Connection? 'survivalist' mentality / UAVs

Post #19,856 by Ashton 12/1/01 4:34:35 AM Reply	Connection? 'survivalist' mentality / UAVs re your last (quote). I've occasionally wondered if the mass-market UAV's appeal is mainly to the latent survivalist - those not quite willing to go the whole route with secret cabin at end of a dirt road, buried fuel, ammo, freeze-dried, etc. Maybe kinda the 'lazy survivalist's' pipe dream? As in - most everybody may be either infected, radiated or puking lungs out from mustard-gas, but I shall drive my Colossus over their heaped burned bodies ---> to umm Somewhere Safe\ufffd. And in AC comfort, with good tunes on the jukebox, a few cases of Evian and the Glock in the glove box, while sweetie loads the spare clips. I mean.. since prolly most realize they won't ever be climbing the Alps (or even Mam Tor in the Pennines) -- WTF else makes any sense - even in that shadow world of taking 5+ years to pay off a $30K big toy. Rationalization is everything but.. Expeditions! for a NYC dweller ?? I guess it's just evidence of the poverty of relying upon 'ownership' of a mass of unpaid-for stuff, in substitute for certain absent non-stuff.. making it all very sad or hilarious, depending on mood. So finally I wonder how this proposition would fly in such a milieu, after all which has occurred: OK Guys: if you'll go back to 2500# adequate transportation, finance Hydrogen development (infrastructure to make that universally obtainable) - we can phase out the support for the antedeluvian Saudi Wah'habi Looneys, stop pretending they don't subjugate and terrorize half their population (the female half) and otherwise behave like mini-Taleban Assholes. Ditto for Kuwait et al - let'em duel with Saddam for local entertainment. Deal ??? (Could it make for the next election's more interesting platform?) Ashton
Post #19,916 by Ric Locke 12/1/01 9:29:27 PM Reply	UAVs and survival Ash, you partly have the right of it, but out here in redneck land we don't have the political clout to make all the roads skimmy little tightturning two-lanes, and ban all the trucks. We also actually need to go somewhere once in a while... you may argue that this is chicken and egg, since the ready availability of vehicles does allow us to live far away from the nearest supply of beer and other necessities. A one-tonne, two-liter rollerskate can be delightful; I have one now, and it's just the thing for back and forth to work -- but I didn't give up my '74 Ford pickup with 6.5-liter engine and enough dents to make any Lexus owner flinch from confrontation :-) The same gizmo, at speed on the Interstate, "sharing" with double forties is... not precisely encouraging. There's many a Lower-Middle (do you know Mack Reynolds?) who looks up from his Japanese econobox at the local lawyer skimming by in his new Expedition, and thinks, one day... And... how to say this? Out here, the typical equation is still male + female = offspring, and the economic conditions are beginning to force us back to the lifestyle loudly approved of by university professors who don't have to live it, being in the $60K+ with tenure: Grandma, one or more parents, and an undetermined number of offspring. Not fun in the above-mentioned two-liter. New Yorkers? OK, I can see your objection, somewhat. I'm just not any more enamored of the police force necessary to eliminate the problem than I am with J. Ashcroft and the Heimatsekuritatdienst -- Regards, Ric
Post #19,945 by Ashton 12/2/01 4:41:01 AM Reply	Nah.. couldn't be a police thing. And I acknowledge that some small fraction of the behemoths are appropriate to actual needs (20%? that high?). We oughtta know better than most anyone: you can't 'enforce' sanity; we must already have 10x the laws of any other place. This explains why lawyers outnumber engineers 10:1, here. Ashcroft can only have the overall effect of further polarizing (everyone's personal level of) Us vs Cops, while trying to live. This might galvanize a bit more time budgeted for actually rediscovering what the word civic means. Could get some idiots off local school boards and some attention on local police abuses (not everywhere is this a problem, of course). A few egregious police kidnappings of patently non-spy material - just might do it. Or.. everyone could just go back to sleep, eat the Millennium Patriot Anti-Judas Act and the next few gems. I can't even guess, anymore - how much shit the Consumer will eat if s/he can still make it to the mall. (Besides.. I'd take a one whose neck got red from honest work, over a PHB red from the neck-up - because his tie has been choking off the O-2 to extent of permanent brain damage. :-\ufffd) Will be mightily surprised if citizenship comes back; it's so much easier to just get used to Corporate. It just may be that 300M cannot govern selves, given the distro of interested vs somnolent (?) (We're finding out, I think) Hope springs eternal though - or yer already dead. [link\|http://www.ucomics.com/boondocks/viewbo.cfm?uc_full_date=20011129&uc_comic=bo&uc_daction=X\|..next they came for the psychics (one of a series)] Cheers, Ashton what me worry?

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