---
date: 2019-01-24
modified_at: 2019-01-29
tags: [philosophy, programming]
description: A dream-inspired vision of future urban transportation featuring autonomous VR-enabled segways that could revolutionize commuting by reducing surface area and allowing multitasking.
---
# Are VR Autonomous Segways the future, or was it just a dream?

Tonight I had a dream that I was woken up abruptly from so I was able to
remember it in clear detail. This dream was so revealing of how traffic could
be. I was driving in my old car when at once I entered a city I had never been
before. People were scooting around on this small segways that take about half
the surface area of a normal segway. People were driving on them slowly, but
with a helmet. The helmet was gold and not round but squarey, more shaped like a
diamond - flat surfaces. I think people didn't were these helmets much for
protection, but for being somewhere else - VR. It seemed that they also needed
them elsewhere after commuting, so these things were probably not made
specifically for commuting. Why were they going so slow? I think that this is
because they were autonomously driven. If the user doesn't control it but just
fills in an end destination, the user can do other stuff while commuting. This
is even more efficient than walking so it will already be benificial when you go
just 5mph or so. But even if these things go like 15mph or so, it will be a big
improvement. It doesn't matter that you go slower than in a car because you can
do other stuff while commuting. But that won't be the biggest break through. I
think the biggest reason for us to transfer to such a system would be that the
surface area of such a thing becomes much smaller. Our living spaces are also
using the vertical dimension while our roas just use the horizontal plane. This
is a problem, as the vertical dimension increases. There will not be enough
place on the roads for cars. Autonomous car sharing will improve this for a
while, but eventually even then we will run out of space. The only solution then
is to decrease surface area of the vehicle (or dig tunnels). I also noticed that
there were almost no cars around. This is probably because it was daytime. Cars
are used for 2 things: moving people and moving stuff. Cars can be blocked out
of the city between certain hours so the roads become fully available to these
eSegways - less accidents and more room. Cars still will be needed for
transfering goods to places, but this can easily be done within a shorter
timespan.