazis did--referring to the Indo-European (white) "race" as Aryans. The racial theories of the Nazis actually originate in the mid-1800s, although during and after World War II, these theories fell out of fashion quickly.

The term itself comes from the self-demonym of Indo-Iranian peoples (ultimately from Sanskrit), and Indo-Iranian has generally replaced the term 'Aryan' in scholarly contexts to avoid the racial connotations of the Nazis.

And of course the country name itself, Iran, is just that: "Aryan".

Using or not using the word Aryan isn't particularly relevant. The ideas themselves are racist.

I would quote bits, but you can pick any sentence of the original quote.

agree, whether it's Aryan or not, domination by a single race is purely racism.

Strip out the 1890s racism; replace it with internationalism; recognize that an international passenger railroad would carry not resources from the Periphery to the Core, but rather grandmas, refugees, tourists, chaiwallahs, Rwandan DeFi entrepreneurs, Shaivite pilgrims, seasonal laborers, vloggers, qat sellers, NGO workers, Jehovah's Witnesseses, and university students -- and maybe it's not actually so bad an idea.

Somehow you made it sound even worse.

We've got airplanes now that can hop continents in hours. However, if the 2020s have taught me anything it's that internationalism is dead.

BRI initiative, is less ambitious, but aims for some of the same things, easy and increased trade.

Not that they are directly inspired by this; rather economic reality probably makes it attractive.

High-level idea seems interesting.

opens pdf

Wait, there's a chapter called "Race Problems and Proclivities"?

Oh, no, this isn't good...

It's not supposed to be good, it is a historical curiosity based on the prevalent beliefs at the time. It can be discussed without dismissing it just because its original motivation was largely racist.

Given the relative costs of long-distance shipping via ocean freighter, vs. railroad - especially when the land under the proposed railroad is not flat, warm, nor dry - it seems reasonable to file the whole concept under "intentional fantasy".

Certainly an author who'd been Territorial Governor of Colorado should be quite aware of how expensive RR's were (and are) to build, then to operate.

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