[extropy-chat] thank evolution for the interstate highway system

[Mike Lorrey]

--- Don Dartfield <twodeel at jornada.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 1 Dec 2003, Spike wrote:
> 
> > If all tax dollars were spent as well as they are on the good old
> > interstate highway system, well then, even *I* would be in favor of
> > taxes, and this is *me* talking.
> 
> OK, so here's a question I was pondering briefly the other day: if
> all of the money spent on the Interstates since their inception had
> been instead pumped into R&D for several companies like Moller,
> would we have competitively-priced flying cars yet?  And if we did
> have (VTOL) flying vehicles, would we still need roads?

Firstly, most all of the money spent on the interstates was money
collected in the form of taxes on gasoline, which was burned by
motorists driving the roads, i.e. a self funded mandate. People get
ticked if you take taxes for one purpose and spend them on another that
doesn't benefit the purpose in which they are paying the taxes.

A smarter concept would be to take all the aviation-gas tax revinues
and invest them in aircar development, rather than building airports
and subsidizing airline tickets.

That being said, air cars that burn fuels are just bad ideas, IMHO. The
mpg efficiency sucks major league. Don't get me wrong, I want one
myself, but from any rational economic or environmental perspective,
air cars are major wastes of resources on consumer pleasure if they are
burning chemical fuels.

We were all told as kids that we would live in a future of air cars
because the research back in the 1950's and 60's indicated that we
would develop anti-gravity sometime in the 21st century, or at least
high power high efficiency ion propulsion technologies.

> 
> The reason I was thinking about it is that I recently finished
> reading Robert J. Sawyer's Neanderthal Parallax trilogy, where the
> Neanderthal society in an alternate universe has developed
> advanced technology while maintaining their hunter-gatherer ways,
> and although they have flying
> vehicles and helicopters, they never invented roads, or even non-VTOL
> aircraft with their required long clearings for takeoff and landing. 
> And I was wondering how feasible this was -- wouldn't you still need
> roads for shipping heavy items?

Developing technology requires a certain critical mass of population,
accumulated knowledge, and an educated class of tinkerers. Hunter
gatherer economics cannot support a large enough population exclusively
to allow the needed critical mass to accumulate. Besides an ignorance
of neanderthal physiognomy, and a misuse of the term 'parallax', he
displays a similar ignorance of basic caloric economics.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

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