poli-sci@ucbvax.ARPA (04/18/85)
From: JoSH <JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Poli-Sci Digest Thu 18 Apr 85 Volume 5 Number 14
Contents: Car Wars
Star Wars
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Date: Mon, 15 Apr 85 22:06:11 pst
From: upstill%ucbdegas@Berkeley (Steve Upstill)
Subject: RailCars
I'd like to put in my approval of JoSH's idea for rail cars by pointing
out a significant advantage of the proposal: incrementality. The idea is that
wholesale, consensual, cooperative change is unlikely in the absence of the
following conditions:
-- users of the old method can continue to use it
-- the extent of the change is proportional to the number of people
endorsing it.
-- using the new method is reasonable even in the absence of a complete
changeover, the new method wins.
-- users of the new method can continue to use the old method.
The reason these conditions are necessary is that, if the success of a
move depends on everybody cooperatively making the same move, then nobody
will go first. The only amendment to JoSH's plan is to introduce convertible
cars: once the rail line runs out, they can run on regular streets.
The plan has an obvious, profitable first step: commute corridors. I
live a few miles from a major corridor to San Francisco which is reliably
choked with commute traffic. Imagine the salutory effect on these drivers
of watching RailCars zooming by overhead (I already know the salutory effect
of them watching cars zoom by in the carpool lane: they stop at bus stops
to pick up extra passengers). To spend even the zoom time reading,
playing cards provides extra motivation. Once you have
enough converted cars, then building lines to serve them becomes sensible
and attractive. Eventually, cities will convert to installing RailCar
lines rather than paving street, assuming the former is cheaper, providing
still more motivation to convert.
Anyway, what I'm saying is that it is a major point in its favor that
JoSH's plan doesn't depend for its viability on people converting from one
transport system to another, wholesale. The conversion could be quite
elegant and speedy, under the right conditions.
Steve U.
[Thanks for the vote of confidence--My friends and I who dreamed it
up (one of whom is an engineer with the NJ Dept of Trans, of all things)
just like to kick ideas like this around as mental recreation. I really
do think this one could work under the right circumstances...--JoSH]
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Date: Wed, 17 Apr 85 11:30 pst
From: "diverse-diaz desiree%c.mfenet"@LLL-MFE.ARPA
Subject: Strategic Defense Initiative
Thoughts, anyone ? This is being discussed now ( to a limited extent )
in SF-LOVERS. I haven't formed a definite opinion yet.
Desiree'
[Let me interject a butinsky remark first: please don't send any
political-type arguments of the form "SDI is good (bad); it will
(not) work; it is (un)stabilizing; etc" since that is going on
at great length on the ARMS-D list where you are welcome to read it.
It would be of great interest to speculate on, for example, the
possible effects of such things on the nation-state organization
of the world political system (it was not always thus and won't
always be thus). Could a pre-eminence of defense over offense
cause a re-emergence of the feudal system? --JoSH]
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