I keep seeing people say this. Maybe flying cars just don’t make sense? Wheels work really well when your engine dies. Have you seen people drive in 2d space? You want to add a z axis? What’s the efficiency of a small plane? Surely not better than a Prius.

Edit: I looked it up and a Cessna gets ~15 mpg.

The average person does virtually no regular maintenance / checking of their car, even basics like tyre pressures and oil levels not being checked regularly, happy to leave as much as they possibly can for an annual check at the garage. There’s a shocking amount of people also happy to drive around ignoring warning lights flashing.

Imagine that scenario with tons of metal that could fall out of the sky when something fails.

Very soon, cars won't really let you do anything without ID/phone number/paired phone/key serial number, gps lock, a full working complement of vehicle sensors, and a network connection to report all of the above in realtime to people you don't know (who are of course obligated to provide all of that data to military intelligence at any time, without a warrant or probable cause).

There isn't really an issue with that sort of lack-of-maintenance stuff where we're headed. It won't be long until cars either totally refuse to operate in extreme circumstances (due to manufacturer liability), or fall back to some impossible-to-ignore state like Tesla's "limp mode". Tire pressure/oil life being good examples of easily-detectable liability issues that no sane manufacturer would let slide.

The current state of affairs is simply because remote monitoring was expensive/infeasible. Most vehicles today ship with an always-on cellular modem in them.

Even my little 4K pocket gimbal camera won't operate without phoning home to "activate", same for all the drones sold by the same company. Flying cars would be sending telemetry from all local sensor measurements to HQ at pretty much all times.

crushingly depressing, tbh

> There’s a shocking amount of people also happy to drive around ignoring warning lights flashing.

...or can't afford the basic maintenance

In other words, can't afford to own/operate a car.

Note, that's not a put down on said people. I think it's a shame such situations exist. But, if you can't afford to pay for insurance/gas/maintenance, then you can't afford the vehicle.

But, regarding flying cars: I absolutely do not want more people operating airborne spinny death machines capable of destroying considering we've already established many people don't/can't perform basic maintenance on a much simpler and safer mode of transportation. It wouldn't go well.

> In other words, can't afford to own/operate a car.

Or they know it isn’t worth fixing.

I had an engine light on for about 20000km, and sold the vehicle like that, because it wasn’t worth fixing. One competent mechanic talked me into trying to fix it before I tried to sell it, and that wasted $1000.

Another friend had an engine light on, and the workshop said that happened with that model sometimes and it wasn’t worth fixing.

Both of us could afford to fix the vehicles. That said, if an oil light comes on I stop the vehicle immediately.

That’s a dangerous mindset unless you’re actively pulling the check engine codes daily or more frequently. That one light represents many possible codes, and in all cars I’ve seen it’s on or off instead of, say, on and brighter.

The check engine light is a UI problem. LCDs are cheap now, it should be able to display the real problem. At least with a numeric code on the panel that you can look up in the owner's manual.

Where exactly do you live? In the US it's not common to have more than an aesthetic checkover of a car during inspection. There's not necessarily any reason to clear those lights, and in general you can avoid fixing relatively expensive things that do not prevent the car from running outright.

Contrast to my understanding of Germany's system, where your car must be aesthetically pleasing to the inspector.

Im confused. Most US states if not all require emissions testing at each inspection. Break lights or engine lights are automatic fails. Suffucient tire tred, working wipers etc.

I've never heard of an engine light being a fail, even with emissions test. You could still pass despite whatever the dash says.

But, what some people have been talking about makes sense now. If you get a bad manufacturer who lights up the dash for everything then they're forcing you to spend money.

The number of people who need cars to survive is far greater than the number of people who can afford to fix every nuisance fault. So long as it can keep rolling and comply with whatever minimum safety requirements actually get enforced, people will run it.

Except for lots of people cars are also necessary

> Imagine that scenario with tons of metal that could fall out of the sky when something fails.

Hmm, this has different meaning with last weekends context of an engine cover hitting a yard.

I would look at flying cars are a metaphor, not as a literal thing people are opining over.

Indeed. In a conversation about being insufficiently thoughtful in deciding what you really want to build, flying cars are an excellent metaphor.

> Maybe flying cars just don’t make sense?

I think it's just a placeholder metaphor to represent <hypothetical futuristic "thing" that increases our quality of life as a society>

But also, the fact that it was impractical is itself a metaphor -- it turns out many of the things they thought would be cool and futuristic were actually impractical when you get to the details.

Sure, but that's besides the point. It's sort of like that meme about "The World If <my pet policy was implemented>" (example: https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/394/070/7f2...). It features over the top flying cars and infrastructure because it's trying to make a point.

When one says "we could have had flying cars, but instead we got X", that's the underlying concept. Whether or not the flying car is "practical" is kind of besides the point. Either that, or we need to find some other generally agreed upon term to represent an actually practical but futuristic invention that represents human progress (or the lack thereof).

>"The World If <my pet policy was implemented>">"The World If <my pet policy was implemented>"

http://eduard-heindl.de/energy-storage/energy-storage-system...

Well, we would get cheap energy storage and cheap energy. No promises of a superior future, just a cheaper future.

I suggest "we could have had an all-nuclear grid."

The maths are about right for MPG. Time is what you (might) save. I'll get around that at cruise - 135kts or 155mph @ ~ 10gal/hour. Better fuel usage if you slow down a bit. Tempted to say if you slowed down to max Prius speeds on the autoban, the C182 might be more fuel efficient. I'm sure it gets 50mpg at 75mph, but doubt it gets that at 109mph.

While I generally agree I do not think they meant it literally in this case.

You ever fly over a mountain? It saves a lot of time.

Developed countries tend to build tunnels for lengthy mountain routes for which there is serious demand, so there is less a case for flying cars here.

Here in Norway we have a lot of fjords with small communities all over. The roads are narrow, twisty and often at high risk of falling rocks[1].

Due to the many roads and relatively few people using a lot of these high-risk roads, maybe flying cars would be a more cost-effective option here... would possibly also reduce the need for expensive ferries[2].

[1]: https://www.nrk.no/vestland/ras-i-roldal-isolerer-ti-fastboe...

[2]: https://www.nrk.no/nordland/bjornar-skjaeran-i-arbeiderparti...

Top Gear did a race from Italy to the UK. Clarkson driving a Bugatti Veyron, Hammond and May flying in a Cessna 182. They couldn't fly over the mountains, and May wasn't qualified to fly at night. It didn't save a lot of time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoK4QYwixDc

Not sure which bits you could cut with a flying car - the safety checks, air traffic control involvement, runways, refuelling stop, qualifications/licenses, but it would have to be a lot to make a large difference.

I can drive from Como to Lugano in Switzerland in 30 minutes.

I guess the Alps are not a big issue.

The reason you don't get flying cars, is the very same, you cant make a lot of other technology. People will want to invent the flying car parking house. And they kind of did - on the 11 of September 2001. You can not hand technology over a certain level to a infantile (nicer sound then retarded) species. Its that simple.

Its already madness to allow wealthy citizens into space. Tesla and Amazon are one freight flight to space, filled with tungsten rods, away from becoming there own nation - with non-nuclear deterrence. That somebody - whoever it is, out there is getting humankinds tech progress to a grinding halt, is a blessing in disguise. We actually do not even get a honest discussion about the risks on this path.

Problem is though, we always scienced our way out of our problems with our volatile nature. Tap some energy here, create some fertilizer there, oversupply solves the problems we do not want to solve. Exponential supply for exponential unchecked demand.

Enter social tech- in theory we could limit ourselves, could curb our demands, could become starving monks in the desert, hypnotized by coloured lights playing across enchanted stones. This seems to be the road we need to take, for the other road to be traverse-able.

I think you meant to say “tungsten rods”, rather than titanium. the composition of the drop weapons doesn’t change the gist though.

Titanium is used in airframes for its strength to weight ratio (it’s not very dense). Tungsten is used in weapons for its high hardness and density.

I stand corrected.

Ok, you head on out to the desert, we'll be right behind you... promise.

I do not get it- why is exponential powerful tech, such a serious matter if somebody wants a nuke (Iran, North-Korea) or even just proliferate per-existing ones, considered a serious issue. But once a entity with clear interests in venturing outside the sphere of law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil#Breakup) and the monetary/organizational power to acquire such tech, ventures towards something similar classifiable, such a threat is a joking matter?

Also if you stream a movie tonight, like millions others, who just have a roof, food and a flickering screen that sand in the dessert might be very fine integrated - and already have gotten everywhere. So nobody is asking you or me, might as well discuss the scenarios.

OK, SpaceX applies to launch an orbital bombardment cannon and launch approval is denied. That was a good day, next.

OK, SpaceX ignores the denial and launches anyway. Elon Musk threatens to destroy Washington DC to gain independence for ... some territory somewhere. Unclear where, or why he'd want that since he already has enormous wealth and influence and doesn't need to run his own military to keep it. The United States arrests Elon Musk and seizes all of SpaceX with overwhelming military might. The end.

Is that really as threatening as North Korea developing nuclear weapons?

> Its already madness to allow wealthy citizens into space.

??

> filled with tungsten rods, away from becoming there own nation - with non-nuclear deterrence.

In WW1, they tried dropping flechettes onto troops. Didn't work.

As for becoming a nation, that's hardly going to work without the launch/recovery site being part of that nation.

I doubt the ability to lift enough of them into orbit to make a difference.

>"...This seems to be the road we need to take..."

We who? You are more than welcome to starve in a desert. Just do not count on any companionship.

It's White Collar Welfare. As long as your semi-intelligent, college educated, and socially connected, you can easily get a DoD-related job.

Also, we don't have flying cars because that would be ridiculously impractical. They would be essentially helicopters, which would drink gas and be exponentially more deadly to operate.

There are lots of scientist and inventors around inventing cool new stuff. And there's plenty of research dollars available to anyone with a Ph.D and some grant writing abilities. It's absolutely possible to make a good career out of being an inventor and getting a government to flip the bill on it.

The issue is that we've reach the point in society where technological progress in incremental. Instead of three guys inventing a revolutionary device like the transistor, we have thousands of people working on making marginal improvements to battery chemistry.

Every industry is like that now. Something like four guys entirely designed the original small block Chevy motor, but today, GM has like 400 people designing just fuel system components for the ancestor of that engine. Innovation, it seems, is O(n^2).

This is studied by economists! "Growth is slowing down at the same time as we’re spending ever more money on research and development. So what that tells us is it’s just taking more and more dollars of R&D to increase growth, or to increase output, to keep growth at a reasonable rate. And the only way to tie these together is it’s just getting harder and harder to find new ideas."

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/no-new-ideas/

> And there's plenty of research dollars available to anyone with a Ph.D and some grant writing abilities

Do tell.

NIH paylines (i.e., the percentage of grants funded) are in the teens, with some institutes at/near single digits. NSF is a bit better, but the awards are much smaller. I don't think DARPA, CDMRP, (etc) have explicit Paylines, but the programs are very competitive as well.

This isn't entirely true. The US subsidizes military costs for all of our allies. It costs a lot, and a huge amount of funds go to that.

There are parts that are like jobs programs, and the contractors intentionally drive up costs as part of their business model, but there are also real expenses to maintaining stability across the parts of the world where our military operates.

>>> The US subsidizes military costs for all of our allies.

Speaking as one of those allies... not really. Often times US allies spend money they really don't want to in order to keep the US happy. Canada and the UK probably wouldn't have invaded Afghanistan if not for their obligations as US allies. That certainly wasn't cheap. Canada is soon to replace its fighter fleet. Will it buy to cheaper Saab Grippen? Or will it feel obligated to buy the 35, a US program that Canada has paid into (aka subsidized) for many years without actually receiving any aircraft?

This argument would be more persuasive if more countries actually met their recommended NATO spend. In reality it doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

Take for instance Germany. The federal republic increased their spend to $63.8b last year but that's still a shortfall of ~$27b relative to what a 2% spend would be.

Aggressive estimates (above official estimates) of the UK's (a similar sized ally) spending on Afghanistan in 2011m put the total figure at $26b for 10 years.

The cumulative shortfall in NATO contributions for Germany over that period is more than 10 times greater than the entire invasion and continued operations in Afghanistan during that period.

(edit: grammar and dollar signs)

And that argument would be more persuasive if so much NATO spend wasn't funnelled back to the US in both direct and indirect ways.

The UK has Trident and was supposed to be buying F-35s. A number of UK military and civilian aerospace projects were either cancelled (various examples) or crippled commercially (Concorde) because of US interference.

The Afghanistan and Iraq misadventures are still causing significant political costs across Europe. Meanwhile the US has failed to protect the EU against some obvious and immediate threats, including political interference. (Although to be fair it hasn't even protected itself - which is a different problem.)

In any case - the US really isn't a credible victim of exploitation in any of this.

The "recommended NATO spend" is just another way the US is costing its allies money. Sure, in 2019 Germany only spent $50bn (1.3% of GDP). But if the hypothetical enemy is Russia with a military budget of $65bn, then what's the point of spending $80bn? Especially if you are in a treaty that ensures you don't have to defend yourself alone.

The U.S. has no interest in NATO beyond keeping Europe free. Don't think for a second Russia wouldn't pull a Crimea in the Baltics or Poland if NATO were dissolved. And then what, the European Parliament will suddenly get its act together and figure out how to counteract a superpower? Any attempt to do so will last precisely as long as it takes Russia to shut down energy supplies to Germany.

That’s a bit of a stretch... shutting down energy supplies to Central/Western Europe would cost Russia more than it would Germany considering that energy exports are 70% of their total exports and generate over 50% of budget revenue.

Besides there are no good reasons for Russia to occupy the baltic states (or atleast the cost would considerably outweigh anything they might gain from it). Subsidizing Crimea is already very expensive and controlling the baltics (no even speaking about Poland) would cost considerably more (both due to lost income and because they’d have to dedicate considerable resources policing the local populations which (unlike Crimea) don’t want them to be there)

It may be a stretch that Russia has no good reason to occupy the Baltic states, but maybe not. The reason to occupy Eastern Ukraine was that a lot of Russians live there. Guess where else a lot of Russian live.

Even if you don't take the threat seriously it is obvious that other neutral states do: https://www.reuters.com/article/sweden-nato-idUSKBN28J1UL

I think you are probably right. But this is the kind of thing where being wrong is potentially catastrophic. And the world can change faster than you can adjust your defense posture.

By "keeping Europe free" you must mean maintaining the primacy of the United States and her allies in the planetary trade federation?

Note that I did not mention germany, rather the US and canada, while the OP said "all of our allies". No two countries are ever the same. And NATO /= USA. There are lots of other organizations which would quality a country as an "ally" of the US other than NATO. Canada and the UK are linked to the US through numerous other organizations (eg NORAD).

Canada's defence spend last year was $22.2b

As they only met 1.31% of their 2% spend (which would be $37.5b) the shortfall is ~$15.3b annually.

Still sounds like a bargain.

Why do you think Germany is looking at the F/A-18 to replace parts of their aging Tornado fleet?

Because the Eurofighter can't carry the nuclear bombs that the US has stationed in Germany, and Germany wants to be the one providing the pilots and aircraft that deliver them.

Also the Eurofighter has no decent and built jamming setup compared to the EA-18

And because the US, needed to certify the free falling nuclear bombs on aircraft, signaled that this certification would take way longer on non US aircraft.

Which is, more or less, the main reason.

EDIT: I think the F/A-18 is a great choice and one hell of a plane. The other options, a potentially obsolete F-15 and a maybe delivered in time F-35 aren't that great.

Read more about petro-dollar scheme. Basically US provides military services to oil producers in exchange for global tax. This is only possible if US is able to retain their military position. So every dollar you think is being subsidized to allied countries is in fact paid back with lots of premium from all countries - both allies and enemies.

You do know the US is now the world's #1 oil producer (and food producer).

Petro-dollar is not about US dependences on oil producers. It is the other way. It is about forcing all countries to using dollars to buy oil. This allows the US to sell dollars and charge for this in various ways. On the other hand it requires the US to keep military control of oil logistics. The advatege for allied oil producers it that they can trade oil more easily. You know - transferring billions of dollars over international sea in the form of oil requires a lot of support from military just to make it happen.

The "petrodollar" is just an urban myth verging on a conspiracy theory when talking about Iraq, the fact that oil is priced in dollars (and it isn't always) doesn't mean countries need to have dollars to buy oil, it's just a convenient and stable unit of account. You can use Euros to buy oil priced in dollars in the same way you can use Bitcoin to buy drugs priced in dollars.

> Basically US provides military services to oil producers in exchange for global tax. This is only possible if US is able to retain their military position.

this is just not how economics works at all

The foreign military aid is also a jobs program.

It gives money to US manufacturers by giving money to other countries that they have to use to buy US products.

The justification for foreign aid to Israel is always pretty much “but it’s OK because most of it comes back to us via arms sales”. Essentially billions of dollars of American taxpayer wealth transferred to defense contractors laundered through the IDF.

Israel stops Iran from blowing up or conquering the entire Middle East. Also, military intelligence. Also, the military industry is probably more beneficial to the US by being based there rather than being outsourced to China. I think the tax money given to weapons manufactures is paid back in double by tax. Also, you wouldn't want to fight wars with allies in Chinese planes. Hope this answers your concerns.

> Israel stops Iran from blowing up or conquering the entire Middle East.

The propaganda poster you paint here is dubious.

Have you ever looked at a map? Sunni majority nations KSA, Syria, Kuwait, and Turkiye probably have a lot more to do with it than Israel.

Having been to every middle eastern / near eastern / Balkan / North African nation except Libya, I’m not too afraid of Iran.

Iranians have always treated me better than Israelis or myy my fellow Americans have, even after finding out I’m a queer atheist.

-I’m not too afraid of Iran.

I am. They have sworn to destroy Israel and America. They are developing nuclear weapons to do so. They are funding proxy wars throught the Middle East. They are trying to gain control over syria, iraq, yemen etc. The irgc is probably the best funded terrorist organization in the world https://www.state.gov/foreign-terrorist-organizations/ . I'm afraid of Iran.

KSA, Syria, Kuwait, and Turkiye probably have a lot more to do with it than Israel.

Depends what you look for. Most visible, front- line opposition, certainly. But who does all the high profile bombing and intelligence raids and computer hacking? I think it's Israel.

-Iranians have always treated me better than Israelis or myy my fellow Americans have.

That's fine! I'm not asking you to hate Iranians, and i'm also not asking you to love Israelis.

What i am asking you is to recognize that Iran is a global threat to peace and that Israel can offer the best answer. I think that's true.

> They are funding proxy wars throught the Middle East.

Would it be more honorable if they just invaded countries in the Middle East instead, the way the US does? Of course the US is funding proxy wars as well.

If a beligerant and much more powerful country came across the Atlantic and invaded Mexico and Canada, I know I would want some nukes as a deterrant.

Iran couldn't even defeat Iraq during their brutal eight year conflict. Even if Iran wanted to take over the ME, there is zero chance they would be able to.

>If a beligerant and much more powerful country came across the Atlantic and invaded Mexico and Canada, I know I would want some nukes as a deterrant.

Where is your belligerant nation? Not Israel surely. Iran was fine with israel before some terrorist inciters hijacked the country.

I assumed the implication would be clear from the analogy.

In the last 20 years the US has invaded two of Iran's neighbors, Iraq to the west, and Afghanistan to the east.

The parent comment is fine because it adheres to the site guidelines. The problem with your comments is that you've been breaking those guidelines. I don't think it's so hard to see the difference? Please use HN as intended or, if you don't want to, please don't post. We're trying for one type of site here and not another.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The only difference is Marshmallow ultra-zionist claim that Iran was the belligerent dangerous nation trying to “take over the entire region” in contrast to my far more reasonable argument that the only nation in this skirmish whom has done that is the good ol’ US of A.

Racist anti-Iranian propaganda is almost never moderated whereas anything pointing out the reality of the Iranian situation is flagged or down voted to hell.

You wield the site guidelines in bad faith when it comes to Iran.

You're reading too much into how we moderate this place. It's shallower than that. Certainly it isn't based on views about, of all things, Iran.

It sounds as if you may be assuming that it's enough to have a correct opinion. That's not enough. People who have correct opinions (or feel that they do) often believe that their correct opinion entitles them to post as destructively as they please. After all, they're right and their cause is righteous, so what else matters? The answer is that protecting the commons also matters. An internet forum may be a trivial thing, far less important than the fate of a country—nevertheless, those who participate here are responsible for taking care of it. What good does it do the people of Iran, or anyone, if this place goes down in flames?

> Racist anti-Iranian propaganda is almost never moderated whereas anything pointing out the reality of the Iranian situation is flagged or down voted to hell.

Most people who feel strongly about a topic feel that both the moderators and the community are biased against them on the topic. Those perceptions aren't reliable—they're conditioned by distorting factors, such as the tendency to put much greater weight on the posts one dislikes. We don't moderate comments about Iran in any particular way.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Some posts that ought to be moderated don't get moderated, but that's because we don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here. When people run into an egregious post on a topic that they feel strongly about, they tend to assume that we left it unmoderated on purpose, and jump (inaccurately) to the belief that we must tacitly agree with it. The likelier explanation is that we just didn't see it. Anyone can help with that by flagging the post or by emailing us at [email protected].

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

Would you please stop posting flamewar comments to HN and using the site for political and/or ideological and/nationalistic battle? It's not what this place is for, and it destroys what it is for. You've been doing a lot of it, unfortunately.

Just to be clear, I'm not disagreeing with your interpretation of Iranian history. I'm talking about a repeated pattern of breaking the site guidelines, which is not cool. We ban accounts that do that—we have to, because otherwise everyone starts flaming everyone and soon this place burns to a crisp.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. The intended spirit is thoughtful, curious conversation.

We really don't give a shit about that (though I hear you about raspberry pi, and it's refreshing that you didn't say Rust). We're just trying to have an internet forum that doesn't suck, or at least to stave off collapse for a little longer.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

What is Saudi Arabia doing in Yemen then? Or what has Pakistan done in Afghanistan? Why single out Iran?

> They are funding proxy wars throught the Middle East.

America is funding proxy wars throughout the midde east too.

> What i am asking you is to recognize that Iran is a global threat to peace and that Israel can offer the best answer. I think that's true.

We are at war with eastasia. We have always been at war with eastasia.

Sorry bro, I don’t subscribe to trumpism, zionism or americanism. No nation is more of a global threat to peace than the usa.

> I think the tax money given to weapons manufactures is paid back in double by tax.

Broken windows fallacy.

The irony is that this is why foreign aid never works. It's mostly spent on weapons and if there is no foe the government can just use the weapons to suppress its own population and thus ask for even more foreign aid.

Developed nations don't care because their defense contractors get the money.

I think that's the benefit gained from the very rich, whether 18th century lords or modern billionaires - they can get us out of those local maxima. I'm thinking of people like Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir humphrey davies, and Elon musk.

We already have flying cars. They're called helicopters. They're very expensive to operate, mainly because of the very high maintenance costs. Those high costs are due to the fundamental problem that helicopters cannot survive losing a blade.

blades are too expensive. We need a powerful new powerplant that can direct a stream of deficient energy in sufficient quantities to enable flight. Powerplant doesn't yet exist, and my energy converter doesn't, either. In the 50's it wasn't imagined that commanding computers would use so many resources, rather human ingenuity would be directed towards revolutionising existing technology. This is yet to materialise. Sad

"directed energy stream of sufficient quantity" sounds like a jet engine, which exists.

if you're proposing something more powerful than that... that sounds like a fantastic weapon. Someone get the Pentagon on the horn, let's get this shit funded!

With apologies to Larry Niven: "A reaction drive's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive."

steam engines were replaced by oil, and then, the rulebook was rewritten when jets were invented. That was 80 years ago. Jets are old. We need to minimise the moving parts. To do so we need to increase the density of stored energy so more can be used. The answer is atoms. Not old fashioned uranium atoms, but fresh, new fusion reactors. They shall create not heat, but clean electricity. It is long overdue. Even professor calculus knew that the best way to get tintin to the moon was by using nuclear energy. We need to reinvent the plane, not make a better version.

A solid fuel rocket engine has no moving parts.

we need an blinding flash of technological innovation to illuminate this century, not dissimilar to last centurys mushroom cloud.

You mean graphene...?

We have this, it's called the F35 (Also AV8B in previous years). See the article in this thread however :P

Absolutely a giant jobs program, but, as importantly, it's a conservative-friendly jobs program.

Republicans (nominally) care about spending, but make an exception for defense. Democrats care less about spending, and are afraid of being attacked for being "weak on defense".

Neither party has any incentive to rein this sort of spending in, so they don't.

A flying car is the wrong solution. It’s equivalent to building a faster, much more dangerous horse.

The problem is:

1. People need to commute large distances

2. People need to go fast

It can be better solved by removing the majority of commutes and using very fast, efficient, underground mass transport systems to move people when they (rarely) need it.

I’d rather cities and VR were redesigned so the average person doesn’t usually need to go more than 5 kilometers in any direction on a given day.