Cars Don't Kill Time

We can't look at time the same way the posh universes do. For them, it's just a standard-issue, boilerplate dimension, like height or width. They can spend it, take it, make it, call it, waste it, kill it, even do it without evoking any real-world consequences. Not us, however. In our universe, doing things to time has consequences. Our time is more like what you would call ... a natural resource, maybe.

Here's how it works. Whenever we do anything, like walking to the drugstore or mowing the lawn, we use some time. That is time that is lost from the universe, never to be seen again. We have a Law of Waste of Time, which states that time used is lost forever. How much time we use up is determined by the amount and speed of the activity. Walking or running to the drugstore is pretty much a wash because the duration of one balances the speed of the other. In any case, the loss of time is not particularly alarming because our chronologists tell us that we about a billion years of time resources left. That's such a large reserve, it isn't worth worrying about, is it? Or is it?

Actually, we do have a problem. And it might be difficult to explain to you for whom time is a mere dimension. Let me try another analogy. Suppose you have a system that uses identifiers of nine decimal digits. It could be any kind of system, but let's make it important. Let's say it's a universal retirement system. There are approximately one billion nine-digit identifiers. Let us also say that no identifier can be re-used. That's to make it truer to the Law of Waste of Time. So you figure a billion is a big enough number to handle anything. But suppose one person could gobble up hundreds, even thousands, of identifiers for himself? If just one million people hogged one hundred IDs a pieces, that would be 10% of your possible IDs at a virtual finger snap. If each of the million could grab a thousand a piece, there goes your entire set of IDs that was supposed to last forever. Our world actually has a problem like that.

It started many years ago with the invention of something called "the Car." A Car is a mechanical device that can carry a person or persons very swiftly over very long distances with no effort on the part of the traveler. The Car was an instant sensation, and since it was invented before chronologists had figured out the Law of Waste of Time, no one saw any down side to it. Now we know that Cars consume huge gouts of time because they go at very high rates of speed and can continue to do so for long periods of time. By the time we knew that, however, people had come to consider the possession and use of Cars an absolute human right and had established the National Roadster Association to defend it.

"Look," say the chronologists, "it is imperative that we restrict the use of Cars. They use up time at a tremendous pace. Apparently, you don't understand that, but we can explain it."

But the National Roadster Association does not deny the Law of Waste of Time.

"Cars don't waste time," say the National Roadster Association. "People waste time! If they didn't have cars, they would walk, run, crawl, or skip! You can't blame a tool! It's the media's fault! It's the entertainment industry's fault! It's your fault! It's everyone's fault but ours, and it certainly isn't the Car's fault!"

So I'm asking for your advice. We have a device that is expressly designed to run very fast for a very long time. Of course, people will travel by other means, if they don't have this device, but other means of travel do not threaten the imminent destruction of our world. Our National Roadster Association must be uniquely obtuse, but just on the off chance, has anyone out there encountered similar stupidity?