4 Comments

1. Robert Karaffa:

   At first I thought, what have you been smokin’? But it is wonderful to dream about. Driving would be more like it is in Vietnam perhaps, or even Haiti. And commerce would be way different and automatically localized to a certain extent.
   But in USA it would it would probably just lead to a 20 year special period of suspension modification.

   31 August 2010, 1:57 pm

2. Anonymous:

   Sorry to waste blog space like this, but how do I join this blog? Also, Stan, I tried sending an e-mail to sherrynstan@igc.org. An error occurred. What gives?

   Please help.

   STAN: No joining. Just post. Delays because we moderate out flames, trolls, spam, bigotry, and personal attacks.

   6 September 2010, 2:22 am

3. Marcilla Elizabeth Smith:

   Forgive me for being utopian-ly inclined, but it occurs to me that if there was anything approaching intelligent designing of infrastructure, there’s no reason why we couldn’t be doing better in both senses (more ecological as well as more effectively traveling long distances). The problem (in my mind) are these one-size-fits-all solutions in the form of the modern passenger automobile that everyone is supposed to own and maintain. The same thing that takes you down the block to get a Slurpee is also designed to take you on a cross-country road trip. It’s absurd, but it’s an expected symptom of the disease of Capitalism.

   I imagine fractally-designed public transportation infrastructure with a few bullet trains traveling within super-low friction tubes cross-country with more conventional rail transportation operating regionally, perhaps buses locally which are capable of transporting all of their passengers’ bicycles and other personal vehicles for those “last mile” legs of their journeys. And it doesn’t have to be exactly like that, but COME ON!!!

   8 September 2010, 10:09 pm

4. DeAnander:

   Letting people travel by air creates a whole host of expectations. One expectation is that they ought to be able to go when they wish and exactly where they want. After all, there’s nothing like [...] the obvious limitations of one train at a time to reinforce the idea that not all things are possible. The expectations are even higher for those with resources and power, expecially if the society allows them private aircraft of some sort. They believe their time is more valuable, they’re more important. That reinforces the feeling that anything can be bought, regardless of the cost to others. [...] We just price things at their total value. We don’t allow people to buy privileges at the cost of other people’s health or future or life expectancy. Those are real costs. Most so-called market systems don’t include them. [...] There’s also the expectation that immediate travel at comparatively low cost is a right, rather than a costly privilege. There’s also the expectation that personal freedom of movement is a right, regardless of what it costs others.

   — L. E. Modesitt, ‘Haze’

   Modesitt hews pretty close to the line of traditional US Libertarianism in many regrds — and his “far future techno-opera” works are just about as unrealistic to my present reader’s ear as any tale of unicorns and sorcerers. But he hits an interesting note now and then and this one caught my attention. Nothing that Illich and others haven’t said more eloquently. But interesting to see it admitted by such a relatively conservative (in the libertarian vein) writer.

   18 September 2010, 9:00 pm

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