Sensible Shoes

I think of myself a reasonably intelligent man, and could lately even be considered somewhat mature. I eat right and exercise regularly. I use jack stands when climbing under my car. I put my dishes in the dishwasher. I brush and floss. I perform my job with the minimum acceptable level of whining. I represent the ideal life insurance candidate. And yet, I still desperately want a Meyers Manx dune buggy. A car that any rational, logical person would immediately recognize as uncomfortable, impractical, and even a little dangerous. Especially with a 300 HP Subaru boxer hanging out the back.

And my egocentrism is not limited to hand built dune buggies. There are some quite silly cars available at your local new car dealership. The 911 GT3RS, Challenger Hellcat or even an F150 Raptor are completely unnecessary and impractical. They are stupid symbols of immaturity and narcissism. Regardless, they each come with factory warranties, free roadside assistance, all scheduled maintenance, and even a free set of floor mats if you take it home today.

And it has always been this way.  Back when I was a kid there was a guy in high school who drove a black Turbo Trans Am. You know, the one with a gold flaming chicken on the hood and three “turbo-charge” lights in the hood scoop. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen. Of course, I was thirteen years old. To thirteen-year-old boys, Trans Ams, Hellcats, and Raptors make perfect sense. They tend to be noisy and are usually painted in bright, primary colors.  But to the rest of us, mature adults with mortgages and health insurance, any car with less than four doors is simply ridiculous. We swoon over reliable cars that get good gas mileage. I can’t tell you how many times I have been offered a beer due to my sensible plug-in hybrid crossover’s palpable reduction of greenhouse gasses.

Not really. For one thing, I don't have a plug-in hybrid anything.  In addition, no man has ever offered another man a beer because of his sensible anything. The words “I love your beard and crocks, man, have a micro-brew on me” have never been uttered in that order. Indiana Jones was not a good archaeologist because he could spend countless hours researching ancient texts. The greatest spy in the world, despite the fact that everybody knows his identity, is James Bond. And nobody cares about the gas mileage ratings of monster trucks. Sensible and logical belong in things like space capsules or food safety. But they have no place in interesting cars.

The point is the people who want silly cars can’t possibly pay for them. And the people established enough to pay for silly cars don’t want one. But that must also be a lie because Manx dune buggies definitely exist. So do Cobra replicas, Trans Ams, Hellcat Challengers, and even F150 Raptors. Taken as a business proposition, interesting cars are always going to fail.  Ford sells more F150’s in a couple of hours than the total 50-year production of every Manx dune buggy.  And even though manufacturers of silly cars come and go, enough of them stick around to prove we are not all rational, logical human beings. Thank Goodness.

Parallels

I read a lot of science fiction.  You know, the stuff with faster than light travel, sentient machines, alien species, human immortality. Of course, it’s all a massive load of bollox, but I enjoy it.  I guess speculative technology is appealing to me.  But there is a certain branch of science fiction that can really get my noggin goin’.  The idea of parallel universes.  Basically the idea that there are universes out there beyond our perception. Plenty of books, TV, and movies have dipped into the deep well that is parallel universes. TV’s Fringe was completely based on the idea. The latest incarnation of Star Trek is a parallel universe where Jim Kirk does not inexplicably turn into TJ Hooker at some point. It could even be said that all fiction is based in a parallel universe since real life is certainly not fiction. There are even a few scientists out there who think it might be possible.  Without getting too boring (I’m not trying to be Wikipedia) Brane Cosmology could provide some sort of justification for the existence of parallel universes.  So it makes me wonder, what would a parallel universe look like?

Since Branes (alternate realities) are infinite, I am sure there is one where I am King of the Universe.  In that Brane, BBQ is a health food, everybody minds their own damn business, and there are no boring cars.  In other Branes, North America may not have been discovered by Europeans until much later, allowing the indigenous people a chance to defend themselves.  Or there might be a Brane where yeast does not work, and there is no beer or bread.  There could even be a universe where magic exists, but only a few people can use it.  They might have a secret society where giants, dragons, and a flying Ford Anglia exist but are unknown to normal people, who are known by an ambiguously insulting name.  Something like “Muggles.”  And there could be a school, accessed by a hidden platform at King's Cross Station…  But I digress.

Pondering the possibilities, I wonder what it would look like had our world developed slightly to the left of the one we inhabit.  Or to the right, or above, or below.  I am not being political here.  Imagine if mass production had fizzled out in the 1930’s.  The world economy would be unrecognizable.  Technology would stagnate.  But, if you wanted a new hat, it would be a really good one.  And you would know the guy that made it. Or, imagine if the analytical engine had been fully developed, ushering in the computer age fully 100 years early. What if the Romans had used their (admittedly rudimentary) steam engines for something other than party tricks. And there is always the frightening proposition of Hitler figuring out the atomic bomb before the Allies could.

Small deviations from the current norm could result in drastically different worlds.  For instance, had we not realized in the mid-1800’s that oil could be derived from something besides whales, the motor car simply would not exist.  The internal combustion engine is one of the most developed mechanisms ever conceived by man and is made possible by the enormous potential energy in gasoline.  Petroleum products are, for better or worse, the most efficient means we have of storing energy. Now imagine the world that had developed without shale oil.  Until the development of oil from the ground, the only source of petroleum fuel was whales. There are simply not enough whales in the oceans to support a carbon-based economy. As a result, technology would have advanced in other energy storage methods.  We might have created better batteries or even mechanical means of energy storage, but there is very little chance any of these methods of energy storage would have been compact, at least in the beginning. Without efficient energy storage, mass transit would necessarily have been developed.  After all, it is not very practical to have your own personal steam train. The population would have been centralized in cities.  Outlying areas would have remained undeveloped beyond farmland.  Governmental agencies would be organized differently.  Personal priorities would differ from current norms.  Everyday life in a world without oil would not resemble what now exists, and may be completely unrecognizable to us.

I am not making a judgment about our modern life, with all its scientific miracles and consequent pollution.  It is just that I spend most of my day involved with cars in some way.  What would my life be like had things developed differently.  I would probably still be interested in mechanical things, whatever they were.  But it makes me wonder what my priorities would be in a parallel universe where cars were not a part of daily life. Maybe instead, I would be a Chef developing healthy BBQ.