Little Visions

Give the automatic car a moment of thought.

I went on-line looking for the picture that the interior of the car ought to be, and couldn't find it.  All the photos I could find had the passengers sitting in the car exactly like they do now.

The car is automatic.  It drives itself.  You sit in the car, you lay back, you go to sleep, there's a ding, and you're at your destination.  Believe me, when someone finally engineers the computer that correctly drives this car, it will react faster than you can, and in an accident it will protect you faster and better than anything you can do for yourself.  If an automatic car you're in gets into an accident, you'll want to close your eyes and feel the bubble wrap encase you and keep you alive.  And it will be better able to do that because you will not be facing forward; you will be facing the center of the car.

All four seats will be.  Which means that you'll get into the car with your three friends and chat the way you would in your living room.

Which means when you get together to play D&D, you'll get into your car, you'll organize your game while it picks up the first player.  Then you'll cover some details with him while it picks up your second player, then while it picks up your third player.  Then you'll play while the car drives to a great restaurant three counties over for the next hour and a half.  You'll get out, you'll have a quick, light meal, and then you'll play D&D as the car drives you back home.  And that is going to be how you run your game 25 years from now.

And if you have more than three players, they'll be in another car behind you, connected on a private channel linked between the two cars.  If the party gets divided, you'll all pull over to the side of the road, the non-running party will get into the back car, and chat, and drink - because everyone can get drunk if they want, it's an automatic car - waiting while you deal with the front group.  Then you'll switch cars.  And everything about your world that was a finger touch away on the computer of the first car will be a finger touch away in the second car too, because it's all linked to your phone/personal computer anyway.

None of us will care that we are travelling. Covering distance won't be work, it will be time, and a little cost, and we spend that same time anyway.

Won't it be convenient when we won't have to spend it forcing ourselves to focus on something we've already seen everyday, afraid that if we don't, a moment of distraction will kill us or someone else.