The Future of transportation should have nothing to do with Cars. It should have everything to do with the creation of surface transportation that is safe, public, comfortable and ecologically sensible. How the car slipped through the wise brains of all the tech geniuses out there and ended up the default solution to the future of transportation is baffling. It is irrational, It will not work. And and the driverless and battery-efficient options are essentially an excuse for serious consideration of what will work for all.

Why the haze?

The reason for the haze that envelops the minds of those responsible for deciding our future in such a dismal way is basically what I shall call 'onepercentitis.' Onepercentitis is a terminal ailment involving the sacrifice of our future to people who care more about short term profit than sage analysis and long-term survival.

There is a syndrome that is a sure tell when it comes to onepercentitis. It is called the Martian Fever. It is the impulse to leave the planet because the challenge of making life here work is just too big for these stellar minds.

The solution

The solution for fifty years has been to get rid of the car. It is at least as urgent a matter as getting rid of Trump. We have tons of good minds who spend al day and night thinking of ways to rid ourselves of a bad choice by a flawed democracy. Those who spend time thinking along the lines of cyber communities are a tiny creative minority, to borrow an apposite phrase from the late Arnold Toynbee. They know that the best investment of all is in human beings and their enablement.

They think triadically and their ethic promotes tolerance, helpfulness, and democracy.

Driving our lives away

Eddie Rabbit reminded us that we were driving our lives away years ago and we still are.

Accidents, deaths, asphyxiation, maimings -- this is the legacy of Henry Ford. Cars are now an unintended consequence of what worked once but stopped working when planners in the 1960s realized the game was up.

Onepercentitis

This was anathema to the ad industry and the corporate establishment which had a good one percent solution going.

So they suppressed it and now the Kochs and BP (Axios sponsors) and every other one percent Trump supporter is on board for more fossil fuels and more sprawl. They probably hope China will clean it up because we are close to broke on drugs and futile wars against drugs and crime and prostitution and whatever else gets votes. Are we messed up? Indeed. But there is a simple solution. Stop and think.
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