The hyperloop is a masters' class in controlling the narrative

Here's how you do it.


1. Set the topics

For a brief window a few weeks after the initial white paper, boosters of the hyperloop completely lost control of the narrative. Papers like the Washington Post published devastating takedowns which left no stone upon stone of the original proposal and the whole thing seemed dead in the water.

The lull would prove temporary and when the story returned, the pro hyperloop camp pretty much got everything they wanted in terms of setting the agenda. There were speculative pieces about what life would be like in a world of supersonic ground transportation. Stories about new startups and impressive-sounding rounds of funding. Breathless accounts of demonstrations that were limited strictly to the parts of the system that were already widely in use elsewhere. Skeptics were relegated to a paragraph or two, almost always will below the fold.


2. Create the laws-of-physics standard

Promoters of the hyperloop have managed to introduce what is almost certainly the ultimate in low bars for infrastructure proposals, the assertion that it does not violate the laws of physics.

This takes on an added degree of absurdity when applied to a maglev vactrains,  an idea that engineers have been playing around with for at least 100 years, longer if you break it down to its component parts. 

With no one in all that time seriously questioning its theoretical foundations.

Nonetheless, it has become one of the standard tropes of the here-comes-the-hyperloop article to haul out a physicist who assures the readers that magnetic levitation works and that vehicles traveling in vacuums don't have a problem with air resistance.




3. Work the people covering the story.

The supporters played on the press's weaknesses for tech messiahs and opinions differ journalism. There is a intense desire to believe that things like supersonic trains and Mars colonies and immortality formulas are not just possible but are right around the corner. If anything the Press is particularly susceptible to this, especially when the idea was associated with some Silicon Valley savior.

Most of the reporters on this beat were also notably weak on the subtleties of engineering. Even the best of them tended to think in terms of principles to be explained rather than problems to be anticipated, understood, and solved. Issues that would be top-of-mind for any mechanical or civil engineer like thermal expansion were almost entirely off of their radar unless one of the experts they consulted brought it up.

4. Wait out the critics

Of all the weapons in the promoter's arsenal, patience was perhaps the most valuable. With only occasional exceptions, they ignored their critics and eventually the reporters did too.

5. Keep funding "private" until actual money is involved

At first, the hyperloop was supposed to be so cheap to build and maintain that it was hardly worth talking about. Just charge passengers twenty bucks a head and you'd break even in no time. The development costs were all being handled privately. Even if the plans never came to fruition, what was the harm?

The suggestion that little or no tax dollars would be involved further shielded the proposals from scrutiny, letting them gain credibility simply by going unquestioned for so long in the public discourse. Then, slowly but inevitably, the idea of public funding started to ease its way into the conversation. Now it's public-private partnerships.  Care to guess what the next point on the line will be?