Where are the Flying Cars? « The Frailest Thing
by Handsome Matt
Where are the Flying Cars? « The Frailest Thing.
Note the last quote from William Halal:
“Our forecasts suggest that most of the big breakthroughs now anticipated—green technologies, alternative energy, artificial intelligence, biogenetic medical care—are likely to arrive well before 2050. In fact, exploding information technology and knowledge are likely to unify the globe into some type of coherent world system between 2020 and 2030 out of sheer necessity. The mounting threats of climate change, energy shortages, environmental collapse, WMDs, terrorism, and other elements of the “Global Megacrisis” are forcing this historic transition, and global gross domestic product will double about 2020, making the present global order unsustainable and demanding a form of “global consciousness.” Our surveys of the megacrisis show that the next decade or two will either see a crucial turning point to a “mature” global society or we are likely to witness the collapse of civilization in major parts of the world.”
We’ve been able to successfully split and quantify various issues into their own categories. WMDs and terrorism in one category (national security), climate change (environment or false alarm), Energy shortages (resource supply issue).
Because we’ve broken things down, we might fail to see that something larger is at play here.
I’ve been writing about government issues recently, because our environmental and sustainability issues stem directly from our society’s choices. And our society implements these choices through our government.
So to address the environmental issues, we have to address to society; to address society, we must redress the issues in government.
Look at it another way: what births a terrorist?
On the surface it appears to be Islamic extremists in the Middle East. But as we dig into it, we see there are a variety of social and economic factors that play into the birth of a terrorist.
To stop terrorism, we need to fight it yes, but we also need to address those other issues as well.
Conservance 
Bus feenurqcies have been consistently increased over the past few years, with great results for patronage.Rail frequency has changed marginally, with one or two extra services being added every six months or so, and mainly on the Caboolture – Ipswich line. Every new service is preceded by overcrowding and demands by Mr Dow and his Rail-Back on Track group – like squeezing blood from a stone.What’s the matter with CityTrain? We know that old and obscure work practices remain in force. We know that attempts to recruit women train crew have been met with passive resistance from unreconstructed crew, and many of those who trained and began service have resigned, while few women from within QR have even put their hands up, knowing the culture. Does this resistance extend to negotiations about major changes to timetabling and rostering?Now that CityTrain is part of the new ‘customer service’ oriented Govt-owned QR, the challenge facing Mr Scurrah, the CEO who does not have an old-fashioned railway background, is to bring service standards and flexibility up to and beyond that of the bus services that have responded to the challenge of rising demand and expectations. No more “can’t be done” responses to Translink requests for change!