Getting stuck in the age of sail was a thing. Waiting on the wind while you’re stranded and your supplies dwindling flat out sucks and can spell death if you’re not well supplied or rescued. Sailboats are still a thing albeit not popular anymore due to their drawbacks. Unpowered transoceanic flights are more of a niche than a desire of the average Joe.
All true. Waiting on the wind with a craft that can rise or fall easily shouldn’t be nearly as problematic, but wind power is certainly slower and more unpredictable no matter how you slice it.
Lessening the maintenance of a flying craft is something I won’t budge on and neither will any regulating body
The “regulating bodies” are the ones that prevent such individual autonomy and access to the skies - it’s core to their purpose/existence. This isn’t about maintenance schedules, or adherence to them - and that wasn’t the reason or method the dream of the “average joe’s” access to the skies was crushed. In any case, the maintenance on a neutrally buoyant sailing vessel will unquestionably be much lesser on such vessels - though that is not to say less important! No one wants anybody falling out of the skies - especially not over our heads!
You don’t see hot air balloons playing bumper cars for a reason
No one is saying you should! The chances for such a thing are far lesser is all, and design can play a huge role in that (as it could in cars too if we didn’t live in a malthusian and industrialized nightmare)
I love flying. I wish I could do more of it. I’d own my own small plane if I had the means and the money to build my own landing strip on my ranch. But allowing every Tom Dick and Harry to have an airship and fly however they want is a recipe for disaster.
There would undoubtedly be growing pains, but i am not envisioning giving anyone jet engines. Such needed safety margins and techniques to achieve them will never exist with that attitude, and are the purpose of its popularization. Almost nothing would be as dangerous or suicidal as “ford’s nightmare” we are currently living anyway.
But the world we live in doesn’t make it very easy to pull off now. The road has rules, the ocean has rules and the sky has rules.
But not rules we would or did choose for ourselves. They are certainly to our detriment as result. There is a reason for such authoritarian militarization of the skies, and it is the same reason we can’t just humbly request the stolen airspace back. If we really want to take to the skies safely (and slower, in my view) it is on us to do it and do so with new techniques! Sitting around for our enemy to “do the right thing” and return what they stole is not a good or effective plan. Dirigibles don’t need runways and are vastly more “green”/efficient even when equipped with giant diesel engines.
Once we reach the stars
And what if i told you that such rhetoric was only ever scifi (fiction) pushed by mass media? Would you still be content to “wait for the enemy to return what they stole from us”? Even if such a place existed, does it sound like a good plan in that case?
We agree that wind power is unreliable and slow for a means of travel.
I can’t get on board with airships having lower maintenance. Instead of a ridged skin of light material held onto the frame with rivets, you have fabric sewn together, glued, with gas bladders inside. All requiring inspections, repair, disassembly and replacement, not to mention the need to maintain whatever engine you use for propulsion unless you’re a wind only craft in which case you are at the mercy of whatever way the wind sends you. Inclement weather can cause massive damage, large hail can cause punctures and loss of gas, and you have a lower operating ceiling than a pressurized craft. Can’t fly over the storm and get above the weather in an airship like you can a passenger jet.
First I’m the villain for not allowing any and all to fly unrestricted and now you won’t give us all jet engines? Where’s my freedom sir! While I jest, people should be free to choose, and that includes their means of propulsion of choice. You can have a 4 cylinder I’ll take my v8, you can have wind power I’ll take a turbo jet. Freedom!
I don’t believe we’re living in fords nightmare. I believe a lot of personal choices made for selfish and foolish reasons have led us down this path. A lot of people view their cars less as extensions of themselves and an important tool for mobility and freedom and more as a mobile chair with an engine. They happily give away control and power for a neat feature, more perceived safety, more complicated repair and maintenance that ends up being far more expensive. While I’m no Ford fan, the assembly line giving more people access to an automobile has been a good thing.
The rules were not all chosen by us, this is true. Many rules I deal with daily were forced into me and decided long before I was born. I understand a general “no killing others” rule, good for society, but speed limiting all of us when some clearly have better skill and machines to match isn’t fair it’s downright criminal. But if it’s so hard to even grab that slice of freedom back, grabbing the whole sky is about as out of reach as grabbing the moon from the top of a ladder.
Dirigibles don’t require as long of runways in ideal conditions but we need to plan for bad weather bad wind, their large size requires a lot of maneuvering room and you’ll need to keep spare gas handy in a safe storage to add additional gas to peoples airships. This requires an investment of infrastructure that seems to only cater to the rich.
“Green energy” is a selling point that may as well be snake oil energy at this point. Wind is unreliable, still uses petroleum in the generator, non recyclable fibreglass blades(can’t we use these slow breaking down hunks to reinforce roads? Cmon man!) and kill birds, bats and insects. Solar is a pipe dream with low efficiency to start with, lose efficiency as they are used, require expensive rare earth material to construct them, and generate nothing when covered in snow. Hydroelectric dams are somewhat green, if you just ignore the massive environmental disturbance, construction with specialized concrete and massive use of petroleum powered vehicles for its entire construction. And they can’t be put just anywhere they require a specific head height and pressure to operate. Geothermal is nice but like dams have to be selective of their placement and no free lunch. A small house installation sure, but a power plant from geothermal for a city requires a lot of maintenance and is only really viable where the crust is thin to start with.
We need to knock off the green energy idea and work on a new form of portable energy, and also work at miniaturized nuclear. I’d take an electric car/truck if it was self contained, nuclear and just needed the power source swapped out every 10-15 years with the power and range staying consistent during that period. Driving an overgrown cell phone battery recharged by coal power plants that loses range every time it goes through a charge cycle is the opposite of ideal.
To answer your “to the stars” question, IF it was only sci-fi made up rhetoric, like pretty much every religion, it would be a huge blow to our need to explore. I don’t think for an instant that space is “fake and gay”, amateur astronomy has been a thing far longer than either of us have been alive and we have lots of info of stars and planets and moons that you can look into without having to listen to a single lying government body. The idea that this planet is all we have access to is like saying this glass of water is all the ocean we get. Totally untrue and easy for any curious person to look into.
Waiting for the enemy to return what they stole from us is of course a shitty strategy but no one can talk about any action to reclaim what’s ours on these forums without being called a glowy shill. 1776 proved a small dedicated group can achieve greatness for many, but they’ve done wonders in replacing our warriors with Avocado toast soy drinking pussies.
We agree that wind power is unreliable and slow for a means of travel.
True, however we can also both agree that it works just the same and removing engines from flying craft lessens their maintenance overheads, overall costs, and increases their autonomy/self sufficiency.
The dream of august picard (and many others) was to utilize the jetstream for faster and more dependable travel. Kites and other methods could be employed, including entering the jetstream one’s self with pressurized cabins.
and you have a lower operating ceiling than a pressurized craft
Not necessarily. Such things depend on craft design, and obviously hydrogen/helium balloons can easily travel MUCH higher than aircraft. In general, i expect most will have (as they do today and for the same reasons) a lower ceiling, but who is to say what innovations will change that when/if we take to the skies en masse.
First I’m the villain for not allowing any and all to fly unrestricted and now you won’t give us all jet engines?
Lol. No one will be “given” anything. I am just not advocating for abundant jet powered aircraft as they are extremely dangerous and expensive. We could relearn to take longer voyages again, and it would do us good to exercise such patience.
Where’s my freedom sir!
In the same place as everyone else’s! But running your jet car on the local freeway is more an act of war/terrorism than of personal freedom. The air above is vast, and there is more than enough room for all.
their large size
I envision/imagine smaller ones, for the average sort. It is true that there is a lot of work to be done to make it safe and convenient/dependable in any sort of way recognizable to us today.
We need to knock off the green energy idea and work on a new form of portable energy, and also work at miniaturized nuclear.
I largely agree with you, and this too can be done safely. However, the most available/abundant and cheap “free energy” to travel on in the air is the wind- followed by the sun. There’s no reason not to pursue/utilize the low hanging fruit in the meantime!
Also, sadly such small nuclear already exists and is simply not disseminated. I expect it will continue to be this way indefinitely under the “current paradigm”.
it would be a huge blow to our need to explore
Most cubicle dwellers have that need beaten out of them anyway (or so the induced depression, dissatisfaction, and malaise tells them, anyhow). Recognizing that “outer space” is merely modern mythology wouldn’t extinguish the human spirit. More mythology will unquestionably fill the void, and for the earnest - there will be a great spirit of exploration to discover reality once such mythology is exposed.
The idea that this planet is all we have access to is like saying this glass of water is all the ocean we get.
And what if earth is not a planet (wandering star) at all? I agree that the myth of scarcity is artificial, derives from our enemy, and is silly.
Totally untrue and easy for any curious person to look into.
So we are meant to believe, and taught from childhood. One can easily look up at the sky, and the lights within it. Understanding/determining what they are scientifically (or otherwise) is another matter.
can talk about any action to reclaim what’s ours on these forums without being called a glowy shill.
True. But let them call names to their hearts content.
1776 proved a small dedicated group can achieve greatness for many
Small, dedicated, rich, and through manipulating/influencing/organizing the larger populous.
they’ve done wonders in replacing our warriors with Avocado toast soy drinking pussies.
Our enemy (the slavers) do everything they can to subjugate and make better slaves. However, like that small dedicated group you mentioned - they require the slaves for most everything and are entirely dependent upon them. That’s why step 1 is freeing their workforce from their clutches. Autonomy in travel, such as a small neutrally buoyant craft could help provide, would be a great step towards that - and this is undoubtedly why there has been so much pressure from the slavers against it.
So many points to respond to, and I just say I’ve been enjoying this conversation immensely. :)
Wind and solar power may be vast and free to all but making use of these in a way that suits your need at the time can be difficult. If I need to fly home to the east and the wind is blowing south west, a wind only craft is not going to get me home, unless I can get above that wind into a jet stream going the opposite direction, ride it further than my destination to give me time and space to get down through the opposite direction wind and land on my property. Not impossible to do but for the average person who gets thrown off with road constructions causing a detour this will be a major obstacle for a lot of people.
A lower operating ceiling is a must unless you’re going to pressurize your cabin and have oxygen available. This adds more complexity and additional systems and weight that you now need a bigger craft to lift and maintain. There are no free lunches when it comes to engineering.
I disagree about jet engines being dangerous and expensive. Okay not so much about the expensive because they are currently but so was the first automobile and tractor. Mass production could bring their cost down to a reasonable level. If it was paired with a nuclear power source instead of an overgrown cell phone battery we could indeed make some interesting modes of transport.
The need to explore and travel is indeed beaten out of the average cubicle prisoner. Most people seem satisfied with a glorified mobile chair and have some of the worst taste in vehicles I can imagine but to each their own I’m told. Many would opt for the briefcase flying car from the jetsons cartoon, while others prefer a sci-fi inspired vtol craft capable of fantastic things. There’s no one size fits all solution and it’s foolish to try to implement one. We need to have a. Road range of transport to fit every need. An electric vehicle is suicidally stupid in my neck of the woods and my pickup is a horrible pain for an apartment dwelling city driver to park. My 1977 luxury car is too big for most people in my life to want to drive and a small import shithox(hell even the small domestic ones) are too cramped for my 6’5” frame. We need options for many different people and situations, so while you could have your flying airship, for 95% of people, it wouldn’t do the job they need their transportation to do.
I must reject your proposal of space being modern mythology. Meteorites and satellite signal where no cell signal exists is enough to discredit a lack of space for me. I can look for more proof and have, but don’t feel the need to list everything here unless you’re really curious.
Getting called names means fuck all in the end, but when it serves to shut down all rational discussion it’s desired effect has been achieved. I understand the need for shutting down glowies and following the rules to keep the website online but at the same time we don’t have free speech which should be criminal.
You’re right about it being a rich small group that caused the last major uprising that was successful. Private people owned warships and cannons. Nowadays they own corporations and mercenaries. The world has changed and so must we, if we wish to be more than a serfs.
Ideally I’d love a world where you jump in your iron man suit, fly over and do your work or errand without being injured, fly home and enjoy your day doing whatever. It still wouldn’t be a perfect world but transpiration would be awesome. I’m a bit of a speed demon and a slow transatlantic flight on an airship would drive me nuts from lack of productivity during the voyage. Air travel with jets makes getting there simply a part of the process instead of a massive undertaking unto itself.
All true. Waiting on the wind with a craft that can rise or fall easily shouldn’t be nearly as problematic, but wind power is certainly slower and more unpredictable no matter how you slice it.
The “regulating bodies” are the ones that prevent such individual autonomy and access to the skies - it’s core to their purpose/existence. This isn’t about maintenance schedules, or adherence to them - and that wasn’t the reason or method the dream of the “average joe’s” access to the skies was crushed. In any case, the maintenance on a neutrally buoyant sailing vessel will unquestionably be much lesser on such vessels - though that is not to say less important! No one wants anybody falling out of the skies - especially not over our heads!
No one is saying you should! The chances for such a thing are far lesser is all, and design can play a huge role in that (as it could in cars too if we didn’t live in a malthusian and industrialized nightmare)
There would undoubtedly be growing pains, but i am not envisioning giving anyone jet engines. Such needed safety margins and techniques to achieve them will never exist with that attitude, and are the purpose of its popularization. Almost nothing would be as dangerous or suicidal as “ford’s nightmare” we are currently living anyway.
But not rules we would or did choose for ourselves. They are certainly to our detriment as result. There is a reason for such authoritarian militarization of the skies, and it is the same reason we can’t just humbly request the stolen airspace back. If we really want to take to the skies safely (and slower, in my view) it is on us to do it and do so with new techniques! Sitting around for our enemy to “do the right thing” and return what they stole is not a good or effective plan. Dirigibles don’t need runways and are vastly more “green”/efficient even when equipped with giant diesel engines.
And what if i told you that such rhetoric was only ever scifi (fiction) pushed by mass media? Would you still be content to “wait for the enemy to return what they stole from us”? Even if such a place existed, does it sound like a good plan in that case?
We agree that wind power is unreliable and slow for a means of travel.
I can’t get on board with airships having lower maintenance. Instead of a ridged skin of light material held onto the frame with rivets, you have fabric sewn together, glued, with gas bladders inside. All requiring inspections, repair, disassembly and replacement, not to mention the need to maintain whatever engine you use for propulsion unless you’re a wind only craft in which case you are at the mercy of whatever way the wind sends you. Inclement weather can cause massive damage, large hail can cause punctures and loss of gas, and you have a lower operating ceiling than a pressurized craft. Can’t fly over the storm and get above the weather in an airship like you can a passenger jet.
First I’m the villain for not allowing any and all to fly unrestricted and now you won’t give us all jet engines? Where’s my freedom sir! While I jest, people should be free to choose, and that includes their means of propulsion of choice. You can have a 4 cylinder I’ll take my v8, you can have wind power I’ll take a turbo jet. Freedom!
I don’t believe we’re living in fords nightmare. I believe a lot of personal choices made for selfish and foolish reasons have led us down this path. A lot of people view their cars less as extensions of themselves and an important tool for mobility and freedom and more as a mobile chair with an engine. They happily give away control and power for a neat feature, more perceived safety, more complicated repair and maintenance that ends up being far more expensive. While I’m no Ford fan, the assembly line giving more people access to an automobile has been a good thing.
The rules were not all chosen by us, this is true. Many rules I deal with daily were forced into me and decided long before I was born. I understand a general “no killing others” rule, good for society, but speed limiting all of us when some clearly have better skill and machines to match isn’t fair it’s downright criminal. But if it’s so hard to even grab that slice of freedom back, grabbing the whole sky is about as out of reach as grabbing the moon from the top of a ladder.
Dirigibles don’t require as long of runways in ideal conditions but we need to plan for bad weather bad wind, their large size requires a lot of maneuvering room and you’ll need to keep spare gas handy in a safe storage to add additional gas to peoples airships. This requires an investment of infrastructure that seems to only cater to the rich.
“Green energy” is a selling point that may as well be snake oil energy at this point. Wind is unreliable, still uses petroleum in the generator, non recyclable fibreglass blades(can’t we use these slow breaking down hunks to reinforce roads? Cmon man!) and kill birds, bats and insects. Solar is a pipe dream with low efficiency to start with, lose efficiency as they are used, require expensive rare earth material to construct them, and generate nothing when covered in snow. Hydroelectric dams are somewhat green, if you just ignore the massive environmental disturbance, construction with specialized concrete and massive use of petroleum powered vehicles for its entire construction. And they can’t be put just anywhere they require a specific head height and pressure to operate. Geothermal is nice but like dams have to be selective of their placement and no free lunch. A small house installation sure, but a power plant from geothermal for a city requires a lot of maintenance and is only really viable where the crust is thin to start with.
We need to knock off the green energy idea and work on a new form of portable energy, and also work at miniaturized nuclear. I’d take an electric car/truck if it was self contained, nuclear and just needed the power source swapped out every 10-15 years with the power and range staying consistent during that period. Driving an overgrown cell phone battery recharged by coal power plants that loses range every time it goes through a charge cycle is the opposite of ideal.
To answer your “to the stars” question, IF it was only sci-fi made up rhetoric, like pretty much every religion, it would be a huge blow to our need to explore. I don’t think for an instant that space is “fake and gay”, amateur astronomy has been a thing far longer than either of us have been alive and we have lots of info of stars and planets and moons that you can look into without having to listen to a single lying government body. The idea that this planet is all we have access to is like saying this glass of water is all the ocean we get. Totally untrue and easy for any curious person to look into.
Waiting for the enemy to return what they stole from us is of course a shitty strategy but no one can talk about any action to reclaim what’s ours on these forums without being called a glowy shill. 1776 proved a small dedicated group can achieve greatness for many, but they’ve done wonders in replacing our warriors with Avocado toast soy drinking pussies.
True, however we can also both agree that it works just the same and removing engines from flying craft lessens their maintenance overheads, overall costs, and increases their autonomy/self sufficiency.
The dream of august picard (and many others) was to utilize the jetstream for faster and more dependable travel. Kites and other methods could be employed, including entering the jetstream one’s self with pressurized cabins.
Not necessarily. Such things depend on craft design, and obviously hydrogen/helium balloons can easily travel MUCH higher than aircraft. In general, i expect most will have (as they do today and for the same reasons) a lower ceiling, but who is to say what innovations will change that when/if we take to the skies en masse.
Lol. No one will be “given” anything. I am just not advocating for abundant jet powered aircraft as they are extremely dangerous and expensive. We could relearn to take longer voyages again, and it would do us good to exercise such patience.
In the same place as everyone else’s! But running your jet car on the local freeway is more an act of war/terrorism than of personal freedom. The air above is vast, and there is more than enough room for all.
I envision/imagine smaller ones, for the average sort. It is true that there is a lot of work to be done to make it safe and convenient/dependable in any sort of way recognizable to us today.
I largely agree with you, and this too can be done safely. However, the most available/abundant and cheap “free energy” to travel on in the air is the wind- followed by the sun. There’s no reason not to pursue/utilize the low hanging fruit in the meantime!
Also, sadly such small nuclear already exists and is simply not disseminated. I expect it will continue to be this way indefinitely under the “current paradigm”.
Most cubicle dwellers have that need beaten out of them anyway (or so the induced depression, dissatisfaction, and malaise tells them, anyhow). Recognizing that “outer space” is merely modern mythology wouldn’t extinguish the human spirit. More mythology will unquestionably fill the void, and for the earnest - there will be a great spirit of exploration to discover reality once such mythology is exposed.
And what if earth is not a planet (wandering star) at all? I agree that the myth of scarcity is artificial, derives from our enemy, and is silly.
So we are meant to believe, and taught from childhood. One can easily look up at the sky, and the lights within it. Understanding/determining what they are scientifically (or otherwise) is another matter.
True. But let them call names to their hearts content.
Small, dedicated, rich, and through manipulating/influencing/organizing the larger populous.
Our enemy (the slavers) do everything they can to subjugate and make better slaves. However, like that small dedicated group you mentioned - they require the slaves for most everything and are entirely dependent upon them. That’s why step 1 is freeing their workforce from their clutches. Autonomy in travel, such as a small neutrally buoyant craft could help provide, would be a great step towards that - and this is undoubtedly why there has been so much pressure from the slavers against it.
So many points to respond to, and I just say I’ve been enjoying this conversation immensely. :)
Wind and solar power may be vast and free to all but making use of these in a way that suits your need at the time can be difficult. If I need to fly home to the east and the wind is blowing south west, a wind only craft is not going to get me home, unless I can get above that wind into a jet stream going the opposite direction, ride it further than my destination to give me time and space to get down through the opposite direction wind and land on my property. Not impossible to do but for the average person who gets thrown off with road constructions causing a detour this will be a major obstacle for a lot of people.
A lower operating ceiling is a must unless you’re going to pressurize your cabin and have oxygen available. This adds more complexity and additional systems and weight that you now need a bigger craft to lift and maintain. There are no free lunches when it comes to engineering.
I disagree about jet engines being dangerous and expensive. Okay not so much about the expensive because they are currently but so was the first automobile and tractor. Mass production could bring their cost down to a reasonable level. If it was paired with a nuclear power source instead of an overgrown cell phone battery we could indeed make some interesting modes of transport.
The need to explore and travel is indeed beaten out of the average cubicle prisoner. Most people seem satisfied with a glorified mobile chair and have some of the worst taste in vehicles I can imagine but to each their own I’m told. Many would opt for the briefcase flying car from the jetsons cartoon, while others prefer a sci-fi inspired vtol craft capable of fantastic things. There’s no one size fits all solution and it’s foolish to try to implement one. We need to have a. Road range of transport to fit every need. An electric vehicle is suicidally stupid in my neck of the woods and my pickup is a horrible pain for an apartment dwelling city driver to park. My 1977 luxury car is too big for most people in my life to want to drive and a small import shithox(hell even the small domestic ones) are too cramped for my 6’5” frame. We need options for many different people and situations, so while you could have your flying airship, for 95% of people, it wouldn’t do the job they need their transportation to do.
I must reject your proposal of space being modern mythology. Meteorites and satellite signal where no cell signal exists is enough to discredit a lack of space for me. I can look for more proof and have, but don’t feel the need to list everything here unless you’re really curious.
Getting called names means fuck all in the end, but when it serves to shut down all rational discussion it’s desired effect has been achieved. I understand the need for shutting down glowies and following the rules to keep the website online but at the same time we don’t have free speech which should be criminal.
You’re right about it being a rich small group that caused the last major uprising that was successful. Private people owned warships and cannons. Nowadays they own corporations and mercenaries. The world has changed and so must we, if we wish to be more than a serfs.
Ideally I’d love a world where you jump in your iron man suit, fly over and do your work or errand without being injured, fly home and enjoy your day doing whatever. It still wouldn’t be a perfect world but transpiration would be awesome. I’m a bit of a speed demon and a slow transatlantic flight on an airship would drive me nuts from lack of productivity during the voyage. Air travel with jets makes getting there simply a part of the process instead of a massive undertaking unto itself.