💸💸 I wish I could fly 💸💸

Well, I wish I could ride a zip line when there's an extended downhill slope.

The photo here doesn't necessarily do justice to the slope, but just imagine us going downhill.

I'll be walking left (across the gas station), then turning right and continuing down that road.

Why can't I zip???

Rather than turn left and then turn right, one foot in front of the other, I can just zip down as the crow flies and get there in one swoop.

Maybe have me climb a ladder first for some added height.

When it's a long uphill we can have a crank mechanism, where we hop in carts and collectively peddle. (Or there can be mechanical help or designated peddlers who earn rewards for their power.)

Lots of things like that. We build things around however Mother Earth curves and flows.

Sound crazy? Well why should our transportation methods (our ways of navigating the Earth) not be influenced by the shape and terrain of the Earth?

If it's a one-size-fits-all method without much variation place to place, then it probably is a really weak and sub-optimal method.

Statists famously ask but who will build the roads???

[if not for a centralized, coercive monopoly doing it]…

And in a sense their suspicion is probably right, that no one would builds roads this mediocrely as we know them now if not for the state.

Roads as they exist now are more or less a reflection of using horse-and-buggies.

And like anything that's socialized/monopolized, there's virtually no incentive to innovate.

(There's incentive to meet basic expectations so that people don't cry bloody murder, but not to stay current and be seamlessly improving and optimizing as things change.)

So the roads just lock in place and stay more or less the same.

And while cars may have made perfect sense for a brief window of time in 1920 or whatever, as they become commonly affordable and it grows to be congested and dangerous and gross and polluting, there reaches a point where it's just dumb as rocks and there are much better ways to structure our transportation.

So it's like we're still living today with a horse-and-buggy type of ethos, long after we've outgrown it.

Even if there could be some long distance highway type of roads that allow for the use of cars, they shouldn't be the default way to get to the grocery store. Within towns and congested areas there are much better ways of jaunting around.

If it were up to me, there would definitely be a zip line right there.

(And if it were up to a co-op of local residents and business owners, I'd probably be able to convince them that it's a good idea.)

Moving walkways, light rail trains flying by up above, bikes, cranks, zip lines, sleds, toboggans, you name it.

Cars are stupid.

I'd really love an overhead bike track that swings and curves, and at various points you can hop into an elevator and grab some height for a relaxing cruise downward.

Everyone would have fun and immediately forget about cars, once you get them out of the way and allow real transportation systems to develop.

And it would all be much cheaper and more social and healthier for the planet and for us.

What about the old people and the disabled???

Cars are awful for them.

Depending how old or disabled you are, you can't really operate one. And now you have to worry about getting hit by them, and staying on the tiny, bumpy, rotten little sidewalk they give us when you ride your chair.

Anyone who can operate a car can just as easily ride on the moving walkways, the light rail trains, etc.

Cars also space things out wider than they need to be. Shops can be closer together when each one doesn't need a parking lot to go with it.

Getting cars out of the way and creating dynamic solutions is exactly what people like this need. The car system hurts them more than anyone.

They try to tell me I'm the crazy one.

The zip line would be a safety hazard, young man. We don't want you to fall.

Fuck you, cars are the ultimate safety hazard. I risk life and limb every time I go out there.

And if the roads as they exist now weren't owned and operated by the state, liability alone would probably make them impossible.

No one would want a road, lol.

No one would want the blood on their hands, and they'd be sued to kingdom come.

The system we have now literally depends on special privileges, and lack of anyone being accountable.

I walk everywhere.

I bike when weather permits.

I bus sometimes. But I don't like standing there waiting for the bus, and given all the stops it makes (often a transfer to a different bus and more waiting, etc), I usually prefer to walk.

It's not perfect. I have to avoid being hit by the cars. It's not my zip line utopia.

For some people, I can see why you choose to use a car (given that it's the system we currently have and that it suffocates the good solutions that would emerge and work well for you otherwise). I don't hold it against you.

But to me, walking is a little better.

Time spent in a car seems more or less wasted. (You can listen to music, or talk a little. But you can't be truly engaged by anything besides driving safely.) When I walk, it may take 2 hours, but it's 2 hours of exercise, fresh air, tripping out to music and my own thoughts, chasing squirrels, kissing dogs, etc.

And then I don't need to buy a gym membership and walk in place on a treadmill.

So while most people would say that their car saves them time, I think what they really mean is that they feel rushed and hurried. Or that they have deadlines and commitments.

Very well.

But technically, driving a car seems perfectly wasteful of time.

I'm a turtle, basically.

I probably come off as a hobo or something to the people who whizz by. Look at that guy, carrying a grocery bag miles away from any grocery store, walking down this windy road.

I imagine the people in the cars feel a sense of superiority to the person walking.

Fine by me.

I didn't ask you to monopolize the roadways. I'm just trying to make it work somehow.

You can have the car payments and insurance and the fuel consumption and all that.

I'll be the turtle. Let's see who wins the race.