Torsten Kathke
@kathke.com
8.6K followers 2.4K following 11K posts
Historian. 19th/20th century US & Germany. LMU Munich. 70s/80s cultural criticism, pop science, futurology. Book: Wires That Bind.
Historian. 19th/20th century US & Germany. LMU Munich. 70s/80s cultural criticism, pop science, futurology. Book: Wires That Bind.
![Even before the war, of course, some urban planners had begun to see largely because of the effects of Moses' creations that building more traffic facilities would not in itself cure traffic congestion. These planners had said the Regional Plan Association had been saying it since 1929 and, after the opening of Moses' creations during the 1930's, w ith increasing urgency that the movement of people and goods In a great metropolitan region required a balanced transportation system, one in which the construction of mass rapid transit facilities kept pace w ith the construction of roads. During the last two or three years before the war, a few planners had even begun to understand that, w ithout a balanced system, roads not only would not alleviate transportation congestion but would aggravate it. Watching Moses open the Triborough Bridge to ease congestion on the Queensborough Bridge, open the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge to ease congestion on the Triborough Bridge and then watching traffic counts on all three bridges mount until all three were as congested as one had been before, planners could hardly avoid the conclusion that "traffic generation" was no longer a theory but a proven fact: the more highways were built to alleviate congestion, the more automobiles would pour onto them and congest them and thus force the building of more highways —which would generate more traffic and become congested in their turn in an inexorably widening spiral that contained the most awesome implications for the future of New York and of all urban areas. The only remedy that could check that vicious spiral was the coordination of new highways with new mass transit facilities– […]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:x4d7yazerbjhjwnwfgi4tv7q/bafkreieazhjjvr5ha3rdble7h6dwrgatwvhsd6pbr7frfwcqjawt4ck6eq)
![Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day, [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] suggests, and try it.
The first part is easy. All it requires is simply the ability to throw yourself forward with all your weight, and the willingness not to mind that it's going to hurt.
That is, it's going to hurt if you fail to miss the ground. Most people fail to miss the ground, and if they are really trying properly, the likelihood is that they will fail to miss it fairly hard.
Clearly, it is the second part, the missing, which presents the difficulties.
One problem is that you have to miss the ground accidentally. It's no good deliberately intending to miss the ground because you won't. You have to have your attention suddenly distracted by something else when you're halfway there, so that you are no longer thinking about falling, or about the ground, or about how much it's going to hurt if you fail to miss it.
[…]
If, however, you are lucky enough to have your attention momentarily distracted at the crucial moment by, say, a gorgeous pair of legs (tentacles, pseudopodia, according to phyllum and/or personal inclination) or a bomb going off in your vicinty, or by suddenly spotting an extremely rare species of beetle crawling along a nearby twig, then in your astonishment you will miss the ground completely and remain bobbing just a few inches above it in what might seem to be a slightly foolish manner.
[…]
Do not listen to what anybody says to you at this point because they are unlikely to say anything helpful. They are most likely to say something along the lines of "Good God, you can't possibly be flying!" It is vitally important not to believe them or they will suddenly be right.
[…]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:x4d7yazerbjhjwnwfgi4tv7q/bafkreiclghepivqghiqicqzibgcx3e6tio3nz4yb3jau7koqp5fmkm5r5i)
