There are a whole lot of people who admire T Boone Pickens as he has made and lost a large fortune at least twice and then returned to make another one. He's the kind of cowboy businessman who exemplifies what one man can do in America. He's smart and he's got good ideas but people are always afraid of them being too radical.
I'm afraid his ideas are not radical enough. T Boone Pickens wants natgas filling stations all about the place and that's good and clean and nice ... but ... it doesn't go near to solving the problem which is a ridiculous number of cars on the road. If you don't live in a big city, it's not so bad. Inside a city is worse. Inside a city which is in close proximity to another is yet worse. Add to that the finest example of Mafia highway projects in the Western world and it's between Fort Worth and Dallas. Now you have misery that is beyond description. For all the countless billions they have spent on those roads, they are still a nightmare and are hopelessly overloaded. Thank you Godfather. Thank you Rick Perry.
Another example of a Mafia project was the Big Dig in Boston. They had dragged that one out for ten years and it still wasn't completed. It may not be complete even today and it's now five years later. The Mafia banks on governments needing people to act like Moties in which they never think big enough to solve a problem and continually redesign whatever is there to make it work. This means nothing ever gets completed and they have lifetime careers.
(See "The Mote in God's Eye" by Larry Niven to read about Moties.)
I want to see things that reduce the need for cars. I see a type of tram running about Dallas and that's a good step. It's not even close to a big enough step but it's electric and clean and it gets a certain number of cars off the road. I want to see commitment on the level of European investment in alternative transportation and it's not simply for the greenness but rather because I would rather kick back in a pleasant transportation device than deal with a car and especially not a Google car that drives itself. That particular vehicle is such a glorious failure to understand the problem that one would think even Google could grasp it but nooooo.
I don't believe the individuation inevitable in driving personal automobiles is good for America and I don't believe it's good for humanity. We are social creatures and it's not so long ago that we were happy to sit in the sun picking fleas off each other. A great many things move in opposition to that and there doesn't seem to be much thinking toward what would mitigate them. I've seen various architectural solutions for communities in which most things are in walking distance and there's more of a communal vibe but I really think there will never really be psychological peace unless we feel tribal with wherever we are. That doesn't mean we have to get up at night to dance naked around fires with the rest of the tribe ... but ... who's to say that's such a bad idea anyway.
I'm afraid his ideas are not radical enough. T Boone Pickens wants natgas filling stations all about the place and that's good and clean and nice ... but ... it doesn't go near to solving the problem which is a ridiculous number of cars on the road. If you don't live in a big city, it's not so bad. Inside a city is worse. Inside a city which is in close proximity to another is yet worse. Add to that the finest example of Mafia highway projects in the Western world and it's between Fort Worth and Dallas. Now you have misery that is beyond description. For all the countless billions they have spent on those roads, they are still a nightmare and are hopelessly overloaded. Thank you Godfather. Thank you Rick Perry.
Another example of a Mafia project was the Big Dig in Boston. They had dragged that one out for ten years and it still wasn't completed. It may not be complete even today and it's now five years later. The Mafia banks on governments needing people to act like Moties in which they never think big enough to solve a problem and continually redesign whatever is there to make it work. This means nothing ever gets completed and they have lifetime careers.
(See "The Mote in God's Eye" by Larry Niven to read about Moties.)
I want to see things that reduce the need for cars. I see a type of tram running about Dallas and that's a good step. It's not even close to a big enough step but it's electric and clean and it gets a certain number of cars off the road. I want to see commitment on the level of European investment in alternative transportation and it's not simply for the greenness but rather because I would rather kick back in a pleasant transportation device than deal with a car and especially not a Google car that drives itself. That particular vehicle is such a glorious failure to understand the problem that one would think even Google could grasp it but nooooo.
I don't believe the individuation inevitable in driving personal automobiles is good for America and I don't believe it's good for humanity. We are social creatures and it's not so long ago that we were happy to sit in the sun picking fleas off each other. A great many things move in opposition to that and there doesn't seem to be much thinking toward what would mitigate them. I've seen various architectural solutions for communities in which most things are in walking distance and there's more of a communal vibe but I really think there will never really be psychological peace unless we feel tribal with wherever we are. That doesn't mean we have to get up at night to dance naked around fires with the rest of the tribe ... but ... who's to say that's such a bad idea anyway.
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