alt Hacker NewsDo you not understand your argument is exploring a made-up scenario where we're no longer an industrialized civilization where these things are manufactured cheaply by the billions?
And if you INSIST on making everything completely low-tech and renewable, build a potato gun and use high-proof alcohol as fuel. It'll weigh less and last longer than whatever rube-Goldberg trebuchet design you have.
Sheesh, calm down, consumer. Nobody is pissing in your gunpowder-flavored cornflakes.
Have you ever climbed a mountain with the intent to live on it for a month, doing re-wilding work? I don’t think you have. You will not be happy about having to climb back down to replenish the ammo can.
Mountains don’t have supply chains. Neither do remote rewilding areas. A low-cost, low-dependency, highly reusable device for throwing small things, long distances, is of immense value - even to our always-on, subscription-based cultures.
> It'll weigh less and last longer than whatever rube-Goldberg trebuchet design you have.
This is false and unimaginative. Put the optimized trebuchet in a backpack and get out there for months, chucking things around without requiring a single re-supply mission.
>manufactured cheaply by the billions
Are you even paying attention to the fact that this thing doesn’t need to have anything else manufactured for it in order to operate usefully?
Seriously, I don’t want to hear your consumption-addled argument. No, the point is to NOT have to constantly be dependent on a supply chain.