- How does the internal combustion engine (ICE) skew our perspectives of time and space?
The internal combustion engine boosts our travel, and therefore changes our perspective of time and space. Cars, trucks, and other such machines that use internal combustion engine speed up our travel. Without them, we would be back in the caveman era of technology, walking through holes cut in the floor pans of stone boxes. Just think about it. When we decide to take a road trip from state to state to state, it takes less time than it would without the internal combustion engine. So, in effect, we see time as less of... a concern, somewhat... versus someone who had to walk without an engine. The jet engine, the internal combustion engine’s powerful cousin, can alter time. In example, McKinney’s friend can reverse time by flying faster than the Earth’s orbit backwards.
So in conclusion, the internal combustion engine is skewing our viewpoints on time. As for space, the internal combustion engine positively and negatively affects our view on it. The internal combustion engine has made travel faster, therefore making the world “smaller.” So we think that things are much closer in accessibility, along with availability. But the downside to this is that the internal combustion engine powers larger machines like cars and trucks. These consume space, which is already relatively tight. So that makes us think that there’s less space in the world. The fact that the internal combustion engine boosts us to higher speeds and better transportation to further places displaced humans’ natural senses of time and space.
- Where would we be without the internal combustion engine?
Chances are that you ride in something powered by an internal combustion engine at least once a day. The school bus, your parents’ car, etc... they all take you places that you need to be. When Otto invented the internal combustion engine as a method of power, he wanted to replace the horses and legs swarming the world. Little did he know that after his death, it would become one of the most influencing factors in modern society. Today, the internal combustion engine powers hyper-cars up and over two hundred miles an hour and your average family car over 100 miles an hour. Now let’s take away the internal combustion engine and see where we’d be... Think about your average commute to school and back home. If it takes you ten minutes round trip in a car, then it’d probably take you between forty and sixty minutes on foot or half an hour by bike. Even by bike, the same distance would take three times at a third of the speed in a car. Now sum up all of the people who commute in cars. In accumulation, we spend 75 billion hours in cars annually. If we were all to lose our vehicular transportation if the internal combustion engine was never invented, we would, collectively, fall behind 225 billion hours of our schedule every year if everyone used bikes rather than cars. Basically, transportation by car is three times faster than by bike.
So, the internal combustion engine in effect pushes us dozens of billions of hours ahead of our lives, putting us much further forward. This may be hard to grasp, so here’s some ideas. If you’re a scientist, imagine being 225 billion hours behind on scientific discoveries. If you’re a gamer, imagine being lagged 225 billion hours behind everyone else. If you’re a programmer or some other type of tech geek, imagine using technology 225 billion hours outdated to try to keep up with modern things, only if technology was plausible back then. So, the internal combustion energy effectively keeps a constant boost on our lives and other auxiliaries. Then again, if you’re an economist, consider the fact that the cost of time is approximately 25 dollars an hour, based off the average income of 50 thousand dollars annually. Per person, if the internal combustion engine didn't exist, $5.625 trillion of productivity would theoretically be lost. Conclusively, the internal combustion engine shoves us up and over.
- How far out of sync would we be without the internal combustion engine?
The internal combustion engine boosts our communication. That’s almost granted. But how? Cars take people and other forms of communication around the globe. The mail truck, in example, takes international mail around to local delivery destinations. They’re all powered by the internal combustion engine. Along with those, airplanes and ships take large amounts of inter-country mail along with people and other forms of face-to-face communication to different places. It’s likely that they don’t use internal combustion engines. But on the ground, cars powered by internal combustion engines whiz people and packages around. Imagine taking the cars and trucks out of the equation, which happens if the internal combustion engine was to disappear. Virtually all ground transportation would be gone, and your local mail truck wouldn't exist. Therefore, deliveries would take much longer, twice to thrice as long by bike or foot.
So, communication would be severely delayed. People also would get around slower. Sure, there’s still planes and ships. But nobody lives in the airport or on the dock, so we would need to get from the transport depots to our final destination. Without cars, taxis, buses, or other convenient transportation, we’d have to go back to human or animal power. That, in effect, takes us much longer, which slows down our communication and getting things around. In example, the news channel needs a news feed. If internal combustion engine’s were eliminated, reporters and journalists wouldn't be able to get where they need to report on. Other apparatus, ranging from crew to signal trucks, wouldn't be possible either. As a consequence, worldwide happenings would be much slower to report and something that happened possibly wouldn't get over the radio or TV news until a while later.
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