Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?


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Yep, there are tons of Technical Problems with transporters...we're barely scratching the surface. And to my point: even if you were finally able to solve all of those technical problems of exploding and freezing and high-velocity impacts, you will still have people who will want to use your machine to commit crimes. And yes, you can put in failsafes and other regulations, but there will still be people who won't stop until they find a way around them. Your failsafe is someone else's Technical Problem to solve.

That's true with any piece of technology. As always, the question is whether the benefits outweigh the costs. In the case of aircars, the only real benefit has a massive cost baked in.
 

That's true with any piece of technology. As always, the question is whether the benefits outweigh the costs. In the case of aircars, the only real benefit has a massive cost baked in.
Yeah, aircars don't solve any current problems that mass transit can't address sooner and more cheaply. The only advantage that aircars have is that wealthy individuals will buy them for prestige, while mass transit in the US is generally stigmatized as the transportation choice of the poor. (There are ways to change that, but those wealthy people, who tend to have the ears of politicians, fight changing the incentives like hell.)
 

Hmmmmm…

Wealthy people with expensive air cars? What could go wrong?



 
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Yeah, aircars don't solve any current problems that mass transit can't address sooner and more cheaply. The only advantage that aircars have is that wealthy individuals will buy them for prestige, while mass transit in the US is generally stigmatized as the transportation choice of the poor. (There are ways to change that, but those wealthy people, who tend to have the ears of politicians, fight changing the incentives like hell.)

If they ended up being reasonably priced, they could end up saving a lot on infrastructure, not needing roads and ramps and such. The problem is, that gets back to the whole "flying over houses and buildings when people don't have a great record even when on dedicated pathways", so to do the beneficial thing, they'd be right into doing the downside.
 




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