A thought experiment that occurred to me this morning.
What if some member of the chamber of people’s deputies decided not to take his seat in Washington, instead taking his oath in his state capitol or home district, and managed his constituents business from there? Yes, it’s kind of a whizzy sci-fi idea where someone replaces human interaction or proximity with tech.
Flaws:
- legislating is about deals and favors: hard to consummate those without personal contact
- proximity still matters: why else are cities growing and why are the most powerful/influential cities so large (London, New York, Tokyo, 10 million people or more with millions more in the surrounding region)
- can you really serve your constituents while remaining at home
Part of the idea for this came from conversations earlier in the week, where it was mentioned that no one gets rich in public service. The best you can hope for is, as a congress member, to take home your campaign war chest when you retire (I think they should be required to donate it to the treasury). Where they make money is in graft and other corruption that only comes from them all being in one place where the money flows so easily.
Hmm. It sounded a lot more interesting this morning.
5 Comments
I hope to visit Portland someday. Perhaps I will have to live through your multitude of photos ;-)
Safe travels.
I’ve probably got Coolpix 3500 shots from Portland. What year was that trip? Sandy and I took the train down, too, as you’ll recall. A lovely passage (on a nearly extinct mode of transportation).
What’s your working definiton of “zut alors”? I didn’t find a concise one. Frank Zappa couldn’t even spell it correctly! ;-)
zut alors? something along the lines of “snap!” or “gawrsh!”
I actually didn’t take a lot of pictures: I rarely do with the Family along. But I should have some experimental zone plate images to share.
I dunno about “nearly extinct.” Both trains were full on our trip, and anyone who prefers the “luxury” of air travel to rail is nuts. The seats on an Amtrak SuperLiner are the best I have ever sat in, and that includes Business class to Europe and Concorde (talk about extinct!).
It’s a crime how neglected the rail system is here. The rail line from downtown Shanghai to their airport hits 268mph: I expect we were lucky to hit 70. If the roadbeds and rails were maintained well-enough to do 150, Seattle to Portland would be well under 2 hours, not 4+ as it is now. And for long hauls . . .
The Empire Builder (Seattle/Portland-Chicago) is 1700 miles or so and takes 45 hours (38 mph average?!). Imagine a high-speed rail line like Japan or France have had for 30 years. 1700 / 300mph = 5 2/3 . . . even if it took 8 hours, it would be an improvement over flying, when you consider the greater comfort, and the fact that trains take you into the heart of a city, not to some blighted concrete wilderness on the outskirts.
LAX takes 35 hours to go 968 miles (28 mph?!). Imagine that at even 100 mph average speed. Think people would even consider flying on anything but transcontinental or transoceanic flight?
Perhaps not going extinct but definitely neglected, as you say. The airline, aircraft, and automotive businesses sure don’t support better railroads. Who’s lobbying for trains?
I agree that high speed rail could be a viable mode of travel in the US. 300 mph is *really* hard to do. 200 isn’t easy. We’d be lucky to have 150 mph vehicles, which would still be good enough for some things.
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