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28229. PelleNilsson - 4/23/2006 4:25:40 PM Now I get it. Adam Selene = Silicon Man (adam is Hebrew for "man") 28230. Adam Selene - 4/23/2006 8:09:24 PM Actually, Selene is the Greek moon godess. Adam being the first man in the old testament, and Adam Selene being the liberator of the moon colony - and also with Mycroft Holmes (the computers "real" name) having multisexual personnas, the name loosely represents "the first androgenous being of the moon." Sort of a tounge-in-cheek variation of the phrase "man in the moon."
See - I don't take my personnas lightly, do I? No I don't. Who asked me? You did. Oh, shut up. 28231. judithathome - 4/23/2006 8:17:38 PM $4/gal gas, I'm sure you like it well
Well, what do you expect me to do, Ulgine? Sell my car and get a horse? Then hay would go up in price and I'd have to kill the horse.
The price of gas has nothing to do with my love for my car...no more so than the price of repairs on it.
28232. Adam Selene - 4/23/2006 8:31:09 PM Americans (like me) are so spoiled with cheap gas. Europeans have being paying these prices for years. We want to find alternative fuels, but we don't generally want to reduce our consumption of gas first (e.g., via higher prices of gas or higher-cost technology to increase MPG) nor fund research (via gas taxes.)
Regardless, a $1 increase in gas is only a few hundred dollars a year - much less than the surcharge for a hybrid car. The problem is that we actually see the numbers flash by at the pump and that seems so much more real than a monthly car payment that includes the hybrid cost.
Besides... gas prices haven't even kept up with inflation.
 28233. alistairConnor - 4/23/2006 9:33:15 PM Interesting that this theme should show up in the Religion thread...
Car worship is going to come to a sticky end.
More precisely : it will be reserved for the well-off. The common herd will find themselves increasingly cut off from the object of desire, and ways of life that revolve around it will have to evolve or perish. 28234. resonance - 4/24/2006 3:09:29 AM Great, now I've got an unfortunate Weed Atman allusion stuck in my head, that I won't make because no-one ever gets my Pynchon references.
I'd agree with Alistair -- well, I think I would, I don't know really what all he means by 'car worship' -- except, well, no, I don't really, regardless. Cars won't be reserved for the well-off because a) automobiles do not necessarily need to run on gasoline b) people make a lot of money selling cars and c) people make a lot of money because other people can get in their car and go drive someplace to spend it.
I think the triune forces of scientific advance, market pressure and scarcity of resource will push society eventually to a point where, when it looks back, our current use of the automobile will seem shamelessly profligate and horribly inefficient.
But I don't really see cars being pushed out of the reach of the majority of first-worlders until a) nanotechnology becomes widespread and b) so does AI, simply because I think you need those two things available if green Alistair-style locales are going to be truly self-sustaining in the technological age. As long as they are not, there will be a lot of pressure for people to be mobile over fair distances -- while automobiles might be priced out of the reach of some, economically it makes no sense for them to be a tool accessible by a privileged few. 28235. Adam Selene - 4/24/2006 3:22:20 AM It will be interesting to see what China does re: personal cars vs. mass transport vs. work at home.
Given a command economy - I'd build monorails and office/condo buildings to see which worked better/faster. 28236. resonance - 4/24/2006 3:30:54 AM For what it's worth; I think few people really realize, here in the States, what the hell 6$ a gallon gas is going to look like when it's a reality. That is indeed going to be one hell of a mess for everyone who isn't in the oil industry. But this is pretty far afield.
I think it's an interesting question as to whether or not it is moral to force people, via price pressure and taxation, to stop driving so much. The simple fact of the matter is that having transportation, in a lot of cases, means having freedom -- real freedom. Without it you're just bound to the land like a serf, in a lot of ways, some of which aren't merely hyperbolic or allegorical.
On the other hand I think it is clear that global warming is real, and that the fossil fuel crunch could be cataclysmic, and that the assholes in the Escalades that cut me off every morning partway through their hour and a half commute from their sub-suburban McVillas to their downtown desks are clearly a case of the free market not having any foresight. (Setting aside any aesthetic and moral questions about the nature of an economic system that rewards these sort of people with power and wealth and *then* instills them with the belief that the proper thing to do with these twin assets is to buy a flimsy, huge faux-old-wealth house in a parvenu enclave and fill its driveway with ugly-ass Detroit behemoths. The economic system is what it is.)
It seems to me that there are two choices, both potentially immoral -- letting the free market have its way, and watch Exxon execs turn into billionaires while unbelievably expensive gasoline solves the problem of profligate usage by bringing that system to a crashing, violent halt, or else some sort of intervention designed to save people from their own stupidity while punishing the people who would have had the intelligence and foresight to get through it all right.
28237. resonance - 4/24/2006 3:33:46 AM Given a command economy - I'd build monorails and office/condo buildings to see which worked better/faster.
I think you might very well end up seeing our economy doing some drastically command-oriented things along those lines. Whether they end up trying to nationalize oil industries or redirecting a ton of income into infrastructure rework and conservation, I think public pressure will end up being something that Congress will absolutely not ignore, whether or not they should. 28238. jexster - 4/24/2006 3:53:39 AM The Easter Blessing
May Almighty God, who has redeemed us and made us his children through the resurrection of his Son our Lord, bestow upon you the riches of his blessing. Amen.
May God, who through the water of baptism has raised us from sin into newness of life, make you holy and worthy to be united with Christ for ever. Amen.
May God, who has brought us out of bondage to sin into true and lasting freedom in the Redeemer, bring you to your eternal inheritance. Amen.
And the blessing of God Almighty, +the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be upon you and remain with you for ever. Amen.
28239. alistairconnor - 4/25/2006 3:43:07 PM A mixed bag, Res.
The economic system is what it is. So where does morality come into it?
People have enjoyed considerable freedom over the last five decades, insofar as they have been motorised. Over the past three, just about anyone who is economically active or solvent has had this freedom.
That doesn't make it a right. Unless you are alleging that it has generated an entitlement? Amend the Constitution perhaps? Pursuit of happiness, and a tankful of gas?
Go back a hundred years, and freedom of transport was for the rich. Living in town and running a four-horse carriage was a matter of very conspicuous consumption. No way could the majority of the population aspire to that sort of freedom, because you need to feed a horse an awful lot. Even in the country, only a rich farmer can afford to run a horse, because it competes with his cash production.
That's what we're going back to, more or less. Technology will give us greater efficiency per unit of energy than 100 years ago, but the energy will be expensive enough to restrict or eliminate a lot of the freedom of those rich years. 28240. Adam Selene - 4/25/2006 4:32:06 PM alistair, that was true a hundred years ago when the vast majority of us lived in an agrarian economy with the industrial revolution just really kicking in. But in today's service economy, you can live in a city with dozens of employers within walking distance and hundreds within biking distance. Land serfdom does not have to be in our future.
While I think full mobility will never be ceded by the population, I claim it's practice can be dramatically curtailed without any loss of economic freedom. People are already dramatically slowing urban flight and a growing minority of the middle class are repopulating cities. Where I work at the inner harbor in Baltimore, I drive by about 5 highrise condo buildings that are under construction and another dozen recently completed with ads for buyers on the buildings. (I commute about 20 miles to Columbia.)
If not for my big-home loving wife, I'd happily move next door to my office to gain back my commute time and gas money (plus get rid of my weekend lawn duties!) 28241. arkymalarky - 4/25/2006 4:44:07 PM My goal is to be able to stay put out here away from everyone else. When I retire from teaching I don't intend to work or play anywhere I have to drive to get to.
But a nice first step for America as a whole would be purchasing more practical cars. I doubt many Americans are going to transition straight from Hummer to Greyhound. And we're a large, spread-out country with no feasible mass transit system. Either the modern age will allow many more people to work at home or inability to commute will harshly impact every class. 28242. alistairconnor - 4/25/2006 4:53:27 PM This may be my next car... an object worth of worship.
The Loremo.
1.5 litres per 100 km = about 150 mpg of diesel.
they say it'll be available in 2009, for 11000 euros. We'll see. 28243. arkymalarky - 4/25/2006 4:54:45 PM Cool. What does that translate to in US dollars? 28244. PelleNilsson - 4/25/2006 4:56:04 PM It would be interesting to see, in constant prices and related to average middle-class income, the cost of fuel for a model T related to a modern hybrid car.
And I think you are wrong, alistair. The clock will not turn back. Our societies, and in particular America, are founded on the car. Once it was a supplement to public transport, now it is the other way around. 28245. alistairconnor - 4/25/2006 4:56:50 PM Currently, that would be about $13600.
In 2009, I would expect $30k or $60k...
your mileage may vary! 28246. alistairconnor - 4/25/2006 5:00:04 PM "will not" turn back is a foolish statement, Pelle. People make decisions of their own free will, but with strong economic constraints. Transport will not be as expensive as it was in 1906, but maybe as expensive as 1936.
In a generation from now, things will have settled to a new equilibrium. A lot of pain will be had before then. 28247. alistairconnor - 4/25/2006 5:02:37 PM The key reason that there are no valid comparisons with the past, is that for a century at least, people have had a strong, and justified, expectation of economic betterment for themselves and/or their children. I think that expectation is now evaporating. 28248. PelleNilsson - 4/25/2006 5:12:39 PM I don't understand that at all. Do you mean that it would be impossible for some reason to find out the cost of gas, average fuel consumption and average income in, say, 1930 and compare with the present situation? Hell, I could do it if I had the energy.
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