• eurodyne@piefed.world
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    23 hours ago

    There’s a very good reason why we don’t already have flying cars: have you ever seen a traffic collision? Now imagine that at 3000+ feet, with all the bits and parts and flaming wreckage falling down on everyone below. every horrible thing about driving would be made instantly much much worse if it happened to be flying.

    Until we have 100% computer controlled, automated flying/driving, it would never be anything less than extraordinarily dangerous for everyone, and certainly not worth it.

    • X@piefed.world
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      18 hours ago

      There are people with licenses who can’t effectively deal with two axes of movement; adding a third axis would be inconceivable.

      • eurodyne@piefed.world
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        19 hours ago

        Not as much as you’d think. For most people, it just stops at the “this is a terrible idea” stage. Energy consumption becomes less of a concern once everyone decides something is very stupid.

    • _stranger_@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      But think how hilarious it would be to see two roadsters trying to literally jump traffic to get into the same spot 2 car lengths ahead and exploding into flaming glitter a hundred feet above 4+ lanes of unmoving traffic. Glorious.

      • eurodyne@piefed.world
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        21 hours ago

        Wonderful. I miss the old ONN.

        Tim Heidecker is great, and I enjoy the middle finger to Alex Jones, but the joke has gotten a bit stale.

      • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space
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        22 hours ago

        A “flying car” would be just an aircraft that can fit in a traffic lane. For good reasons, aircraft are regulated much more strictly than cars, requiring regular inspections which are checked, as well as having requirements for flight plans, pre-flight checks and more. Mass-market “flying cars”, if they gained adoption on the same scale as their earthbound precursors, would have to be deregulated much like cars, to the point where Joe Sixpack can drive/fly to the shops on a whim without going through the kinds of pre-flight procedures private-jet-owning multimillionaires pay good money to employ people to take care of for them. Which would mean skies full of poorly maintained rustbuckets piloted by people living paycheck to paycheck who need them to get to their job on time. From time to time, these would fall out of the sky and crush or incinerate people in their homes. If this came to pass, society would have to accept this as the price of progress, in the way it accepts road deaths and mass shootings.

    • Midnight Wolf@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      imagine that at 3000+ feet, with all the bits and parts and flaming wreckage falling down on everyone

      Stop, I can only get so erect.

  • glasratz@feddit.org
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    23 hours ago

    Blowing a car off the ground with pressurized air is hardly flying, so it doesn’t count… I’m sure some special effects guys did this way before Tesla.

  • stoy@lemmy.zip
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    19 hours ago

    We have had flying cars for decades.

    Look up the aerocar…

    • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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      23 hours ago

      The Moller skycar was a beautiful dream, but there’s too many problems and moving individual transport into the air is a disastrous idea.