The gods and technology

What do they believe? What do you think? Talk about religion as it exists today.

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Clive
Posts: 1197
Joined: Sun Aug 17, 2014 2:20 pm

Re: The gods and technology

Post by Clive »

"Paganism" as Betamax?
The General Motors streetcar conspiracy (also known as the Great American streetcar scandal) refers to convictions of General Motors (GM) and other companies for monopolizing the sale of buses and supplies to National City Lines and its subsidiaries, and to allegations that this was part of a deliberate plot to purchase and dismantle streetcar systems in many cities in the United States as an auto marketing ploy.

Between 1938 and 1950, National City Lines and Pacific City Lines—with investment from GM, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, Mack Trucks, and the Federal Engineering Corporation - a Standard subsidiary — gained control of transit systems in a number of cities. Conspiracy theorists put the number as high as 100, but reliable sources suggest that National had already acquired 20 city systems and two interurbans by the end of 1937,[1] and these should be subtracted from the 46 systems mentioned in the case,[2] and adjusted to reflect the splitting of the Elgin-Aurora line into two systems. Systems included St. Louis, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and Oakland. NCL often converted streetcars to bus operations in that period, although electric traction was preserved or expanded in some locations. Other systems, such as San Diego's, were converted by outgrowths of the City Lines. Several of the companies involved were convicted in 1949 of conspiracy to monopolize interstate commerce in the sale of buses, fuel, and supplies to subsidiary companies, but were acquitted of conspiring to monopolize the transit industry.

Some suggest that this program played a key role in the decline of public transit in cities across the United States; notably Edwin J. Quinby, who drew widespread attention to the program in 1946[dubious – discuss], and then Bradford C. Snell, an assistant attorney for the United States Senate's anti-trust subcommittee, whose controversial 1974 testimony to a Senate inquiry brought the issue to national awareness. Both Quinby and Snell argued that the deliberate destruction of streetcars was part of a larger strategy to push the United States into automobile dependency.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Mo ... conspiracy
"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
Clive
Posts: 1197
Joined: Sun Aug 17, 2014 2:20 pm

Re: The gods and technology

Post by Clive »

History of automobiles might be a very important comparison.

Roxanne Warren Rail and the City discusses how, in the 1920's, it was a crime in the US if a car driver hit a pedestrian, using ancient legal questions about who is the powerful party.

This was changed following a huge campaign to the current "road safety" model, where the pedestrian must check it is safe to cross - not for the car to check it is safe to continue!

I understand different societies still use the pedestrian priority model, Norway and Orthodox Jews in Israel.
"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
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