Be Careful Who You Follow

Seth Godin sent me on a fool’s errand today – I wound up on a blog commenting on Bill Gates’ “energy miracles” speech at TED.

While the blog had a good bit of give-and-take, most of the comments either attacked the blogger or pimped their pet “energy miracle”, such as mass transit.

And I posted the following –

You know what I hate about mass transit?

Let’s see, for one it puts my economic and personal well-being into the hands of yet another government bureaucracy, and even the most generous description of a typical transit authority can’t avoid the term “cronyism”.

But more problematic for me is the notion that everything in my life will now have to fit someone else’s schedule. It seems the desired vision of the future has all the spontaneity of a Borg unimatrix, or worse, high school, where you have to raise your hand to go to the can.

I think we can do better, or at least not suck every last drop of freedom out of our lives.

So I went a little over the top on that…

What people find so sexy about mass transit is that it’s a point solution – just pop out the auto, pop in the bus or train. Everything else remains as it was.

No one but the person needing transportation has to change.

I find that kind of thinking a complete pile of horseshit.

If we’re serious about changing our trajectory, it’s not going to happen without everyone sharing the fun.

Let’s consider rephrasing the goal, “Get people out of their cars” to “Get people to stop traveling unnecessarily.”

How do we do that?

Mass transit targets the work commuter – not that it isn’t useful for pleasure travel, but as a climate change / oil dependency solution it assumes to displace commuting to work by auto.

We can contemplate two other solutions – 1) Move everyone close enough to their jobs so that walking / cycling / riding a scooter to work becomes possible; or 2) Replace physical travel with logical travel – work without commuting TO work.

Solution #1 requires a lot of new construction and/or a lot of house-swapping. Not to mention the thrill of being packed into massive “Habitrails For Humanity” with all the charm of a Soviet-era apartment. I’m sure Congress’s friends in the construction business stand ready to accept trillions of dollars to implement it.

Solution #2 requires a bit of thinking.

Now consider your job – do you REALLY have to commute to it?

If you operate a big machine, such as a locomotive or a 20-ton press, then you probably have to go to the job.

Or if your boss says so. But let’s pretend the boss doesn’t care.

So now do you have to?

By now, you have figured out that I’m a big fan of telecommuting. And yes, I work for a big telecom, but I doubt I would gain substantially from a mass adoption to telecommuting – big bonuses lie well beyond my pay grade.

So what’s stopping us from telecommuting?

In answering questions, I find it useful sometimes to borrow my dad’s logic – he’s a retired cop – and ask, “Cui bono?” – Who wins and who loses?

Losers – Automakers, commercial real estate, road construction companies, mass transit projects, traffic cops, control-freak bosses, people who use going to work as an escape from a bad home life.

Winners – People tired of traffic and beige-cloth walls, internet providers and phone companies, the Earth

Are the obstacles easier to see now?