Industrial Brazil

Excelent!:cool:
So, we have you, me, Ampersand, nandalf and Guilherme Loureiro. Anyone else?
Up to now, I only knew of you being Brazilian, though I think I remember
suspecting Nandalf was.
By the way, have you read
"The Great Martian Railroad Race"
by Eric Vinicoff ?
 
There was also Seleucus XVII, but apparently he left the site due to going to college. And there is leonardocruzbr, but he isn't very active too.



No, never. What is it about?

Yes, unfortunately I'm studying for public service and this consume a lot of my time. I'm Carioca, by the way.
 
No, never. What is it about?
Two railroad magnates manage to
launch a railroad on Mars. It happens on a
not-too-distant-future in which Mars is
beginning to be settled on. Interestingly enough, part of the deal is to settle farmers
alongside the road... Sounds incredible,
but works on the narrative ( though
may not be actually practicable)...
It was our friend's idea to develop
early Brazil with a railroad that reminded me of Vinicoff's tale.
 
Yes, unfortunately I'm studying for public service and this consume a lot of my time. I'm Carioca, by the way.

So, with you and Ampersand the state of Rio de Janeiro has two representatives here.

Two railroad magnates manage to
launch a railroad on Mars. It happens on a
not-too-distant-future in which Mars is
beginning to be settled on. Interestingly enough, part of the deal is to settle farmers
alongside the road... Sounds incredible,
but works on the narrative ( though
may not be actually practicable)...
It was our friend's idea to develop
early Brazil with a railroad that reminded me of Vinicoff's tale.

It seems interesting indeed.:cool:
About the Amazon, IOTL has proved (with the Madeira-Mamoré Railway and the Transamazonica) that only building roads across the jungle isn't the best way to help the "development" of the region. In other parts of the country they contributed to settle immigrants and create an economical boost (as the São Paulo - Santa Maria Railway did to large areas of Southern states) but the same doesn't necessarily apply to the rainforest. Generally the attempts of "development" employed there resulted in failure (as Henry Ford can testify), and only recently non-extractivist activities have been more successful, which in turn are increasing the destruction of the environment.
 
It seems interesting indeed.:cool:
You know, it was published in Brazil by the Isaac Asimov Magazine (n.5)
About the Amazon, IOTL has proved (with the Madeira-Mamoré Railway and the Transamazonica) that only building roads across the jungle isn't the best way to help the "development" of the region. .
On this point we couldn't agree more.
I already have pointed out a few posts back that a region shouldn't be considered
"non-productive" or "useless" only for being
largely unsettled.
 

The Sandman

Banned
For the Amazon, how about the survival of one of the pre-Columbian city complexes? Just posit a mutation that lets that particular group of Indians be a bit more resistant to European diseases and you'd have enough continuity to explain how to make terra preta, and a ready-made knowledge base on useful products of the rainforest that you can harvest without simply destroying everything.
 
D10,

So, it's basically Build a railroad and they will come?"

I'm sorry, but economics don't work that way.

Brazil needs to attract immigrants, attract foreign capital, enact a tariff to protect it's nascent industries, and develop a robust export market to earn hard currency. Building railroads to nowhere with government bonds or opening the Amazon basin to ecologically inappropriate development isn't going to do a thing.



Why do you know that? In the OTL he died nearly broke and with most of his industries and businesses in foreign hands.



If it wasn't for those sneaky Shriners... Always driving around in those little cars, wearing fezzes, and wrecking Latin American economies on orders from their masters beneath the Pyramid of Giza... :rolleyes:


Bill

Its been widely reported in many biographies done by historians that Dom Pedro was envious of the baron, and spend a great deal of his time trying to worsen the lot of the good baron.

In the mind of the emperor it was outrageous that a man could have that much money and ambition, and all those progressive ideas, like abolitionism, the transatlantic railroad, and early electricity for Rio when it NY started doing it, were not only turned down, and they became tabboo, and Maua experienced great failure butting heads with the monarchy.

If he was helped instead of thwarted history might be very different
 
Two railroad magnates manage to
launch a railroad on Mars. It happens on a
not-too-distant-future in which Mars is
beginning to be settled on. Interestingly enough, part of the deal is to settle farmers
alongside the road... Sounds incredible,
but works on the narrative ( though
may not be actually practicable)...
It was our friend's idea to develop
early Brazil with a railroad that reminded me of Vinicoff's tale.

It is certainly not practical (unless Mars had been terraformed previously, but then a good deal of infrastructure would probably have already been built), but it is very very similar to what most of the railroads west of the Mississippi did in the US. Admittedly, in their case, mostly to make their vast land grants and shining new routes to completely unsettled areas pay, but still.
 
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