From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Date: Sat Sep 11 1999 - 02:05:19 MDT
On Fri, 10 Sep 1999, Spike Jones wrote:
> When you think of it, history is full of examples of exactly that,
> societies that stagnated.
Generalization Spike. Did the society stagnate or just the
segment of it that historians write about? I would say more
societies ended by natural disasters or conquest than by
stagnation.
But *in some areas* of our lives, our
> own society seems to be stuck at a local maximum now. One
> example is the air car thing: we are STUCK right now, have
> been for 30 or more years, in personal transportation.
Sure. Personal transport that is [relatively] inexpensive due
to economies of scale has put us in a position that is difficult
to move. However developments like (a) the aircar; (b)
the newer people mover systems [from Rathyeon?]; and (c) aircars
make it clear that there are paths away from this local optima.
> We spend more and more money, like desperate and hopeless >
> addicts, on more highways and more roads and more more more,
> yet no matter what, every day, its ten lanes across and all those
> cars are crawling. We are at a local maximum in that area.
>
I don't think for a minute this is what people desire.
Show them a working aicrcar that they can use and I suspect
they would dump the $$$) 10K-100K into byying one.
Robert
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