Pros of yacht-centric development:
- If you own a yacht, it means you are rich and therefore better than others.
- If you’re in a car, some homeless guy could just walk up to your car and beg for money (so awkward!). In a yacht, what are they gonna do, swim?
- Waterfront access is the American dream. Building roads instead of canals is literally communism.
- Yachts and canals are great for home values. Gotta keep those prices going up!
- Cars just aren’t sufficient for your average person to haul 20 friends to their weekly parties on their private islands. People need their yachts to go about these basic necessities of life!
Pros of car-centric development:
- ???
- There are no pros of car-centric development.
Pros, cont’d:
- The increased emissions from the yachts will accelerate climate change, making MORE waterfront; it’s a problem that solves itself!
- More waterfront = higher property values; yachts also lift everyone out of poverty, ezpz
Yachts are the cars of water
I once wrote a semi-satirical short story for a writing contest about Norway in the future, and I haaaate how much I had to trim that story down for word count, because I had a ton of ideas for it. I was going to write at length about how rising sea levels and more frequent flooding due to extreme weather had encouraged a shift to canal-centric reconstruction of Norwegian cities. These canals were known to locals as “moats”, because their primary purpose was not to facilitate transport, but rather to hinder it: traveling around cities now required either a fancy boat, or crossing one of a limited number of drawbridges, which frequently broke down for extended periods of time in poorer areas, and universally prioritized boat traffic over foot traffic.
The growing underclass of Norway still found some use for the canals, though, as they could fish for drift-litter in the contaminated waters, which they would use for crafts and gardening and such. Meanwhile in other areas, the canal water had been purified: the parks and plazas of Norway’s cities had all been transformed into public swimming pools, leaving would-be protestors with virtually no choice but to don their favorite bikinis and swim-trunks while holding up water-proof signs.
This story is amazing. I personally thought about canal development in a more positive light, as cargo transport over seas is the most fuel efficient form of transport known to men, beats even trains. Rowing in boats is also fun! Also most landlocked countries are poorer and have less freedom, because they have 0 access to the open oceans to trade and flee opressors and neighbors.
Well, in the version of the story that I actually sent into the writing contest, I basically had to scrap the canals idea entirely because the maximum word count was too short for that kind of worldbuilding, so the canals unfortunately never got past the notes stage. All around I was pretty dissatisfied with how the final draft of the story came out, so I’ve been thinking of having another go at writing a full-length version of the story that goes in-depth about all the crazy worldbuilding ideas I had.
Can’t drown on a road
![[meme] Name one good reason we should stick with outdated cars when we have yachts now??(lemmy.world)](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/9307e011-fe3d-463a-98e9-98fdc0b93f22.webp){kind=link}