this post was submitted on 25 May 2026
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Moving Goods by water is the most economical way to move them, trains are next, trucks are last, I mean after like wagons and shit. We do things the inefficient way because vested interests make money doing it that way. Good luck trying to be more efficient. It's not going to fucking happen. Not with these fucking clowns in charge. Or the previous clowns that are supposed to be our clowns.
We use trucks because of the "last mile" problem. Ships are the most efficient. But you ain't pulling up a container ship to your front door. Same with trains. Both are great at moving a lot of stuff from one major point to another. But not good at all for local delivery.
Nor are they good for fast delivery of smaller amounts. And y'all want your Amazon shit delivered as fast as possible to your door. Or the arugula and potatoes you will buy at your local grocery for supper tonight. I'm not pumping up trucks, but they make that possible.
Logistics is tiered and integrated every last inch of the way.
Not with that attitude
Yeah, the USPS won't deliver my mail to my home, no rural free delivery for me. It cost me $160 a year to rent a mailbox in town plus the gas to get there and home again. And you expect a container ship to show up out here? UPS and FedEx only deliver here. God willin' and the creek don't rise.
Never have I seen so many ships carrying goods in my life than on the ChangJiang, when I lived in Wuhan.
Absolutely mind-blowing. A line of ships going both ways all the way to the horizon, all day, every day. I can't even fathom the quantities being carried.
Existing water*
Diging canals is dangerous and expensive.
Depends if there's malaria.
We have tech that can solve most of the dangers, except malaria.
We have drugs and plants that can be taken as a prophalactic against Malaria.
In fact, the colonists never could penetrate the tropic and subtropics well until they found out about quinine from the peruvian natives. They took it all the time to ward off the parasite.
Malaria can be treated with those same drugs an plants as well. Artemisia and Mexican Prickly Poppy both work.
Yeah, I meant we don't have a vaccine.
And those prophylactics have a lot of negative side effect's. We're certainly better than before, but Malaria still kills a lot of people today
I know quinine has some side effects, not sure about mexican prickly poppy or artemisia, could look it up.
There is a malaria vaccine, it just isn't that effective, I think there are more than one. 30% effective if I recall, and even then it might just have lessened the effects and not prevented the infection. I want to say Sanofi but I don't recall.
As to the deaths, it really matters what strain of malaria, there are a lot, and also what they use to treat it. Because using drugs, the parasite gets immune to it, especially when they don't use them in combination with another antimalarial to prevent resistance forming, which I believe is one reason some parts of Africa have up to half of kids with brain damage from this fucking parasite, (it breaks from liver into bloodstream and colonizes the brain and the body lights us with fever over 106 degrees, which is brain damage.)
But the plants that treat it, they produce several related drugs around 10% of alkaloids or active ingredient, then a dozen or more at 1% or so, 80% being the main compound. Ie quinine bark the main one is chloroquinine or whatever. Anyway, prevents resistance from forming like with just the isolated chloroquinine, of which malaria is mostly immune to now.