A lot of people make fun of Elon Musk's tunnels, but I'm impressed by it. You could give me 1,000 years and I'd never come up with a solution to traffic as dumb as "a single lane tunnel for only one kind of car that you still have to drive in". Truly beyond the scope of my mind.
"Let's make a public transportation system that is only for rich people who bought my stuff but is also totally stupid and doesn't solve anything". The fabled efficiency of the privatizing everything in action.
@existentialcoms It's a brilliant idea! But instead of just carrying yourself, make it bigger to carry more people at one time! & instead of spending lots on a big car, make everyone riding pay a nominal fee instead! & don't drive it yourself! Get someone else to drive the car! Wait a minute.
@existentialcoms no apparent ventilation or sprinkler systems. i hope those cars aren’t prone to bursting into flames for no reason lmao
@existentialcoms Scientists are predicting a future where humans no longer need to travel in brightly lit one-way tunnels via Tesla.
@existentialcoms Yet you could do even worse : you could also "forget" to put fire exits, and make it so that the only allowed kind of car tends to randomly catch fire. Oh wait.
@existentialcoms @GreatDismal “Elite projection is the belief, among relatively fortunate and influential people, that what those people find convenient or attractive is good for the society as a whole.” humantransit.org/2017/07/the-da…
@existentialcoms Didn't even take the opportunity to make it a bit more exciting.
@existentialcoms Okay it’s another car lane, but why isn’t there even a shoulder? Any road, any tunnel has a shoulder.
@existentialcoms @rob_sheridan “So dumb its smart!…”
@existentialcoms Also Teslas catch fire so much, this is pretty much just a premium crematorium
@existentialcoms He has also lit it like a mellow version of the tunnel from the Gene Wilder Chocolate Factory film, which is a thing I guess
@existentialcoms The funniest part of this whole thing is the aspect that seems to wow the tech journalists the most - the futuristic LED lighting - has been a staple in college dorm rooms for the last decade
@existentialcoms I don't know, I almost kind of admire the way all his ideas ultimately seem designed to needlessly kill people if even one thing goes wrong
@existentialcoms I just had a brilliant idea looking at this. How about they lay some type of tracks in there and then they could construct some type of vehicle that could hold hundreds of people at a time that could be pulled on the tracks? Each person could pay a small fee for the travel. 🤯
@existentialcoms ahh but he has a genius solution: build many single lane tunnels. then you have a choice of which congested death tube to spend your day idling in
@existentialcoms It's a smart solution when you realise that the problem he's trying to solve is "traffic is bad so I can't fit more of my cars".
@existentialcoms Same guy taking us to mars apparently.
@existentialcoms Anyone who watched Futurama would think of this.
@existentialcoms reminds me of this from the Wayside School books I read as a kid
@existentialcoms @ClaraJeffery Under California which is sitting on about 200 major earthquake fault lines. Brilliant
@existentialcoms @ChainAgnostic it's like... a train...you invented a train
@existentialcoms We've enjoyed that service during the last 100 years. It's called "colectivos" or shared taxis. Remarkably useful at night.
@existentialcoms @Dani_Di_Placido While the Tesla tunnels are stupid, I believe he's on the record saying his main motivation was to take resources away from actual public transportation infrastructure that reduce the demand for privately owned automobiles.
@existentialcoms Like Boston's Big Dig, but much worse and less functional
@existentialcoms This would be a much better solution for so many reasons
@existentialcoms It’s like a monorail - but for individual cars… AND it’s underground! - Lyle Lanley (probably)
@existentialcoms Why wouldn't it at least have the thing drive through car washes have that pulls the car through?
@existentialcoms They could remove the cars and put in high speed moving walkways. This way there'd be no queuing for a car, no drivers required, and it'd be less expensive too. I suspect the cars are mostly a marketing play for Tesla.
@existentialcoms The claustrophobia that photo gives me
@existentialcoms He is de facto the dumbest smart-ass known to humankind.
@existentialcoms ... that sounds a lot like a subway ...
@existentialcoms I feel like, given enough time and use, there's gonna be an accident in the tunnel. Then what? Seems like this narrow, packed space would make any problem within hard to address
@existentialcoms I'm sure that it's so safe they don't even need emergency exits. It's not like there's any flammable materials in the tunnel or anything.
@existentialcoms @GreatDismal When i first heard of it i thought they were going to build a vacuum pod system... Then maybe some kind of high speed rail ferry... When i found out they were literally just driving in a tunnel I was so disappointed 😞