Innovation Day 2025 is on Sunday, February 16, 2025: Controversies with modern day innovations in relation to Frankenstein?

Sunday, February 16, 2025 is Innovation Day 2025.

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Place an issue, think about an answer, and before very long you’re finding! Innovation Day is about imagining new, possible ways to do things. How would you be innovative?

That's an absolutely great book and one that is still very relevant to this day - how can you NOT have a boatload of ideas on this?!?!?

Ok, maybe it's just me....

Here - these should help you think up some stuff to write about....

That's just one of your topics.

Good Luck with the Paper

Technological Innovations?

Some problems of automobiles are pretty obvious. They include air pollution created locally (Locally means where the car is driving around, usually in a city), noise pollution (Sound from the internal combustion engines), and a very dangerous machine if used in the wrong hands (Drunk drivers, people under the influence of medication or drugs, or just bad drivers). Some other problems may not be so obvious however.

One thing that the automobile has led to is creating cities that are extremely spread apart. While many large cities are pretty dense, structures built near the time of the automobile and afterward are much farther away from city centers than before. On average, most people seem to spend at least an hour on the roads just driving to work from their homes and an hour back. Some people spend even longer times on their daily commutes. Certain areas also have a lack of wanted or needed businesses. For example, if you needed to pick up a few things, many times different businesses are on opposite sides of a town from each other. This makes it almost a requirement for every person to have their own car just so they can make it in such a place.

The car has also made public transportation, in most cities anyway, go largely unused. There are cities that you can get along perfectly fine without a car (Mostly on the north east coast), but a lot of other cities would rather have a brand new 6 lane highway built in their town than a modern light rail system. People who don't have a car and who have to rely on public transportation are labeled as being poor, or losers while having a car is almost more of a status symbol than a means of transportation.

Cars use a ton of energy. Not just in the gasoline they consume, but also in their manufacturing. Cars are made of aluminum and steel and other valuable resources. Many families own at least two cars and many of them exchange their cars for new ones every few years. The same amount of resources from the cars of just a handful of families could be used for a city wide public transportation system which could serve thousands of passengers daily instead of just a few.

The fact that almost everyone owns a car, and many people drive alone, makes the roads extremely congested in almost any part of country. If even one lane of a major highway gets blocked due to an accident, traffic slowdowns can last for hours. But if more people were to carpool or even take a bus (Which can usually hold as least 20 people comfortably) there would be much less traffic even if an accident were to occur.

Cars are expensive! Most new cars cost anywhere from $15,000 to $50,000 and higher. There's also a few hundred in state taxes, monthly insurance costs (Which can skyrocket if you've ever had an accident, or if you own a fancy sports car), maintenance costs, not to mention the ever increasing price of gas! Also remember the costs of parking if you're in a major city. If you're a college student, buying a car might be a nice luxury but is highly impractical if you're already paying $10,000-$50,000 a year for tuition.

However, having a car does make it easier to get around in most cities. It allows us to go where we want when we want to in our own private little "bubble". While it is nice to have, it also spoils many of us. It makes us lazy. There are certain situations that may call for a private vehicle, but even those are not very often.

To reduce the problems, cars should be smaller, cheaper, most likely turned in to electric vehicles. Public transportation should be expanded and available to the point that most people shouldn't even need a car. People need to live closer to their work to reduce commuting great distances every day. The current stigma on people who don't own a car or don't drive needs to be removed. The stigma on people who use public transportation needs to be washed from our minds.

Most of this isn't happening very fast for a number of different reasons, however a lot of things are being changed for the better. Many north eastern cities continue to expand their public transportation systems. In some cities, like New York, you don't even need a car with all the subways. Commuter trains are mostly just popular on the east and west coasts, with almost no one using a train to travel cross country (Look at Amtrak for example). Even with rising gas prices squeezing our pockets dry, we don't change our habits very much.

If I had to live without owning a car, it would not affect me much. I have lived without a car for a long time already and while they are nice, they are not needed. I am disappointed that my city has recently cut back on public transportation due to lack of funding, but I still try to promote its use as much as possible.

A question about innovation....????

No. But one day we will have no hope to be as innovative as the machines we created to innovate.