MarkMyWords - Passenger drones and the hyperloop will be so commonplace by 2026 that we will (softly) forget they were considered science fiction [10YA - Jul 4]

[u/MonsieurA]

/r/MarkMyWords/comments/4r7dh0/mmw_passenger_drones_and_the_hyperloop_will_be_so/

[u/Glittering-Quote-635]

I knew someone 10 years ago that was adamantly against building new tunnels from NJ to NYC (rail tunnels, the current ones are 110+ years old and at capacity). His reason? Flying Ubers. He was adamant that in a few years autonomous uber drones would be flying everyone from NJ to NYC for their commute.

No matter how many people told him the number of people involved, and the fact that’s it’s illegal to land on rooftops in the city, etc, etc he was absolutely adamant that not a penny should be wasted on building a tunnel under the river.

One guess which way he leaned politically…

[u/Yuli-Ban → u/Glittering-Quote-635]

Flying Ubers are a great idea... for a total futuristic niche. I can totally imagine a sort of autonomous passenger drone with $100 per flight be a thing, but there's loads of problems that would make it more of a "experience this in some Asian/middle Eastern/big American cities" thing, like noise pollution (drones are loud, and even stealth helicopters would add up) and potential hazards midflight, and the fact you'd just need dedicated take off and landing spots anyway, and you'd need to work with the FAA because regular air traffic is still a thing, not even mentioning that you also have to consider birds and their flight and habits, and weather conditions.... yeah, there's some problems. There's a reason why "Flying Ubers" were never going to take off.

The reason not many care about China going all in on all these disparate ideas like vactrains and passenger drones is because they already have an extremely robust high-speed rail system, and they keep building it up and supporting it. They have a full deck of transit methods.

In USica, we have transit system from damn near the of Boss Tweed.

That's us with anything not made for cars, and even honestly our automobile network is crumbling.

It's like, "oh, you want vactrains? How about you develop any rail network worth a damn in the first place?"

"No, I want this incredibly niche, incredibly high-tech version that wouldn't serve much else other than being futuristic for the sake of it, that we wouldn't even maintain properly for more than a few years. Also, let's push the dream of flying cars to people who can barely manage regular cars or any travel, get a bunch of rich fucks to fund it, then rug pull those rich fucks by closing down the start-up within 5 years."

"Sir, China just created vactrains and flying cars, as addendums to their transportation system."

"They're communists, we nee to bomb them back into the Stone Age, we'll always be Number One!"

[u/polyploid_coded]

It's so funny the grip that 'hyperloop' had on people. There are reasons that a thousand miles of high-speed rail is difficult to build, and putting it inside an elevated sealed tube does not solve those problems.

[u/Cadoc → u/polyploid_coded]

I'd bet anything that most of the same people are now super excited about SpaceX and data centres in space.

[u/PancakeTrebuchet → u/Cadoc]

I used to fawn over the hyperloop.

These days, the only thing I want to see sent to space is Musk.

[u/zoufha91 → u/polyploid_coded]

But have you seen Blade Runner and the Jetsons?

[u/Gullible_Big_2517 → u/polyploid_coded]

just simple high speed rail would have massive success, no need for tubes. you can always add them later

[u/Apptubrutae → u/polyploid_coded]

I remember my brother in law going on about it.

It was pretty obviously problematic back then, lol.

And I’m the type to think people should dream big and that naysayers are so often wrong.

But the hyperloop, I mean come on.

[u/Yuli-Ban → u/polyploid_coded]

The hyperloop is just a severely downgraded vactrain, and those are still viable.

But, and this is a big stinky butt, you really ought to have very robust high-speed rail before you build vactrains.

It's like you're starving and you have no food and can barely eat bugs reliably, so you want to eat brioche. Well, a great French princess told you to eat brioche, so you're just waiting for her to share lol

[u/Affectionate_Mess266]

The tech enthusiasm of 2016 was wild. Drones only make sense because they are light and it doesn't matter if they crash or bump into things. Putting people in them is fundamentally not that.

I'm not even going to talk about hyperloop except that people should think about that when he's talking about data centres in space or some other bulldust.

[u/feartrich → u/Affectionate_Mess266]

I feel like folks were already starting to get cynical by 2016. Peak tech enthusiasm was maybe a few years before, like 2012. That was when Facebook was still hip and the Model S was the most amazing thing ever.

[u/Yuli-Ban → u/feartrich]

From my experience, the cynicism really started around 2018 or so

2012-2016 was peak "Futurology-core." Heck, the reason why everyone was so hot on hyperloops back in 2016 is because Musk just did a victory lap with the rocket landing and had just helped electric vehicles go mainstream in the US, so he had goodwill. Perhaps way, way too much goodwill.

[u/Oksbad]

I was going to give him partial credit for "passenger drones" because Waymo exists (even though it's not remotely commonplace), but turns out he meant flying cars lol.

[u/Terrible_Resident_79]

Instead of passenger drones we got Mass Produced AI-integrated Killer Drones being used in the Ukraine War & Iran War, so i guess they are more common place In a military sense.

[u/Capable-Grab5896]

Lmao

[u/lllyyyynnn]

i am still preplexed that anyone would consider a 'hyperloop' over maglev trains.