Would you be cool living where you got around by horse or camel?

[raccoon]

I would.

[Scout]

1. horse or mule, definitely ... never ridden a camel, so can't say. n/t

[kenny blankenship]

2. You can't get there from here

Not without a few hundred million or more likely a few billion people dying off . No one can say they'll "be all right" in such a scenario. Even if you live that way right now, your life wouldn't be worth a plug nickel during the long transition to a world without mechanical transportation.

[ixion]

3. Yep, I would. And I would prefer the lifestyle that would go along with it...

that is, a much, much slower pace.

[slackmaster]

4. No. The streets would be covered with shit.

That's why people started driving cars in the first place.

You don't have to clean up after a "horseless carriage".

[Donnachaidh]

10. oh so no one would want to handle all that FERTILIZER?

There's gold in them thar muffins Dude. A LOT easier to clean up than millions of pounds of emissions from exhausts.

[slackmaster]

12. My grandparents all remembered what the streets of their midwestern towns were like before cars...

There were a lot of flies, and the smell of urine and horse feces was overwhelming in the summer.

In case anyone suspects otherwise, I'm not being facetious in the least when I say that a lack of horse-generated pollution was one of the reasons people started driving cars.

[Donnachaidh]

16. my grandparents remember that too -- as well as the CONCENTRATED effort of Henry Ford

to completely wipe out not only the horse and buggy, but the steam engine cars as well.

Considering the air around major cities like NY, LA and Atlanta can be visably cut, chewed and swallowed because of auto emissions -- I would think that a GREEN return to something other than fossil fuels, one that would BENEFIT the public, should be an option.

[slackmaster]

21. Returning to pack animals is definitely not an option in Manhattan

It was bad enough before the automotive revolution. Imagine what it would be like with today's much higher human population, if everyone who wasn't able to use a bicycle rode a horse or in a horse-drawn buggy.

[raccoon]

13. No, you just breathe in the shit they put out. nt

[slackmaster]

14. In the early days, people thought of it as an occasional puff of smoke that simply blew away

Carried off by the four winds. Compare that to something that smells bad, breeds flies, and stays on the ground until someone shovels it up.

[tammywammy]

24. I imagine the smell would be just pleasant

On that warm August day, temp around 110.

Plus, don't camels spit? My Tiguan's never spit on me so far. :P

[wuushew]

5. I think a bicycle would be better in most situations

cheaper and less manure as well. China had the right idea until they went insane and car crazy.

[kenny blankenship]

23. In a world without mechanical transportation, human settlement will become

much more sparse and spread out. Why is that? Don't cars and planes allow people to live further away from their work and from other people? Yes they do, but a world without mechanical transport reverts back to agrarian subsistence - and that's if it's lucky. A world that gets around on horseback plows its fields with oxen and draft horses and can't support a population larger than that which can be fed that way - sans modern fertilizers and insecticides. 90-95% of people at least who survive in this world will be "employed" trying to grow enough food to survive into next year. They will of necessity become spread out thinly over the arable land. (Incidently, women will revert to being household slaves in this nightmare future. "Work" will go back to being brutally physical and the gendered division of labor will re-assert itself. There won't be any labor saving gizmos that will allow housework to be easily split-as it is now- among both sexes whose work life is usually not physically demanding. I certainly hope no women are chiming in on this thread about how much fun it would be to live in a world that lives and moves by horse power - they have EVERYTHING to lose with the loss of petro- civilization.) Bicycles would be a curiosity limited to the few big cities that haven't been abandoned or destroyed by wars and revolutions.

On the upside, obesity will be unknown, bicycles or no.

[TwilightGardener]

6. I used to ride a horse that needed a lot of prodding to go anywhere

that wasn't yummy pasture. So, no. Not reliable enough. I don't want my transportation to think and have opinions.

[Subdivisions]

7. Yes. I never got, nor will I ever get, my flying car and automatic food dispenser

that I was promised as a child in the 70s. So, in the face of resource depletion (especially crude oil), I would rather revert to a time when we grew our own food and rode horses.

[The2ndWheel]

8. Not really

I have my own two legs.

[Donnachaidh]

9. yup - totally

As my previous profession was equine -- oh you betcha *wink wink*.

[peace13]

11. Spend a weekend on Mackinac Island, MI.

All horses all of the time, no cars or trucks. Very quaint but boy does it smell. On a dead air day you can smell the island for miles. Busiest job on the island is washing down the streets.

[slampoet]

19. I've been to Mac at least a dozen times and it smells more like Fudge than poop.

only a two block area on the main drag has any real concentration of horse droppings and besides nearly everyone gets around by bicycle for individual transport.

I saw a lot of people getting around with horse drawn jitneys but I never saw anyone riding one horse alone in the saddle. Almost every horse on the island pulls a cart with at least 3-4 people in it.

[Romulox]

15. Isn't a basic bike cheaper and more efficient? Stop working for your horse, man!

[Doremus]

17. Absolutely! I would *love* to live in such a place. n/t

[SeattleGirl]

18. Nope

Wouldn't be practical for me as traveling is part of my job.

[raccoon]

20. Get a fast horse/camel. nt

[Jim__]

22. How could you know?

If the normal means of travel is horse or camel, the society would be so different from the one we live in, it's hard to imagine what it would be like.