58 karma · joined January 21, 2014
Then Reagan happened.
Total cost will be lower.
>they are noisy, a problem which can probably never be solved unless breakthroughs are made in science-fiction fields like anti-gravity
Not electric, though wind may be a problem if the FAA allows a free-for-all, which it probably won't.
>airspace is very limited. In my country, we have already serious planning problems with the current amount of air traffic
With human pilots, sure. With autonomous vehicles, nope. They'll swarm like birds or insects.
>it's not sustainable from nature-perspective
Airborne wildlife will learn to avoid population centers and "skyways".
>flying is inherently weather-bound
Only with human pilots. Autonomous vehicles will care only about ice and lightning. Severe wind, sure, but that's fairly rare in most places.
>flying is heavily regulated, which poses barriers
The FAA just relaxed its regulations and will relax them more in the future. Everyone wants the personal airborne vehicle, especially winkled old bureaucrats in Washington.
>social opposition will always be a thing unless 100% security is neared and near-100% noiseness is reached
This may come as a surprise, but policymakers don't really give a damn about what the public wants. Autonomous vehicles will be more safe than human-piloted craft, which is enough, and electric, which is silent.
>This being said, I really, really, really do like the idea of hopping in an airborne transportation device and go straight to any place in a +-(a few hundreds of KM) range.
Good, because you're going to get it.
P.S. Re: +/- several hundred kilometers: There's no such thing as negative range.
Bend over for your ritual digital pat-down. Good citizen.
Granted.
But in the grand scheme of things, this is as equally an astonishingly new situation as is mechanized agriculture. A hundred years ago, most people lived and worked on farms; now it's like 1% or something like that.
I know that Monsanto's shareholders need to make rivers of dosh, boatloads of cash, money hand over fist, but I don't understand how in practice they've managed to get a vice-grip on everybody's family jewels.
Also, the reason why a person does or does not do such a thing is rather of less importance than what that thing is that he does or does not do. For example, if pigs carry disease, and your religion proscribes you from eating pigs because "God says so", your life is preserved whether or not you or anyone else have any conception of germ theory whatever.
Are you sure? Farmers used to have their own subtly different strains of crops at the individual, village, town, and country levels in a kind of expanding concentric ring pattern. Now, at least for cash crops, it's just a few varieties all "manufactured" by one central power.
I suppose that depends on your definition of "US Americans".
To be fair, they probably just want grandchildren.
Does that apply to the white nationalists as well, or just the half of the mob you view as on your side?