System Aesthetic
bubbles bursting
I am, currently, engaged in a short hop from KCMO to Topeka, a voyage of some seventy miles one way, made possible by a whole pile of technologies that had to develop side-by-side each other, and who’s development occurred with or without the consent of the peoples and places the systems sprang up around and from like mushrooms on a bed of mulch.
One hundred years ago, the trip from KC to Top City would have taken much longer, been harder on the bones of the traveler, and the reasons for making the short hop would have been more important than just celebrating some birthdays for a few hours.
In 1926, driving seventy miles would have taken anywhere from twi and a half to four hours, depending on weather and road conditions. While the National Old Trails Highway improvements were accelerating, much of the route would have been graveled or made of early concrete, often narrow and susceptible to mud, with speeds averaging only twenty or thirty mph.
Think on that when flying on i70, or whatever super-highway might be near you. A system crops up to feed a supposed need, and then is filled to the brim by users because of a perceived utility.
And you have to ask yourself, is this better or worse than before? Is six lanes of concrete and asphalt, filled to the brim with metal and plastic and rush-hour passengers better or worse? And for whom? How often are you going 20- 30 mph not because the road is bad, but because the road is now filled to the brim with other collections of systems colloquially named ‘cars’ and ‘pickemuptrucks’? And those systems might, for all their tonnage and maintenance and fuel and insurance and registration expense, on average, have one or two people in them?
I mean, don’t get me wrong, the aesthetic is *great*.
Almost as great as Substack’s mobile editor.
In 1926, this trip would likely have been a real pain in the butt, and because of this I would probably be staying longer than I am because I would not be willing to make the trip more often. I’m not trying to be nostalgic here, I’m just saying we burned a quarter tank of gas, a commodity that is likely going to become much more expensive rather quickly for some reason or the other, on the chance to blow out some candles and spend some ah, what’s it called...’quality time’ with people sending us reels on Facebook Messenger.
I feel Nostalgia butting its head up against the current system status quo, and there is a tension there, like watching a floating soap bubble shimmering in the light, and you know at any moment the bubble shall do its bursting and only the memory shall carry it forward in time.
The cake is very good though, and the return trip is coming up too fast and you hear on the news that Artemis II and her crew have successfully made it back to earth, and you’re thinking their round trip was five THOUSAND times longer than yours...what kind of system is going to get built up around that?
Don't get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of space exploration, but mostly for how again and again its results emphasize just how precious our little blue and green and brown bubble of home is against a backdrop that will go out of it’s way to murder you for forgetting where you put a decimal point.
Mad respect, in other words, and the notion that, given literally millions of events have to transpire perfectly for the successful nearly seven hundred-thousand mile round-trip of four humans in the harshest of environments, we come to the conclusion that the post-scarcity society is already here1, it's just not evenly distributed, for it is literally a million times easier to simply live on Earth.
Or, rather, it could be.
and has been for a while
When I spent lots of time driving back and forth to KC when I lived iin Topeka, my favorite views were fields of round bales of hay after the fields were cut. Those views always triggered whatever the brain chemistry is that produces landscape euphoria.
Oh I agree, Peter, the view from the turnpike of the Kaw River Valley is simply gorgeous, and the old Hogway 40 still winds theough hill and dale just next door. Being and older, simpler design of just two lanes it follows the land's contours quite closely and good luck going much faster that fifty miles an hour without getting sea sick or into the ditch during a rain storm. A favorite of the motorcycle enthusiast, to be sure, and a gentle reminder of what had come before.