@YouKnowWhoTheFuckIAM It goes back to the mid 19th century. In an era where battlefields were controlled by massed infantry with rifles, railways revolutionised the process of mobilizing for war—they who ran the tightest timetables got to the battlefields first. But as a result, frontiers moved around and the networks fractured. And shit like the Russian Empire deliberately choosing a different track gauge to stop German and Austrian troop trains running on their tracks during an invasion.
@skillissuer The younger generation in the US is secularizing rapidly, though—increased radicalization of the evangelicals (and association with white supremacism/neo-nazis) is driving an exodus from churches.