Flying Cars

In the very first Star Wars movie, when Luke Skywalker and the gay robot go looking for the vacuum-cleaner robot, they get in this car that floats on air and they drive through the desert. People think that car is really cool. I guess it kind of is. But aside from not having to worry about wear and tear on the tires, I wonder what's the big deal. If you were riding in it, it doesn't even seem like you'd be able to tell you were floating on air. Plus, I wonder what happens when it rides over a really rough surface? You only see it going through the desert, after all, so you don't even really know what would happen if it just tried to go over a really big bump in the road. I reckon that car is fine for driving on Tatooine, but you couldn't get away with driving it here on earth.

Anyway it wasn't like those cars on the Jetsons, or the Back To The Future movies. Those were cool.

People always seem to think that in the future we will actually have cars that fly. I don't think so. At least, I hope not. It's not that we couldn't make flying cars; I mean, we could totally do that even now, if we wanted to. But people are stupid enough just driving on the ground, I can't imagine how much damage they could do flying around.

Think about what a traffic jam is like right now, with people gridlocked in a straight line. Now imagine that in 3-D. Everyone flying every kind of where. Every time you had even a minor fender bender, everyone would plummet to their deaths, and then kill whoever they happened to land on. You could never regulate traffic, and even if you tried, you would need as many people working air traffic control as there were driving around. How would cops pull anyone over? What about stop signs? Or people who litter? Drunk drivers would be able to kill people who were sitting at home in their living rooms.

Logistically, it would be a nightmare. I'm staying on the ground.

A Real Mature Attitude

I don't want to hurt anyone. I don't have an agenda, or a point to prove. In fact, if someone called me up and said, "Hey, let's go get some 20-gauge shotgun shells, stick them in a lead pipe, and whack the end with a hammer!" I would probably say no. It would most likely strike me as being childish and stupid.

I'm not into gun control. I believe in the right to bear arms. On the other hand, I really don't get it when people object to laws that make it a crime to have bullets made with teflon or fulminated mercury. People talk about self-protection but that's just insane. Those aren't used to stop burglars and muggers; they're used in combat and assasinations. There's no reason for any private citizen to have that crap.

I say all this just so you know I'm not one of those pyro freaks or doomsday survivalists. And having said all that, I will now say this. I have friends who I can imagine saying to me, if I was already over at their house and there were no kids around, "Hey, I'm gonna go stick a 20-gauge shotgun shell in a lead pipe and whack it with a hammer! Wanna watch?" And, having heard them say that, my response would probably be, "Cool!"

Or, "I just spent three months building this model battleship, wanna go set it in the lake and blow it up?" To which I again would probably respond, "Cool!"

I believe there's a time for everything. There's a time to blow things up, and there's a time to let them be. There may be times like when you're watching construction workers or hanging out by the rock quarry when things need blowing up. It's not destructive. It's nature. It's the observable laws of physics, and in a way it's even educational. Plus, it always makes a really loud bang and you get to see stuff flying everywhere.

I'm not in favor of blowing things up willy-nilly. It takes careful planning. I don't play with matches, or guns. In fact, I haven't actually shot a gun or blown up anything in years. I'm just a fan.

There are guys who build catapults and seige engines to see how far they can hurl things like cars and refrigerators. That's cool. No one is hurt. There are people who like to drop things off of really high towers, or run over things with steamrollers. It's all harmless. I like to think we're naturalists....only we like the laws of physics and gravity and rapid oxidation, instead of flowers and trees and stuff like that.

I wonder if these things could be combined into a sport. I would watch. In fact, I would lobby to become the commisioner. Especially if it involved boxing or full-contact karate. I'll have to think on this some more after I've had some sleep.