We had quite the lively discussion at the Futurist Club the other day, and I think we concluded that it’s best for humanity if cars stay the way they are. Well, actually…not *exactly* the way they are. So long as they become 100% environmentally-friendly, running on renewable fuel and maybe intelligent enough to drive by themselves, that’s the ideal scenario for humanity. Oh, and they still need some kind of noise, even though they’re going to be intelligent enough to stop when they’re about to hit someone. Silent cars are just odd.
But just imagine everyone jumps on jetpack technology, or something like teleporters. Oh, they have their USES, but think of the mechanics. That friendly Bentleigh auto electrical mechanic just around the corner, gone. A pillar of our community, reduced to a lowly teleporter repair person, if there’s not already a robot doing that. Oh, it’ll all be fun and games at first, until you realise that the alien monolith that allowed us to create teleporter technology also ensured that it was flawless and self-servicing, so eventually, there won’t even be jobs available there. You know what always needs servicing? That’s right…cars. Cars will always be special and the people that work on them will always have a special skill, valued by society.
But wait, I hear you ask…what about jetpacks? Okay, so, not only can you not transport a family of four on a jetpack, but humanity’s sudden ability to move in three dimensions will be utter chaos. The current road rules can’t cope with two-dimensional movement. Making rules for jetpacks will ruin us all.
Cars are the perfect happy medium, and once they’re perfected, then peace will reign across the Earth. My local, friendly, Bentleigh car mechanic available for bookings will have all the bookings he (or she) could ever desire, ultimate job security, and the knowledge that they are preserving two-dimensional order in society. Pretty much the weirdest thing that’s going to happen from then on is that wheels will be replaced with magnetic levitation. That’s fine. We can handle that.
-Joyce