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Cars are noisy, a hazard, and in some ways significantly more limited than horses. I actually agree with all your points but also recognize there’s a strong pr

Cars are noisy, a hazard, and in some ways significantly more limited than horses. I actually agree with all your points but also recognize there’s a strong prior bias toward what “I know” works or doesn’t today that can preclude the future possibilities.

scottLobster 7y ago
And cars were not economically viable for the masses for most of their early development. It took decades of technological advancements to produce the distant ancestor of the modern mass-market auto-manufacturing machine. As for drones and supersonic aircraft, we're going to need much better batteries for the former and far more efficient engines for the latter to them to be more viable than present alternatives. That's not a "what I know bias", it's in hard math and numbers. It's like how most ships in popular sci-fi are these futuristic, oblong shapes with wondrous curves, when in fact a more realistic approach would be using rectangles for everything but a few niche applications. For anything that humans are going to walk around in/actively use rectangular structures are simply far more efficient. It was true 10,000 years ago, it'll be true 10,000 years from now assuming we're not living in Musk's simulation.
- baddox 7y ago
  Cars would also be much less useful in the USA without the insane amount of taxpayer-funded road infrastructure and lack of alternate public transportation options. Can you imagine if the people selling cars also had to pay for the infrastructure for cars, you know, like a fair competitive market?
  - Klinky 7y ago
    Much of road infrastructure is funded via fuel taxes. Roads or "roads" with track laid are also needed for public transportation.
    - mattbk1 7y ago
      Much of road infrastructure is funded out of general funds ([1] is one example that can be found with an Internet search). [1] https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/regulation/gas-tax-little-road-costs/ https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/regulation/gas-ta...
      - Klinky 7y ago
        That example suggests a significant amount is funded out of fuel taxes and toll fees, and seems to be kind of a mouthpiece for the energy industry to try to get rid of taxes on fuel.
Klinky 7y ago
There are niche scenarios where a horse is more useful(e.g. rough terrain), but for 99.9% of the scenarios of modern life, a car/motor is more powerful and reliable. Horses are also noisy(clop clop clop) and have been known to trample people. Supersonic flight was tried with the Concorde and its profitability was iffy due to large subsidies involved in its development, and the handling of BA privatization in the late 80s. There are aerodynamic constraints that make supersonic flight inefficient. Unless we magically change physics, supersonic flight is always going to be significantly less efficient than subsonic flight. Also the quickest way to make something that is starting to become viable(electric cars), less viable, is to make it have to fly(flying drones). You now have to fight gravity 24/7. This isn't about dismissing the future, it's about people trying to implement these ideas for the last 70 years, and some spunky "disruptor" startup isn't going to magically change the laws of physics once we "git rid of that dang regulations!"

scottLobster 7y ago

And cars were not economically viable for the masses for most of their early development. It took decades of technological advancements to produce the distant ancestor of the modern mass-market auto-manufacturing machine. As for drones and supersonic aircraft, we're going to need much better batteries for the former and far more efficient engines for the latter to them to be more viable than present alternatives. That's not a "what I know bias", it's in hard math and numbers. It's like how most ships in popular sci-fi are these futuristic, oblong shapes with wondrous curves, when in fact a more realistic approach would be using rectangles for everything but a few niche applications. For anything that humans are going to walk around in/actively use rectangular structures are simply far more efficient. It was true 10,000 years ago, it'll be true 10,000 years from now assuming we're not living in Musk's simulation.

baddox 7y ago
Cars would also be much less useful in the USA without the insane amount of taxpayer-funded road infrastructure and lack of alternate public transportation options. Can you imagine if the people selling cars also had to pay for the infrastructure for cars, you know, like a fair competitive market?
- Klinky 7y ago
  Much of road infrastructure is funded via fuel taxes. Roads or "roads" with track laid are also needed for public transportation.
  - mattbk1 7y ago
    Much of road infrastructure is funded out of general funds ([1] is one example that can be found with an Internet search). [1] https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/regulation/gas-tax-little-road-costs/ https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/regulation/gas-ta...
    - Klinky 7y ago
      That example suggests a significant amount is funded out of fuel taxes and toll fees, and seems to be kind of a mouthpiece for the energy industry to try to get rid of taxes on fuel.

Klinky 7y ago

There are niche scenarios where a horse is more useful(e.g. rough terrain), but for 99.9% of the scenarios of modern life, a car/motor is more powerful and reliable. Horses are also noisy(clop clop clop) and have been known to trample people. Supersonic flight was tried with the Concorde and its profitability was iffy due to large subsidies involved in its development, and the handling of BA privatization in the late 80s. There are aerodynamic constraints that make supersonic flight inefficient. Unless we magically change physics, supersonic flight is always going to be significantly less efficient than subsonic flight. Also the quickest way to make something that is starting to become viable(electric cars), less viable, is to make it have to fly(flying drones). You now have to fight gravity 24/7. This isn't about dismissing the future, it's about people trying to implement these ideas for the last 70 years, and some spunky "disruptor" startup isn't going to magically change the laws of physics once we "git rid of that dang regulations!"