22nd April 2004, 7:57 AM
I was actually talking more of the big cities. Anyway, that's about right. MOST of America is completely human-less. The only reason people think humans are absolutely everywhere is their own experience. The average person, wherever they have ever travelled, there has always at least been a road under them. That incredibly limited viewpoint is of course going to convince most people that there are no more completely human-less regions. Try driving between towns and just walking off the road for a while. Weeks will pass and you'll die before seeing any signs of civilization, and you'll likely never be found, if you did a good job of walking away from that road the whole time anyway.
Speaking of EVERYONE in Amerca owning their own car, it's not exactly like most Americans have an option. I know in New York having a car is considered as much a luxery as having air conditioning :D, but everywhere ELSE it's just plain needed or you die alone. Also, go to a lot of the lower-middle to low class neighborhoods, where driveways are small anyway, and these days you will find that the streets are filled with cars that couldn't fit in the driveway. These neighborhood roads have all gone one lane, and people have to drive really slow and keep watching in case someone comes the other way so they can try and pull into SOME safe spot to give room for the other to pass or whatever. Obviously something like this, more than anything, shows that we as a society need to change SOMETHING so we stop NEEDING so many vehicles. The roads just can't possibly handle them, and no the solution is NOT just making more roads. A temporary solution to that would be some sort of neighborhood parking lot right at the corner of every block. Long term though, something needs to be done. MAYBE a new form of public transportation that even medium size cities and small towns could find useful, or maybe they just need to invent wormholes already (holding one open that a human could shimmy through requires a jupiter sized mass of dark matter).
Speaking of EVERYONE in Amerca owning their own car, it's not exactly like most Americans have an option. I know in New York having a car is considered as much a luxery as having air conditioning :D, but everywhere ELSE it's just plain needed or you die alone. Also, go to a lot of the lower-middle to low class neighborhoods, where driveways are small anyway, and these days you will find that the streets are filled with cars that couldn't fit in the driveway. These neighborhood roads have all gone one lane, and people have to drive really slow and keep watching in case someone comes the other way so they can try and pull into SOME safe spot to give room for the other to pass or whatever. Obviously something like this, more than anything, shows that we as a society need to change SOMETHING so we stop NEEDING so many vehicles. The roads just can't possibly handle them, and no the solution is NOT just making more roads. A temporary solution to that would be some sort of neighborhood parking lot right at the corner of every block. Long term though, something needs to be done. MAYBE a new form of public transportation that even medium size cities and small towns could find useful, or maybe they just need to invent wormholes already (holding one open that a human could shimmy through requires a jupiter sized mass of dark matter).
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)