09-30-2021, 08:36 PM
I would like to see a pattern in which people can get around in vehicles the size of golf carts, with either long-distance commuting or recreational travel mostly by vehicles that we rent for such a purpose -- and do so rarely. Most commuting would be by public transit such as subways and buses. Obviously one would need to separate freight vehicles from the tiny golf-cart like vehicles (or even pod-like vehicles somewhat like those in the introduction to The Jetsons, except grounded. (Aircraft between buildings? Let's save the Buck Rogers stuff for science fiction where it belongs even if it might be convenient. Mid-air collisions at vehicular speeds are simply too dangerous, as they not only introduce the hazard of forces of collision but also of falls.
Most people seem to prefer doing their own grocery shopping, especially in buying produce and meats that one must see to be satisfied. People go into a grocery store with vague desires and solidify those while there. People practically grounded? That would be unthinkable in one of the most nomadic populations ever known: Americans. We have geographic mobility that herdsmen of the Gobi would have thought extreme.
I can imagine pod-like travel taking advantage of transshipment by rail, especially if rail allows great flexibility as one can embark on the train with a pod-like vehicle and disembark at another station. If one seeks to visit a good friend at MIT and one lives near Princeton, then one has one's pod entering the freight at Princeton and leaving it at Boston and then letting it take one to MIT. Does this sound good? (The passenger compartment will be much more comfortable, so the pod might drop you off at or near the platform at Princeton and pick you up at or near the platform at Boston). Or -- they are so inexpensive that they can be rented much like rental cars.
Most people seem to prefer doing their own grocery shopping, especially in buying produce and meats that one must see to be satisfied. People go into a grocery store with vague desires and solidify those while there. People practically grounded? That would be unthinkable in one of the most nomadic populations ever known: Americans. We have geographic mobility that herdsmen of the Gobi would have thought extreme.
I can imagine pod-like travel taking advantage of transshipment by rail, especially if rail allows great flexibility as one can embark on the train with a pod-like vehicle and disembark at another station. If one seeks to visit a good friend at MIT and one lives near Princeton, then one has one's pod entering the freight at Princeton and leaving it at Boston and then letting it take one to MIT. Does this sound good? (The passenger compartment will be much more comfortable, so the pod might drop you off at or near the platform at Princeton and pick you up at or near the platform at Boston). Or -- they are so inexpensive that they can be rented much like rental cars.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.