How I would create a public transport system from scratch.

Public transport in South Africa is a warzone & if my plans here were to be implemented, we'd have to quell the violence & offer exclusive deals with certain drivers & transport organisations. 

But if there was nothing in place & I would have to start from scratch, this is how I would do it. 

• Bring back rail: Rail is the cheapest form of transport worldwide & reduces road traffic allowing road infrastructure to need less maintenance. It is also often the faster option. We wouldn't need high-speed trains, just typical 150 km/h modern trains for the people. 

A simple rail service like all sensible countries.

• The future is electric: We have to start with electric vehicles today & for a bonus, they could be locally-made. 

• Big buses are destroying the land: We never noticed this but big buses weigh heavily on road infrastructure & are devastating when they are involved in road accidents. So both big buses & minibuses would be replaced with midi-buses. 

A midibus would be the symbol of my national transport service after minibuses & buses are phased out.

• Sheltered bus stops: It rains, gets windy & unbearablely hot/sunny & sometimes even snows. So we need to make concrete bus stops with benches & are sheltered from the elements. This would help in; a) elders have a place to sit while waiting for transport, b) people sheltered from the elements, c) known & identifiable marked places to wait for transport. These are the only places that the national midi-bus transport service would be allowed to load & offload passengers. 

A simple sheltered, concrete bus stop like all sensible countries. 

• Low-cost meter taxis/rickshaws: Transport apps have gained popularity in recent times, there could be a national transport app where you could hail a car (affordable EV) or an electric rickshaw (the cheaper alternative). The passenger/user could chose which they want to ride in & where they want to be dropped off. 

The BYD Seagull: One of the most affordable electric vehicles in the world. A fleet of marked affordable electric vehicles would be one of the symbols of the national transport service. 

Electric rickshaws could be used for short distance travel. 

• All modes of national transport would have a card-system integrated into every vehicle where people could pay with the national transport card (for discounts), debit card or simple physical cash. Bus & train users would get a ticket as proof of payment to avoid boarding confusion. 

• The hailing transport service could run 7 days a week from 3 AM to 10 PM. The midibus & rail service could be 4 AM to 8 PM daily. 

• The state regulates the fares of transport across the land & gains revenue from it. 

• All transport vehicles would be state property. 

A conflict of perspectives...

Now, everyone who lives in South Africa knows that this is firmly an African (black) country. Over 80% of the population is black. If we were to measure race percentages of the South African population by Usonian measures, over 91% of the country would be black. It is an African country by many respects. The most spoken languages are African languages & not French , Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Dutch or some English variant. But the problem is the previously advantaged races see themselves as living in a European enclave or some sort of colony within Africa. These are also the people with the biggest voice in the global media & who fund propaganda campaigns overseas making the world think that they are the majority & are "persecuted". As a black person in South Africa, I am honestly more persecuted than white people because nobody cares about us & these previously advantaged people are quick to try stifle our progress using other black people against us. And black people are quick to sell their soul & destroy other black people for some sort of renumeration from this previously advantaged group of people. Let me repeat, BLACK PEOPLE FEEL MORE PERSECUTED IN SOUTH AFRICA THAN WHITE PEOPLE. And this is a simple problem to identify & isolate, we black people in South Africa never made our own systems even if we made most of the country's infrastructure today, it was around white-made structures. So it still feels like an Anglo-Dutch state no matter what black people do. This makes European colonisers still feel entitled to African land. 

Overseas, when they see South African media, they see black people embracing white people & other races... Of course, the races of South Africa get along on surface values like black exploitation & white opulence? But on more foundational values like nationality, ethnicity, non-racialism etc. we do not see eye-to-eye. Non-racialism to many white South Africans is a Western-facing & Western-biased black majority land where whites live in comfort amongst themselves, Indians & coloureds but blacks live far away from them. The suffering of black people in South Africa is caused by two enemies; rich black people who see themselves as special & separate from the black majority & the rich white/corporations who fund them. Overseas, they are shown South Africa from the minority perspective & while black people in South Africa see some sort of magical multiracial land in South Africa on a good day, they see the simple, ugly truth on bad days i. e. a European colony which has invaded African land & persecuted it's people. 

This may be more a vent than a casual opinion blog entry but I felt that it needed to be emphasized that what the black majority believes South Africa to be, what white South Africans believe South Africa to be & what the world thinks South Africa to be are three different things. And I feel it's the prejudiced, more than black or white liberals who see South Africa for what it is. The mess expands to the rest of Africa when you consider what the Berlin Conference brought us. While we are a European colony in outline in South Africa, we are not that much different to other "liberated" African countries who still have colonial puppets in power & "Made in Berlin" borders not ethnic borders.  What makes us different in South Africa is that we just have a population of fascists who seem to have overstayed their welcome by more than two hundred years. 

Hopefully, South African land returns to it's tribal ethnicities & we could do an amicable deportation programme for those who do not want to stay on land under tribal/ethnic African rule. That's the only logical solution for anyone who sees what's coming in the future of South Africa (& Africa). No wars, clean separation of ethnic regions into new countries would save us decades, if not, centuries of turmoil & suffering.

Common Ignorance.

Reader, I trust you have found my blog informative wherever you may be on this planet. Afterall, this is a blog written by a 36-year-old, black male from South Africa & as such would have the bias of such an individual. 

I'm a big advocate for comprehensive & specialised education but at the same time, we seem to forget that we need a sort of neglected knowledge - education of commonsense, general knowledge & civil nature. Now, these three concepts are often characteristics of the "developed world" & the select many peaceful, civilised societies worldwide. However, we should expect that they may not be common so we should expect turmoil & ignorance to be more common - even in a world as informed & educated such as the one we live in. 

I do not believe that I am ignorant or lack commonsense, lack an above-average general knowledge or lack an acceptable amount of civil behaviour but I am willing to improve if I lack in any of the aforementioned traits. And, as much as information & education is commonplace today, we do find voids where ignorance & unrest has festered in some societies. It is unfortunate that the people living in such societies believe such an existence to be the norm, often with hilarious & embarrassing consequences. A disfunctional society often suffers from something as simple as ignorance. 

I grew up in a world full of sports & sports people. My whole world was filled with football, athletics & other sports... so it is bizarre to me that football (aka soccer) is "otherised" in South Africa in favour of less common sports. Know this, football is the most common sport in South Africa, so if you do not know at least SOME football - you're not part of the majority. And football is a very enjoyable sport, it is the most common sport in the world perhaps only second to common running events. But despite all this, football gets less funding in South Africa than rugby & cricket which is more than I can say for my beloved, grotesquely neglected basketball. I first got interested in basketball watching NBA highlights with my father on some odd night in the 1990s & jumped to play it the first opportunity I got. Even though I stopped playing all sport except a little football around 2007, I stopped doing a lot of things & started doing other things in 2007. But due to my fundamental knowledge of the game, I remain interested in watching how it is played today & still play on occasion. Intro & background done. Today I believe basketball to be underfunded in South Africa as well, with netball (an offshoot of basketball) being more favoured. Look, I believe in "doing things by the book" & some might believe netball to be "pure basketball" as Naismith intended but it was not netball he endorsed & seemed to favour the more common worldwide game of basketball. While basketball is an American game; football, cricket & rugby are British games - we are neither British or American. But that doesn't mean that we need to focus on just our indigenous tribal games but I just wanted to put into context any anti-American sentiments. We "otherise" & alienate basketball in South Africa the same way the Boer community otherises & alienates football (aka sokker). And as a result, they become extremely ignorant of these two sports & try to forcefully extend their ignorance & disdain for these sports to the black community resulting in football & basketball being underfunded in South Africa because the rich oligarchs of South Africa are often whites of Germanic descent who like rugby more than either "sokker" or basketball. 

I can understand people not knowing much about basketball in South Africa but not football, football is part of our upbringing, it is not possible for it to be considered foreign to black South African culture. You can dislike football in your personal capacity but it is the people's game. We do not play basketball because we want to be exclusive. In fact, I've gone out of my way to translate basketball rules as well as a few drills into my vernacular on some online platforms. I believe anyone who wants to learn & play basketball should learn it & learn how to play it the right way. I believe in embracing a unique South African basketball identity that is distinct from American basketball & understand that it can be difficult because to many in South Africa, basketball is still only played in the USA despite Spain, Germany, Argentina & Brazil being former FIBA Basketball World Cup Champions. While many might not be interested in basketball or any sport at all in South Africa, many likely still like the game. I'd even argue that basketball is as popular as cricket, at least, in South Africa. 

Sometimes ignorance is unforgivable, because you can't be oblivious to the fact that people can't be at all places at once or the fact that you need to go to someone to say something to them. 

These three concepts should be taught in schools under Life Orientation; 

• Commonsense, 

• General knowledge & 

• Civil behaviour 

because I do not understand how you do not know how to play football & that you should not vandalise homes. You'd expect that kind of behaviour from an extinct hominid species. 

Postscript:

For context, I find Gridiron Football to be as foreign to black South African culture as rugby. We are more a people of technicality & finesse not so much of brute strength, flying bodies & dangerous collisions. I wouldn't mind a nationwide project at introducing baseball to common South Africans, it is a fun game & South Africa may have something to add to global baseball. We could gain something by creating an indigenous baseball culture & creating a local baseball league as long as our ignorance (or xenophobia) is not hidden cowardice. 

IDEALLY...

Simple national sports structure.

Ideally, for efficiency, national sports programmes could revolve around events people do in daily life so focus could be put on: 1) running, 2) powerlifting, 3) combat sports [i. e. wrestling & kickboxing], 4) swimming & 5) climbing.

As well as sports requiring hand-eye coordination & foot-eye coordination as well sports involving, striking a target with precision, dodging moving objects & striking an object with a stick with precision: 1) football, 2) volleyball/basketball, 3) javelin/dodgeball & 5) baseball/cricket/badminton/tennis. 

Then one or two indigenous games for national cultural preservation, solely. 

So should I be a sports administrator or minister - these would be the sports I would identify as essential for national health & wellbeing. 

This is an update of the previous blog An ideal national sports structure.

Opinion on V. R. & A. R. smart glasses.

Virtual Reality is only good for things like Google Earth (& perhaps Google Mars in future), some games & motor vehicle, watercraft or aircraft simulations. Augmented Reality would only be good if integrated with a GPS or a mapping system of sorts or maybe Google Images & Google Translate, I can't imagine it being used for communication while driving any vehicle or aircraft - other than a large ship - without it being a huge inconvenience if it's used for messages or other unimportant cellphone notifications. 

Personally, the only eyewear tech that could be of great use would be of some geolocation use e. g. to isolate & highlight items in the real world. I can imagine AR devices that could locate a person, vehicle, location like those Rekkie smart snow goggles. AR devices linked to Google Maps where you could stalk down & hunt your stolen motor vehicle with some micro GPS trackers. I imagine if your smart glasses have a very high-resolution camera, you could hyper-zoom & see objects that are very, very far away including celestial or extraterrestrial objects. Perhaps even add x-ray vision because it can be done with modern technology. 

Other than internet searching images, translating text & geolocation, some night vision or heat vision could come in useful in AR glasses... just not the nightmare of recieving messages or calls in your direct view while driving. 

In any case; unless you're driving, cycling or doing military operations - these are all features that could be better put in a smartwatch than uncomfortable, heavy eyewear including the nightvision, hyper-zooming, x-ray vision, heat vision & geolocating.