Thoughts re Hyper Loops?

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Wow...aren't you a fun little lollipop triple-dipped hostility! 8-)

Ok, I got a little hot there, but its not meant to be taken as hostility. Part of it is just frustration that most of your post implies that the younger generation aren't intellectually competent, and that just isn't true. Neither is technology to blame. The factors that determine a person's behavior and temperament are deeper than that.

More so though, I do to some extent enjoy debating these things, and I assume since you do respond, that you might also enjoy it. The more we discuss and flesh out these things, the more we learn. Just because I disagree does not mean I don't consider what you have to say.

Travel time is travel time, regardless of speed bumps. If you have any medical training, I would be very happy to debate the problems with epidemics that stem from our ability to globetrot irresponsibly all over the world in mere hours. It's a death sentence waiting to occur. Meanwhile, jet travel is no longer fast; it's often slower than ground transportation because of its massive vulnerabilities. I used to visit my parents in California, an 1100 mile trip. Although the aircraft traveled at 350 mph or better, the trip to 14 agonizing hours crammed into a chair designed by a midget with scoliosis, without the courtesy of food or drink. No, thank you.

Well I am a scientist in Biotech, so I think I'm fairly well suited to understand the risks of epidemics. I'm not sure though, if there is much you could do about these kinds of things, even if you cut off air travel.

As for the other aspects of flying, I suppose you have me there. I don't fly enough to say one way or another, but I'm still pretty sure it takes less time to fly across country than to take the train. Thats not to say I wouldn't LIKE to take the train, I just don't know if I want to spend 2 days getting there when I may have limited time away from work to travel in the first place. I don't think an Amtrak coach seat is going to be much more comfortable over a multiple day period, and so I might stick it out with the airplane. In either case, their isn't a lot of time to explore and enjoy the journey, because you're stuck in an airplane or an Amfleet car (or Superliner out west). An Amfleet is basically an airplane body on wheels anyway.

While I agree that one should not blame people for techonolgy's drawbacks, the purpose of technology is to help, not to harm. The truth is that each new technology harms us more than it helps us. The particular technology that I have in mind is that of television, specifically MTV which began the lessening of the attention span to accommodate faster editing needed to keep the attention of the young long enough enough to irradiate their tiny little minds. Tell me how many of the older classical films, such as Citizen Kane, you can actually watch from beginning to end without moving from your seat.

You have it backwards. Technology is not to blame for people's drawbacks.

MTV is dumb, but the kind of people who want to watch MTV are not the kind of people who are going to switch on the History Chanel and watch Modern Marvels. Rather, the kind of people who slavishly watch MTV are inherently lack the interest or drive to really watch or care anything else.

The low attention span was already there. MTV simply catered to and cashed in on it.

You got me on Citizen Kane, I haven't had the opportunity to watch it. I did sit through "High Noon" and the original "The Day the Earth Stood Still", the latter of which is probably one of my favorite movies, and personally I think it holds up pretty well (god knows that remake is awful and pointless). If either of those were on TV right now, I'd watch it, no kidding. Then again, maybe those aren't on your classics list.

However, cellphones led to texting, instead of taking the time to carry on a real time conversation, and that shortened informational exchange to 140 characters, apparently the entire mental capacity of a young person during a single message. The obvious conclusion is that Man is not adaptable to faster and faster technology, evidenced by the constant striving to place driverless vehicles on our highways and remove the responsibility of controlling a fast vehicle from our hands entirely, while passenger aircraft are now 90% controlled by an autopilot. It appears we can't handle just sitting very well, either.

Once again, "texting" isn't the bad thing here. Its how people use it. I don't know anyone who engages me in long drawn out "text" conversations at 140 characters a time. It just doesn't happen. The texts I make are almost always too the point, and don't require a whole phone call.

Why do I need to carry on a "real" conversation if I just need to tell someone I'm going to be late, or to ask my girlfriend where/when she wants to meet? If I want to talk to someone, then yes, I will call them. If I need more, specific information, I'll call them.

The sitting thing is probably true though. From the research I've read, they actually recommend people get up every half hour or so if they are just sitting there. I'm sure there is some truth to that.

I'm not sure I'm a fan of the self driving cars, but the autopilot in aircraft makes sense to me. LONG periods of focused behavior IS difficult, and that was true long before there were ever cell phones and texting.

As for any "implications' that you are mentally diminished, those were your words, not mine.

Eh, well, I can also manipulate your DNA, so I think I'm safe on the intellectual front.

I have no desire and no use for hyperloop or maglev or any other travel at ultra-high speeds. Long go I learned that the pleasure of traveling to a destination is worth far more than the destination itself.

That we can agree on. Even here in this thread, I only attempt to make the best possible argument for a hyperloop to show how ill-conceived the idea is. At its best, it barely competes, and yet a bunch of idealistic people with money are behind it, so it will probably happen whether or not it makes sense for it to.

Its a solution to a problem almost no one has.

It reminds me of this "Rolling Roads" concept from the 50s, where instead of cars, all the roads would be conveyor belts, and people would just ride pods around.