by Outcast_Searcher » Sat 24 Mar 2012, 14:26:13
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Novus', '
')The Tacocopter likey represents an efficiency over driving there oneself in a 4000 pound automobile. A ten minute trip through traffic could be a 2 minute journey for the Tacocopter through the air. Additionally the Tacocopter could potentially combine trips and deliver to multiple people thus getting several cars off the road. Expect more of these types of services as gas becomes more expensive.
Agreed. It is amazing how quickly science fiction now comes to approximate reality. In the novella "Fast Times at Fairmont High", a near-future story about how quickly technology like dirt cheap and simple networking, and the exponential level of change of software, etc. would completely transform society until high school kids would have the electronic capabilities (and the know-how to utilize them) that would be unimaginable at the time. That was written almost precisely ONE decade ago.
One of the features in the story was rockets that the likes of Fedex would use to deliver packages in just minutes to hours from when you ordered things you wanted online. These were so ingrained into society that it was illegal (serious misdemeanor if memory serves) to interfere with the rocket. It would deliver you your package. You would take the package and set the rocket in a clear area. It would then wait a bit, and launch itself and return itself to the sender.
And now 10 years later here we are. Although not global in reach -- copters of this ilk are likely FAR cheaper, more efficient, and much more readily reusable long term than the rockets that the popular futurist/novelist Vernor Vinge envisioned.
Review:
http://www.kurzweilai.net/review-vernor ... fast-timesNote -- this is an example of why I'm a moderate. Yes, collectively society is stupid and yes, we are consuming too much and multiplying too fast. OTOH, we are VERY adaptive -- and hopefully if enough evidence presents itself we will wake up and (at gigantic expense), invest the resources to save ourselves at a sustainable level of population and resource usage (however small that may be).
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.