Is there a point where technology gets stupid?

Or you dont manually drive a flying car but instead pick a destination and it'll automatically get you there in autopilot. Considering the requirements for flight are much higher than that of a regular car, most people wouldn't bother getting a flying license - take out of the equation the need for hands-on piloting and a pilots license - and you've got yourself a fantastic personal transportation system.

The fact that a flying car wouldn't need to deal with the complexities of traffic, turns, manuvering cities, etc, and its far simpler system to automate. In fact, most jets are pretty much on autopilot for take-off, flying, and landing requiring minimal intervention from an actual pilot.

So no, none of your points have any validity to a well done system. You lack imagination. You're thinking of a car with wings. Thats not practical, and you're right.

50 years ago who the hell imagine a car getting 50 MPG like the prius? Well, why not a system for handling private air transportation.

XaosII

Here's the thing though...planes might be set on autopilot for most of the flight, but I was under the impression that the pilots can still generally fly the plane.

I also think that you're a lot more trusting in technology than most people are. Even if perfect fully automated "flying cars" were ever invented, I'm not sure how likely the public would be willing to accept that. How many people do you know who'd be willing to trust ANY car to make all possible decisions during driving without allowing any input from a human?

Also, furthermore, people are *****ing about gas prices now. So until we come up with a super-cheap energy source, then "flying cars" will still only be at best luxury cars for the super rich. No matter what you do, flying cars are always going to use up a lot more feul than regular cars, because it takes a lot of energy to overcome that whole "gravity" thing. Not many people are going to go for that until the price of fuel drops substantially.

And here's the thing...flying cars really aren't necessarily a stupid idea. It's just that once you have a flying car, you are essentially flying an airplane. And yes...you sort of need a license for that. That's not exactly stupid, lots of people have their own airplanes and have the training and licenses required to fly them. But...most people aren't ever going to do that. And furthermore, owning a "flying car" doesn't mean you'll just be allowed to go wherever the hell you want. There is such a thing as "air traffic". And the more that "flying cars" catch on, the more that "air traffic" is going to become like "regular traffic". The more "cars" there are flying around in the air, the more that it becomes necessary to restrict them to certain routes and/or flat out tell people that they can't "drive" because there's too much traffic that day. At some point, it's not gonna provide any real benefit over just getting behind the wheel of the car that you have now.

Technology has been ridiculous since the PC. It's only gotten better since then.

[QUOTE="lightleggy"] do you really think someone would entrust their life to a computer? and you know, not only you would have a flying car, hundreds of other would have the car as well...it will look like a star wars movie, everybody using flying cars, behind you, below you, above you, in front of you, next to you, fly cars surrounding you in every direction, so many on auto pilot, an accident is bound to happen, jets dont have hundreds of other jets at the same altitude/proximity. and yes there would have to be an established altitude, having everyone flying where they please would be extremely dangerous, and not to mention flying cars are bird killing machines. and the cities are not even designed for flying cars, whole cities would have to be redesigned, would you imagine new york with flying cars? do you think it would look as close it is now? its impossible. its a stupid idea which I hope never succeeds. oh and 50 years ago, we didnt had the analyst and technology we have now, so now we CAN tell how bad it would be to use a flying car, while when the car was invented, and even 50 years ago (note: im not saying cars are 50 years old) people could pretty much just speculate. and its a fact that flying cars require more than twice the amount of gasoline just to take off, beating gravity aint cheap, and they are much much more contaminant. believe me I've actually researched a lot on the subject. flying cars are stupid, they will never work, period.XaosII

Uhh, you entrust your life to a computer every time you fly in the air.

Yes, with a well done system, hundreds of others would also have flying cars. That would be the goal: cheap personal flying transportation. Your exact arguments are that same ones someone 100 years ago would propose for regular cars "everyone would have them! They would all crash! fuel would be expensive! where you put them?!"

Which is exactly why im saying that a well done system would make flying personal transportation possible.

Yes, i can easily see a city like NYC having them especially to be able to put to use their rooftops as parking spaces. Who cares if it doesn't look like anything as it would today. Thats the price of progress.

Your argument is "I dont like the idea therefore its impossible. Also, i dont like progress."

No, i dont believe that you've done any research. All you've done was come to a conclusion based on your prejudice. You seriously have no imagination. What if they were electric flyiung cars that were launched from a magnetic "cannon" into flying heights and then using long range induction to keep them charged in the air until they reach their destination? That would cost exactly 0 gallons of fuel.

No, I think that the argument is that flying cars wouldn't offer any improvement over the cars that we already have.

Sure, in the future we MIGHT have an energy source that makes "flying cars" economically feasible to average folks. But those cars are ALWAYS going to be more expensive to use and maintain than the cars that we have now. No benefit.

Sure, flying cars MIGHT become cheap enough and safe enough for them to be widely adopted. But the more people there are flying around in the sky, the more you've gotta restrict what they can do or where they can go. Get enough people using flying in cars, and you've still got rush hour gridlock. Only now it's a few hundred feet above the ground. Not really an improvement over what we have now. At best, it'll be the exact same thing. At worst, it'll be even more expensive and dangerous than the cars we have now. Because whatever safety features we can put in flying cars to make them safe, we can also put in ground cars. The flying cars might be REASONABLY safe, but they're always going to be fundamentally more dangerous due to that whole "gravity" thing. So yeah...you can say that a reasonably safe "flying car" could eventually become a reality. But it still won't be an IMPROVEMENT on the way things work now.

The only way that "flying cars" could even be remotely viable is by limiting the numbers of "flying cars" that are allowed to be in the sky. And that pretty much takes care of itself due to the fact that flying cars are inherently essentially airplanes. You'd still need a pilots license, which most people aren't going to get. Using them would have to be more expensive and more inconvenient for everyday tasks than simply using a regular car. Without somehow limiting the number of "flying cars" in the air (either by cost/training/etc), there'd be too many people in flying cars. And that would eliminate any benefits of flying cars in the first place.

Again...people have been able to buy their own airplanes and fly them for a long time. Most people aren't flying airplanes. And thank god. Because if every average Joe had his own personal airplane, then things would suck.

I could potentially see flying BUSES working, with the bus driver essentiall being a trained airplane pilot. But...it's still a bus. And I don't know anyone who likes riding on a bus if they don't have to.

[QUOTE="DarthJohnova"][QUOTE="lightleggy"]Wait...kindles are great, great ebook readers, yes I rather have my kindle in my backpack along with my e book collection (around 100) than carrying those 100 books with me all the time. besides kindles do more than reading, and the books are cheaper in digital.lightleggy

Okay firstly, I'm a Literature student; I read four books a week. Just saying...

Secondly, I can make annotations, revisit texts and find certain parts by using my pencil and my cognitive skill of knowing a text rather than relying on a piece of equipment to do it for me.

Your point about the classics being free is a fair enough point, a lot of books are 'free'. But they're not really...because you've just paid £100/$150 for the device. Of course they're not free. Classics paperbacks can be bought for like £1/$1.50 in paperback. That's a lot of free classics you're going to have to download to justify the price of the kindle. So they're not really 'free'.

In terms of battery, that's not really a plausible argument. You're correct. A month/3 weeks is excellent battery life and there's no reason to debate that. I find it odd how 1 month battery life is supposedly 'better than paperback' as you put it because my paperbacks don't run on batteries.

I've said it once, I'll say it again. Clearly it's down to personal opinion and I don't mind if you like them, I really don't, It's none of my business. But I find them totally unnecessary.

In my opinion: Yes. I can think of more technology that I dislike more than I like :( Technology also has an unhappy knack of updating too often. Facebook for example was wonderful until the new chat system, the new profile system, the new notifications system etc. etc.

What I think is the worst is these new cars that let you access Facebook and Twitter. Are we really that obsessed?

those things you were talking about are called gimmicks

Chris_Williams

Exactly, and to elaborate upon that most mainstream technology is junk that has exceeded what would or couldbe considered useful. The U.S built it's economy on the sale useless merchandise.

How are you gonna convince someone they need a new phone or some other thing if the one you're trying to sell them doesn't have something different or new. People are suckers for "different" & "new" But it's like having a compass while they live in a major city. Sure it's cool, but they aren't gonna use itenough to justify owning one.

Futuristic is the selling point. All of those Star Wars and Star Trek fantasies you've had since you were a kid are coming true. What you think is new technology is decades old. They're not gonna release something to the general public UNTIL whatever they were selling is no longer selling.

How much stuff the average person buy and throw away. How much use did they get out of what they had thrown away? What did or didn't pay for it doesn't justify the waste, because waste adds up.

your "well done system" is literally something that only appears in sci fi books...lightleggy

you do realize that 30 years ago no one would have thought it was possible for people to be walking around with a supercomputer in their pockets. Thats what a smartphone is.

you know current day computers, and yes we have great computers and have advanced a lot in the field, have trouble calculating the trajectory of a baseball traveling at more than 30 kmh? now imagine how would it be trying to calculate the trajectory of more than 300 vehicles flying at like 70kmh. lightleggy

Or routes are precalculated from node to node and simple travel using those predefined trajectories and calculations are all done based on thos defined trajectories. Its far easier and more efficient to do so from a calculations standpoint. Again, your mindset is "cars with wings."

it would be crazyness, and yes there would be traffic because there would be designated virtual highways so that not everyone go where they please. and that just shows you know nothing about architecture...ok so you are saying that the empire state just needs to place cars on the roof? how many cars fit on the roof of that? how many cars fit on a roof? 20 as much, and parking lots have capacity for over 2000 cars, great replacement huh?lightleggy

Whats stopping them from building additional levels on the roof for more parking? Seriously, you have no imagination at all, either fantastical or realistic.

I also think that you're a lot more trusting in technology than most people are. Even if perfect fully automated "flying cars" were ever invented, I'm not sure how likely the public would be willing to accept that. How many people do you know who'd be willing to trust ANY car to make all possible decisions during driving without allowing any input from a human?

Also, furthermore, people are *****ing about gas prices now. So until we come up with a super-cheap energy source, then "flying cars" will still only be at best luxury cars for the super rich. No matter what you do, flying cars are always going to use up a lot more feul than regular cars, because it takes a lot of energy to overcome that whole "gravity" thing. Not many people are going to go for that until the price of fuel drops substantially.

And here's the thing...flying cars really aren't necessarily a stupid idea. It's just that once you have a flying car, you are essentially flying an airplane. And yes...you sort of need a license for that. That's not exactly stupid, lots of people have their own airplanes and have the training and licenses required to fly them. But...most people aren't ever going to do that. And furthermore, owning a "flying car" doesn't mean you'll just be allowed to go wherever the hell you want. There is such a thing as "air traffic". And the more that "flying cars" catch on, the more that "air traffic" is going to become like "regular traffic". The more "cars" there are flying around in the air, the more that it becomes necessary to restrict them to certain routes and/or flat out tell people that they can't "drive" because there's too much traffic that day. At some point, it's not gonna provide any real benefit over just getting behind the wheel of the car that you have now.

MrGeezer

I would. But thats because im software developer and i can fully understand the algorithms involved in detection and processing.

If every car, by law, were required to have both front and back license plates with some kind of wireless (probably RFID) point-to-point communcation and create a mesh type network, autopiloting would be extremely easy. Each vehicle can broadcast to any nearby vehicles its size, shape, speed, direction, etc and each car adjsut accordingly. Its very easy. You can take a look at advanced warehouses that use robots (i think Kiva is the only company making these robots) for stocking and moving around boxes. They dont have any traffic collisions at all.

We do have a super cheap energy source. Its the sun. The issue is the poor efficiency of solar panels as we are hovering around %10-%18. It'll improve with time, as did every other energy source conversion.

Again, you're thinking "car with wings." I agree that would not be a very good vehicle.

Cell phones are stupid technology. I see people talking on them all day long - people who have absolutely nothing to talk about because they never actually do anything except talk on their cell phone. Good god, talk about mindless prattle. Doesn't anybody have the ability to shut their mouth for 5 minutes and actually just think about stuff any more?

I also think everything is excessively miniaturized. My freakin' camera has tiny buttons with labels so small you need a magnifying glass to read them. Oh yeah, I may not be able to use it for anything, but I can carry it everywhere because it's so convenient :roll:

And anything with a touchscreen is stupid. Who wants to look at a huge glob of fingerprints all over something?

At least a "car with wings" has to constantly keep moving forward in order to stay in the air. If you're talking about some kind of hovering car, then you've just opened up the possibility of being gridlocked while hovering pointlessly in the air. And that's exactly the type of thing that "flying cars" are supposed to held people avoid. If you're gonna just be sitting there stuck in rush hour traffic, then you'd might as well be in a regular car.

[QUOTE="lightleggy"] your "well done system" is literally something that only appears in sci fi books...XaosII

you do realize that 30 years ago no one would have thought it was possible for people to be walking around with a supercomputer in their pockets. Thats what a smartphone is.

you know current day computers, and yes we have great computers and have advanced a lot in the field, have trouble calculating the trajectory of a baseball traveling at more than 30 kmh? now imagine how would it be trying to calculate the trajectory of more than 300 vehicles flying at like 70kmh. lightleggy

Or routes are precalculated from node to node and simple travel using those predefined trajectories and calculations are all done based on thos defined trajectories. Its far easier and more efficient to do so from a calculations standpoint. Again, your mindset is "cars with wings."

it would be crazyness, and yes there would be traffic because there would be designated virtual highways so that not everyone go where they please. and that just shows you know nothing about architecture...ok so you are saying that the empire state just needs to place cars on the roof? how many cars fit on the roof of that? how many cars fit on a roof? 20 as much, and parking lots have capacity for over 2000 cars, great replacement huh?lightleggy

Whats stopping them from building additional levels on the roof for more parking? Seriously, you have no imagination at all, either fantastical or realistic.

I also think that you're a lot more trusting in technology than most people are. Even if perfect fully automated "flying cars" were ever invented, I'm not sure how likely the public would be willing to accept that. How many people do you know who'd be willing to trust ANY car to make all possible decisions during driving without allowing any input from a human?

Also, furthermore, people are *****ing about gas prices now. So until we come up with a super-cheap energy source, then "flying cars" will still only be at best luxury cars for the super rich. No matter what you do, flying cars are always going to use up a lot more feul than regular cars, because it takes a lot of energy to overcome that whole "gravity" thing. Not many people are going to go for that until the price of fuel drops substantially.

And here's the thing...flying cars really aren't necessarily a stupid idea. It's just that once you have a flying car, you are essentially flying an airplane. And yes...you sort of need a license for that. That's not exactly stupid, lots of people have their own airplanes and have the training and licenses required to fly them. But...most people aren't ever going to do that. And furthermore, owning a "flying car" doesn't mean you'll just be allowed to go wherever the hell you want. There is such a thing as "air traffic". And the more that "flying cars" catch on, the more that "air traffic" is going to become like "regular traffic". The more "cars" there are flying around in the air, the more that it becomes necessary to restrict them to certain routes and/or flat out tell people that they can't "drive" because there's too much traffic that day. At some point, it's not gonna provide any real benefit over just getting behind the wheel of the car that you have now.

MrGeezer

I would. But thats because im software developer and i can fully understand the algorithms involved in detection and processing.

If every car, by law, were required to have both front and back license plates with some kind of wireless (probably RFID) point-to-point communcation and create a mesh type network, autopiloting would be extremely easy. Each vehicle can broadcast to any nearby vehicles its size, shape, speed, direction, etc and each car adjsut accordingly. Its very easy. You can take a look at advanced warehouses that use robots (i think Kiva is the only company making these robots) for stocking and moving around boxes. They dont have any traffic collisions at all.

We do have a super cheap energy source. Its the sun. The issue is the poor efficiency of solar panels as we are hovering around %10-%18. It'll improve with time, as did every other energy source conversion.

Again, you're thinking "car with wings." I agree that would not be a very good vehicle.

At least a "car with wings" has to constantly keep moving forward in order to stay in the air. If you're talking about some kind of hovering car, then you've just opened up the possibility of being gridlocked while hovering pointlessly in the air. And that's exactly the type of thing that "flying cars" are supposed to held people avoid. If you're gonna just be sitting there stuck in rush hour traffic, then you'd might as well be in a regular car.

MrGeezer

30 years ago we didnt had the technology or analysts we have now, stop using the "x years ago people didnt thought this would be possible" argument, they are completly different times and we are much much advanced, we can predict things better, instead of speculating like it was done in older times. and how would pre calculated routes work? that would mean that every place possible to visit would need to be in the routes database...what if you dont want to go to a specific place at all? just some random spot in the middle of nowhere, and still what you say doesnt answer the question: how will it work with other thousands of flying cars around? it will also have to calculate everything related to the nearby cars to avoid crashing. no one would ever entrust their life fully to a computer, even airplane pilots need to intervene while flying, no matter if the auto pilot is on, the auto pilot doesnt drive the plane on its own, the plane still cant fly without the pilot and it would be catastrophic if the whole plain would be automatically controlled by a computer. and whats stopping them on building more levels? oh, I dont know, architectural design maybe? you do know those buildings have an extremely refinated designs? adding 1 more floor to one of those buildings could literally mean the foundations would succumb to its own weight, or that one of the floors could "break", theres a lot of thinking to it, its not just "oh lets put another floor here lulz" lightleggy

Its just "TRYING" to simplify things so you wont need to connect your keyboard and your mouse to it all. Technology doesn't mean it has to be necessary either. It has its fair share of gimmicks and uses.

The ipad

Tokugawa77

Cell phones are stupid technologyJackc8

30 years ago we didnt had the technology or analysts we have now, stop using the "x years ago people didnt thought this would be possible" argument, they are completly different times and we are much much advanced, we can predict things better, instead of speculating like it was done in older times. and how would pre calculated routes work? that would mean that every place possible to visit would need to be in the routes database...what if you dont want to go to a specific place at all? just some random spot in the middle of nowhere, and still what you say doesnt answer the question: how will it work with other thousands of flying cars around? it will also have to calculate everything related to the nearby cars to avoid crashing. no one would ever entrust their life fully to a computer, even airplane pilots need to intervene while flying, no matter if the auto pilot is on, the auto pilot doesnt drive the plane on its own, the plane still cant fly without the pilot and it would be catastrophic if the whole plain would be automatically controlled by a computer. and whats stopping them on building more levels? oh, I dont know, architectural design maybe? you do know those buildings have an extremely refinated designs? adding 1 more floor to one of those buildings could literally mean the foundations would succumb to its own weight, or that one of the floors could "break", theres a lot of thinking to it, its not just "oh lets put another floor here lulz" lightleggy

No, the argument is quite relevent. Why are we so certain today of the limits of technology? The only argument you've presented is "because i cant conceive of it." Technology WILL improve over time and things thought immaginable today will be possible in the future. Its always been the case. Why can't we have an infinite energy source in the future? We sure can. You just can't conceive of it right now. Your point of we have better speculation isnt valid. Yes, its better, but not in any way definite.

Yes, precalculated routes would be calculated from point to point and stored in a database on your transport. If you need to deviate from a set point then you'll be routed from the nearest available point to your destination, that way you calculate only one node from the furthest. Same concept as pathfinding in video games.

Whats there not to understand with thousands of other vehicles? The paths are precalculated and your vehicle broadcasts your destination to others so that paths can be optimized based on traffic and routes. Its basic traffic rotuing on a largely fixed node based network.

You do realize you entrust your life to a computer everytime you ride a rollercoaster? Lots of life and death things are handled by computers rather than human operators. Yes, sometimes awful things happen, even with roller coasters, but so do things happen with humans and regular cars. Its benefits far outweigh its risks and damages.

Yeah, building's are built to very tight specifications. They are not impossible to reinforce and expand. Just expensive. Its not impossible, just expensive.

Why do I need a computer when I have a typewriter?

Why do I need a typewriter when I have a pen and paper?

Honestly you sound like the older generation questioning why we have all these new fangled gadgets. Just because you don't like it dosn't mean it's worthless or stupid. Quit acting like the world revolves around your likes and dislikes.