Sometimes, I really feel like the invention of cars has done more harm than good. Let’s go back to good times, and rely on other forms of transportation potentially better for ourselves and the planet.
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The monkey’s paw considers just having all humans immediately drop dead, thus guaranteeing that all cars will decay away relatively quickly.
But it considers that too lazy. Instead, grants your wish, instantly and totally. Every car on Earth simply disappears into thin air. Millions are killed instantly. Every person driving at speed in an automobile drags across the pavement at whatever speed they were previously driving at. Imagine a school bus full of 50 kids, going down the highway at 60 mph…now all being smeared across the pavement at 60 mph.
And the cars go away, but nothing else changes. We’re still living in car-dependent suburban sprawl. All the cars just vanished. And let’s imagine that this is an ongoing effect, and any time someone tries to build an automobile, it just vanishes into thin air as well.
What follows is mass famine and anarchy. The government could seize every horse in the country and use them to distribute goods, it still wouldn’t be able to prevent mass famine. The government manages the crisis as best it can, just trying to prevent mass starvation. Millions of suburbanites have to abandon their homes entirely. The government takes action and encourages this, trying to relocate people as rapidly as possible to as close to train and river routes of transportation as possible.
In most cities, what this looks like is government-directed relocation of the population into the old urban cores. You wanted the 19th century? You got it! Including the parts where multiple families are sharing a space the size of a modern 1 bedroom apartment. The government needs to prevent mass famine. That means having people close to road and rail transport. Do you own a home in the old center of a sprawling metro area? Your property has just been drafted. You have 8 new roommates. You do not get a say in this, and they will not be paying rent.
But this isn’t even the biggest problem. The biggest problem is the farms. Did every wheeled vehicle disappear? Or did the monkey’s paw have mercy and leave us the tractors and the oil trucks? Hard to say. But it would likely be difficult keeping a petrochemical sector going if the only people buying diesel fuel are the ag sector.
Holy hell. Well done.
Even if they didn’t disappear instantly, the mass starvation that would occur due to no changes in infrastructure whatsoever to accommodate this wish would create legendary horror. Definitely unforeseen negative consequence.
Granted.
Slavery is never abolished because Rickshaws become the new main mode of transport.
I don’t think the monkey’s paw can pull that one off, friend.
