This is retarded. In the same way that the "vertical farming", lets grow all our crops in skyscrapers idea that was spreading around a few months ago was retard

This is retarded. In the same way that the "vertical farming", lets grow all our crops in skyscrapers idea that was spreading around a few months ago was retarded (http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/08/16/towering-lunacy/ http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/08/16/towering-lunacy/). Simple logic from first principles can prove this. How much does food cost per pound? Somewhere around $5 a pound seems like a roughly good estimate. How much of this is transportation costs? Somewhere around 10% is a figure that is commonly cited. Even ignoring the fact that most of this transportation cost is "last mile", which the tubes can't solve, you're still envisioning a plan in which tubes can transport goods at 50 cents a pound and still break even. If we were able to transport goods for 50 cents a pound then, guess what, we've obsoleted a whole lot more industries than just food. People, for one, are a lot more valuable, even mail is more valuable. There's a reason why we don't have subways running through every one of our cities and that's because digging tunnels is freakishly more expensive than what this plan is envisioning.