From: doucette@hannah.enet.dec.com ()
Subject: Re: Cars, Cities and Choices
Reply-To: doucette@hannah.enet.dec.com ()
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 13:08:15 GMT


> The naive faith that some acceptable alternative will always turn up is a
> variety of magical thinking, and grounded in the recent history in this part
> of the world -- an experience that is an historic aberration. It is really
> magical thinking to believe that the "rules of logic" can be shaped to our
> will and preferences.

I would like to point out that the "rules of logic" is the defining and shaping
of mankind's will and preferences.  While I have not been able to find the 
explicit reference, there is a mathematician called Godel who has proven that
any set of logical rules are either incomplete, or inconsistent.  So far,
nobody has proven that 1+1=2.  We only accept such claims in faith...

> The universe is not organized for our comfort or convenience. Sometimes all
> the alternatives are bad.

This is part of the challenge of life.  But it is also possible to commit
to an alternative prematurely and based on insufficent information.

> Today's problems become tomorrow's very soon, and tomorrow's technology doesn't
> happen by itself, but by people calling for it to be developed, as I am doing
> here. This is the conceptual leap the situation calls for, although it may
> take some people a long time to appreciate that. There are always a few who
> don't catch on.

There are those who call for technology and major investments, and those
who work at changing the current state of the world based on what they
can do today.  That is the difference between lecturer and activitist.

> Starship cities are simply the next logical step in technological evolution.
> Like many such steps, they are driven in large part by the situations created
> by the previous steps in technology. As engineering projects, they require no
> breakthroughs. We could design some within a couple of years and have the
> first ones running within a decade or two.

**NO BREAKTHROUGHS???** Gee, what about the reported problems with Biosphere II
and the lack of support for Arcologies?  There are serious breakthroughs 
required in technology and social acceptance of the idea.  *IF* the government 
was willing to start an Apollo-scale project to develop one of these cities 
then it could be completed in 20-or so years... NOT!!!

> Moving to starship cities is, in the final analysis, no different from 
  replacing
> gas lamps with electric street lights, or carriages with motor cars, or the
> practice of dumping garbage in the streets with sewer and garbage collection
> systems. 
There will always be someone to say something to the effect "If we
> were meant to travel more than 20 miles an hour, we would have been born with
> wheels". There was a time when people thought bathing was unhealthy, and 
> bleeding was good for you.

Each of the examples you give was not a quick transition and was initially
started on a very small scale.  The first use of street lights was for a single
city block, autos trickled into society for the first thirty years of this 
decade.  You proposal for a sealed arcology is a multi-billion dollar effort.

> There will always be someone to say something to the effect "If we
> were meant to travel more than 20 miles an hour, we would have been born with
> wheels". There was a time when people thought bathing was unhealthy, and 
> bleeding was good for you.

Fine, ignore the naysayers and while you're at it, ignore any constructive 
criticism by catagorizing them as naysayers.  So what if some people say they
don't want to be a part of the vision, they can be coerced and brow-beaten into
submission.  A vision can blind you of alternatives as easy as ignorance.

My Great-Grandparents where born, raised and lived most of their lives in
a fishing communities in south-western Nova Scotia.  They probably never
travelled more than 50 miles from their homes in their whole life.  My grand-
parents lived a similar life with the exception of travelling to the Boston
area to visit their children and grandchildren.  We take transportation for
granted to forget that previous generations did not have such flexibility.

I now travel 35 miles every day to and from work (at one point it was 66). 
 I would prefer to Telecommute, but there are technical, infrastructure and 
social issues  which have to be addressed in the office environment before 
telecommuting becomes a common place.  Granted, it isn't as rare today as it
was three years ago... and you don't need to seal anyone up to apply it.

--
Welcome to post-modern Western Materialism 101.  Choose between the following:
		Wedding		Child		House	
		Automobile	Computer	Motorcycle
********	LIMIT:	 One choice per year, maximum.		********
--------	--------	--------	--------	-------
Dave Doucette			Digital Equipment Corporation	Westford, MA
Common Sense Rules!		Doucette@hannah.enet.dec.com	(508)-635-8513