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[darkrider2]

Transportation barely bothers me compared to the failure of almost every industry that relies on oil as a critical chemical input to production.

Why not just use electric cars? We've made them before and they work spectacularly, and unlike some other things, electricity can be made without consuming non-renewable resources.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I am in agreement. Autonomous electric cars are a much better solution than completely shifting how people travel.   

[Scelly9]

PTW

[mainiac]

It is my understanding that Tokyo's trains are pushed past maximum capacity every day, not some days.

Automobiles are more than convenient. Trains move when the scheduled says they move, a car moves when its owner wants it to. There are overall economic benefits to that because time is not wasted waiting.

Dude, I've lived in three different cities in my life.  Traffic was an everyday thing in all of them.

Sure there are benefits to the flexibility of a car.  But that doesn't mean that it would be apocalyptic to do without.

Transportation barely bothers me compared to the failure of almost every industry that relies on oil as a critical chemical input to production.

Why not just use electric cars? We've made them before and they work spectacularly, and unlike some other things, electricity can be made without consuming non-renewable resources.

Industrial oil isn't a big problem as the cost of oil will be uneconomical for transportation before we use it all up.  So there should be plenty left for industrial uses to last us a good long while.

I'm quite bullish on electric cars too myself.  But I think that trains will become the method of choice for intercity transit.  Living in small towns means that I've done a lot of long distance driving or even worse travelling by commuter van.  A rail system like Japan seems downright miraculous compared to my experience.

I am in agreement. Autonomous electric cars are a much better solution than completely shifting how people travel.   

You say this as if people don't shift the way they travel all the time.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I am in agreement. Autonomous electric cars are a much better solution than completely shifting how people travel.   

You say this as if people don't shift the way they travel all the time.

The primary mode of transportation rarely changes.

[mainiac]

The primary mode of transportation rarely changes.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The primary mode of transportation rarely changes.

For most people the method that they most often use to get around rarely changes. People who own cars do not travel in a way other than cars excepting special circumstances such as extreme distance. You may be an exception to this. You may transition between walking and cars and trains and buses and planes all the time, but most people do not and will not.

[Frumple]

Trains, trains good. Public transportation good.

Any ideas on how to get them outside of frakoff huge cities, that doesn't involve going back to train schedules from many decades ago? Heavily urbanized areas kinda' literally drive a good chunk of the human population insane, last time I checked, so having a kind of second option to city living would be, uh. Nice. Problem being it's not really economical to run public transportation to and through a lot of smaller areas, from what I've seen (we've lost a few bus lines in my area, ferex), especially while allowing the sort of schedules and flexibility that's a seriously heavy key to modern living.

Honestly, the thought of some of these areas becoming even harder to get out of and around  within is somewhat terrifying. The thought of a hellhole like I live in ending up only having a train exit once every couple months is just...

[mainiac]

The primary mode of transportation rarely changes.

For most people the method that they most often use to get around rarely changes. People who own cars do not travel in a way other than cars excepting special circumstances such as extreme distance. You may be an exception to this. You may transition between walking and cars and trains and buses and planes all the time, but most people do not and will not.

Except for the millions of people a year who are an exception to this rule that would be a very good argument.

College freshmen?  People moving into the city for the first time?  We aren't talking about science fiction here.  You are saying things are impossible that are so commonplace that they aren't even noticed.

[darkrider2]

Cars are just more convenient than trains for your average person. Trains have to have an entire team of people maintaining them and can't go everywhere you want them to go no matter how many you install.

No one is going to run train rails out to the ass-end middle of nowhere farming towns that are littered across huge portions of land.

Yeah its more efficient from the cost perspective, but its not convenient, convenience is something that holds value in modern society, a lot of value. Cars are managed by one person, the owner, and go anywhere that has roads, and whenever the owner wants.

[10ebbor10]

A major problem for trains, and a few other nice technologies, like Green power in most of it varieties is an impending copper shortage.

Btw, as much more efficient thing would be the construction of these things. Less copper used in construction, one central engine to provide the power, automatic energy recuperation, and much more efficient since it doesn't need to stop.

[LordBucket]

Cars are just more convenient than trains for your average person.

On one hand, greater convenience...

On the other, the hypothetical end of the human race and/or modern civiliztion because of resource "scarcity."


Now before you freak out, yes I am overstating the case. However, the goal is is to illustrate the nature of this discussion. On one side we have people saying that there are diminishing resources, overconsumption, that things cannot continue, that the population must be reduced...and generally claiming that there are some serious problems.

On the other side we have people saying that no...there's not really any huge problem here, because there's nothing going on that we can't solve. To which people in the first group are responding, "oh, no...we can't use those solutions because, woe is us, it would be inconvenient to do so."

Like I said, it's a stupidity problem.

I'm not saying that trains are "the answer" to any specific problem being discussed. They're merely one possible answer, out of many possible solutions. But there's a mindset here that needs to be overcome before any useful discussion can take place.

Look back at history. At one time there were people saying that horses would never be replaced and automobiles would never be anything but a toy for the rich. And that point of view might be easy to call silly now, but is it really so different? We didn't used to have paved roads. We didn't used to have inetrstate highways. Is it really so difficult to imagine someone thinking it ridiculous to expect cars to be common or useful because it would require building a massive network of hundreds of thousands of mils of roads and tens of thousands of miles of interstate highways?

And yet, nevertheless we did it, and cars are useful, and so normal that some of you are having difficulty imagining life without them.

Again, I'm not saying we need to get rid of cars and start laying train tracks. That's totally not the point. The point is that we can do things that we set our mind to. We can change the nature of society even if the changes we want require massive modifications of infrastructure and way of life. We can choose to do things differently, and there's no reason for that change to mean returning to the dark ages or living in huts wearing animal furs. It just doesn't need to be that way.

All of the "problems" claimed by the end-of-civilzation-due-to-scarcity crowd can be overcome. There's no "problem" here that we don't already know how to fix.

 * In vitro meat has been technologically viable for years. It's only expensive because there's no economic incentive to develop it commercially so there's no established induistry already able to benefit from economy of scale.
 * Atmospheric water generators are already commercially available. You can buy them right now for home use. They extract water directly from the air.
 * There are countries already producing 20% of their total electricity via wind generators. If you don't like wind there's solar. If you don't like solar there's geothermal. If you don't like geothermal there's hydroelectric. If you don't want any of those in your back yard taking up space then build orbital satellites to collect solar from the sun and send it back to earth. Whatever. Take your pick. The point here is that there are options. Lots of options.
 * Tokyo has a population density of 6000 people per square kilometer. The US alone has 9.8 million square kilometers of available space. If you were to develop that space as densely as Tokyo, you'd have room for about 60 billion people. I've been to Tokyo. It's a nice place. It has parks and gardens and open space just like the US. It's no scary, dystopian hellhole of gridlocked skyscrapers like you may have been led to believe. If fact, it's not even one of the top fifty densest places in the world, by a factor of at least 8.
 * There are synthetic oils, biologically derived fuels, and purely electrically powered cars. There is no reason at all for us to be forever dependant on digging up crude oil, nor is it necessary for us to do without private vehicles.

Pick any problem you want from this discussion and it already has solutions.

[10ebbor10]

Rampant conservative consumerism;


Well, I'm going to do a case study. Let's take Belgium(because I happen to live there) as an example.

Belgium already has a relatively well developed public transport system, so we can't really expect any major improvements there. It's also fairly urbanized, especially in the North of the country. Food supply is mostly imported, and while it could be replaced using High tech systems, that would only increase energy need. Between 50-75% of the energy production is nuclear, but the reactors are old, and by governement agreement will be shut down over the next ten years.

Now, what kind of green energy can we produce.
-Wind energy is a NO. Being as densely populated as Belgium is, there are no places where windpower can be safely generated. (In case of a failure of wind turbine failure, debris can fly as far as 4km). Some seabased generators fields can be placed, but there isn't that much place.
-Solar power works, and there have been succesfull plans to encourage people to install there own. This however, puts pressure on the electricity network, increasing the chance for failures and network costs.
-Geothermal and Hydroelectrical are both impossible, due to not having any major damable rivers or useable terretory.
-Solar power sattelites are pure science fiction, and largely impossible.
-Biomass has already been exploited to it's maximum.

With a large budget deficit and a large governement debt, there isn't much room for investements.

Now tell me how you're going to replace 50%-75% of our energy supply without increasing reliance on fossil fuels, bankrupting the country or anything else.

TL Dr: Problems are not as easy as they seem. Don't nihilize the issues. While it's true there are solutions, these often create problems, and you also got a whole lot of stupid people running around.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

-Solar power sattelites are pure science fiction, and largely impossible.

There sure has been a lot of discussion and study about these supposedly impossible solar power satellites. What is it with you and the extreme pessimism about everything space related?

Don't nihilize the issues.

I'm pretty sure you just invented a word there. Might as well call Oxford English and tell them to put it in, at this point pretty much everything is.

[10ebbor10]

I suggest that you read said article. Especially the disadvantage section.
I restate them for you here.
     1. Space debris: These satelites are going to be huge screens, and one hit can mean a total loss.
     2. Reduced lifetime. Space based solar pannels only have 1/10 or less the lifetime. Getting a net profit is going to be hard
     3. Transmission frequencies. Almost all of these are in use. Unless you plan on cutting away a large part of wireless communications.*
     4. Cost. It costs quite a lot to bring these object into space.
     5. Space. Space might be big, but the needed orbits are already fairly cluttered up.

While it isn't impossible, seeing the current investement in space and available technology, it won't be a solution in the situation and timeframe given. Maybe between 2070-2080, but no sooner. I'm not pessimistic, just realistic.

*Trends already suggest a complete breakdown of mobile networks between 2012-2014, mostly due to mobile internet. Work on new protocols is progressing, but not fast enough.

Don't nihilize the issues.

I'm pretty sure you just invented a word there. Might as well call Oxford English and tell them to put it in, at this point pretty much everything is.

Note to self: Litteraly translating things from another language doesn't work.