A pandemic-proof system of food distribution

[ScienceNostalgia101]

We've tried mask mandates. But those either weren't enough; or weren't enforceable enough; to adequately curb the pandemic.

 

We've tried vaccines. But we don't even know if they'll be effective against the new strains of THIS pandemic, let alone whatever other pandemic we're dealing with NEXT time.

 

It seems increasingly like everything short of a lockdown is a half-measure. While I'm sure many people would object to lockdowns on "freedom for freedom's sake" grounds, a number of people object to them on "how the hell will I get my groceries?" grounds.

 

And for that, we need... a pandemic-proof system of food distribution.

 

Before the pandemic, we had people take the bus to the grocery store and the bus back. A vehicle had to make two trips; one to load all the passengers,and one to unload all the passengers.

 

Even before the eco-responsible solution became the pandemic-irresponsible one, it never seemed like the most efficient way to get people their groceries anyway.

 

Here's another idea; grocery trucks/trains delivering any of a given food system, or combinations thereof, en masse. Passing by houses, it identifies any paying customer's houses, alerts them of their approach to avoid any unintended injury, and fires cushioned parcels containing said combinations of food items onto the lawn for a customer's subsequent retrieval. Passing by apartments and condominiums, it fires them onto the balcony. No close contact is made between the operator and the customer retrieving the food items. You could even then have customers scan the barcode using their cellphone, just to ensure the parcel is theirs before allowing it to open. (Or perhaps a customer service line could allow it to remotely open for customers without a cellphone.)

 

If we locked down the entirety of society for long enough for those who had the disease to recover, and then subsequently cut off all travel between different countries, this pandemic could've been over before it even started. If we had a means other than grocery stores to get people their food, they would have one less excuse not to embrace the lockdown solution. And who knows? Perhaps when the next pandemic was over, people would so embrace the efficiency of this method of food distribution that they stick with it for the environment's sake?

 

Or we could hesitate on this and let a few hundred thousand more people die when the NEXT new disease inevitably shows up.

[iNow]

Or you could start a garden and learn to hunt 

[zapatos]

25 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

Passing by houses, it identifies any paying customer's houses, alerts them of their approach to avoid any unintended injury, and fires cushioned parcels containing said combinations of food items onto the lawn for a customer's subsequent retrieval. Passing by apartments and condominiums, it fires them onto the balcony.

Fire the packages out of artillery pieces. They easily have a range of 20 miles. That way you don't need any vehicles driving around.

[ScienceNostalgia101]

Is there any way to safely fire a package from that far away without causing significant damage due to friction, though?

[zapatos]

1 minute ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

Is there any way to safely fire a package from that far away without causing significant damage due to friction, though?

No. Although you are not going to safely fire packages out of vehicles either.

If we are going with something plausible then both of us need a new idea.

[ScienceNostalgia101]

15 minutes ago, iNow said:

Or you could start a garden and learn to hunt 

People pay good money to live in major cities. Either they play a vital economic role, or the status and bragging rights of living in a big city are literally to die for. Either way, not everyone can afford enough property to have room to grow all the crops they need.

 

As well, hunting isn't exactly the norm these days. Those who haven't hunted; ever; wouldn't know who to believe on whether the extent to which they're hunting is a threat to the ecosystem. By the time they find out, it might be too late.

Just now, zapatos said:

No. Although you are not going to safely fire packages out of vehicles either.

If we are going with something plausible then both of us need a new idea.

I meant like a catapult, not like a rocket. As in, just enough horizontal momentum to make it to the lawn but not enough to cause severe friction damage.

[zapatos]

2 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

I meant like a catapult, not like a rocket. As in, just enough horizontal momentum to make it to the lawn but not enough to cause severe friction damage.

Yes, I realized that.

[ScienceNostalgia101]

So are you suggesting there is no cost-effective amount of cushioning that could help it achieve both goals even at short range? Including air cushioning? What if the cushioning materials were to be re-used?

 

Catapult option aside, what of curbside dropoff and curbside pickup? If one truck dropped off enough food items for every customer along the route who claimed to be at home, could they run out to the curb to retrieve it in time to still be within the field of view of surveillance such that the company and/or public service could confirm the food item wasn't stolen by a neighbour? (Ie. Literally fell out of the back of a truck?)

 

I know this is just "home delivery but more specific" but I want something more efficient than personalized delivery as people shouldn't have to choose between their survival and the environment.

Edited February 16, 2021 by ScienceNostalgia101

[zapatos]

3 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

So are you suggesting there is no cost-effective amount of cushioning that could help it achieve both goals even at short range? Including air cushioning?

I said nothing about cost effectiveness. I'm suggesting you cannot safely catapult groceries from a truck onto lawns and balconies.

 

5 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

Catapult option aside, what of curbside dropoff and curbside pickup?

Delivering packages without catapults is already a standard delivery method. 

[ScienceNostalgia101]

Fair enough, I was just hoping for something a little closer to the door to be marginally more secure against "porch pirates." I suppose making home patio surveillance the norm might be a worthwhile investment when this mess is over too, huh?

So if curbside dropoff is the norm why is it still the norm to do it on a personalized basis, instead of a more efficient mass delivery system like we have with mass transit?

[iNow]

22 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

I suppose making home patio surveillance the norm might be a worthwhile investment when this mess is over too, huh?

If you haven’t done it already, you’re already behind the curve 

23 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

if curbside dropoff is the norm why is it still the norm to do it on a personalized basis, instead of a more efficient mass delivery system like we have with mass transit?

Sounds like you want a job in logistics. FedEx and UPS and Amazon pay good money to people who wish to solve these problems at scale and at a cost that reduces overhead / increases margins. 

[zapatos]

32 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

So if curbside dropoff is the norm why is it still the norm to do it on a personalized basis, instead of a more efficient mass delivery system like we have with mass transit?

It is personalized because people want what they want. You can't just catapult random cans of food onto people's lawns and expect them to pay for it.

[ScienceNostalgia101]

18 minutes ago, iNow said:

If you haven’t done it already, you’re already behind the curve 

Sounds like you want a job in logistics. FedEx and UPS and Amazon pay good money to people who wish to solve these problems at scale and at a cost that reduces overhead / increases margins. 

So do you think a carbon tax, combined with market incentives, would incentivize the private sector to create a food-distribution equivalent of mass transit, then? Because the "logistics" of taking public transit haven't prevented people in towns that have it from spending money on personal automobiles.

[iNow]

7 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

So do you think a carbon tax, combined with market incentives, would incentivize the private sector to create a food-distribution equivalent of mass transit, then?

No. Carbon taxes incentivize carbon use reductions, not food distribution methods (despite the obvious overlap).

[ScienceNostalgia101]

So if you don't believe a carbon tax would steer people toward a food-equivalent of mass transit, do you think it would steer them toward taking the bus to the grocery store (ie. in larger numbers than people in major cities did pre-pandemic) or toward driving to the store in an electric car? Do you think the world would make a note of the moment at which post-pandemic traffic fatalities surpass fatalities from the pandemic itself?

 

And why, if people are content to make a trip to the grocery store, and a trip back, would they not be content to pool their money into making one food truck make the trip for all of them?

[swansont]

7 hours ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

We've tried mask mandates. But those either weren't enough; or weren't enforceable enough; to adequately curb the pandemic.

Who is "we"?

There are a number of countries who have weathered this pretty well. 

 

[CharonY]

3 hours ago, swansont said:

Who is "we"?

There are a number of countries who have weathered this pretty well. 

 

Not to mention that in many countries which failed to address the pandemic adequately were often also late in implementing such measures or simply never did. It sounds like a situation where we tried too little too late and then gave up. Whereas others managed to implement the right measures but for some reasons folks decided not to emulate them.

[swansont]

Just now, CharonY said:

Not to mention that in many countries which failed to address the pandemic adequately were often also late in implementing such measures or simply never did. It sounds like a situation where we tried too little too late and then gave up. Whereas others managed to implement the right measures but for some reasons folks decided not to emulate them.

Right. It's easiest for me to evaluate how the US responded, because I witnessed it close-up. The federal response was horrible. Statewide responses were mixed, but their success was also limited by the poor federal response. But this is hardly a proxy for the worldwide response.

Taiwan, South Korea, and New Zealand, among others, have done things pretty well.

[CharonY]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

Right. It's easiest for me to evaluate how the US responded, because I witnessed it close-up. The federal response was horrible. Statewide responses were mixed, but their success was also limited by the poor federal response. But this is hardly a proxy for the worldwide response.

Taiwan, South Korea, and New Zealand, among others, have done things pretty well.

Yes, while the US response was particularly bad, many other industrialized countries did far worse than most probably would have assumed. In part it is that countries with experience with SARS seemed to have measures in place that they were able to mobilize. Several African countries were also doing surprisingly well, although some numbers have been questioned due to potentially poor monitoring. But as a whole, (with exceptions such as South Africa) they were doing better than hoped for.

[ScienceNostalgia101]

Taiwan and South Korea also have closer proximity to the threat on their doorstep, and therefore much more incentive not to sugar-coat it. Thus once news of a contagion from there got out of course they'd jump into action.

 

The western world, on the other hand, would rather sugar-coat how screwed up China is. Whatever lets us feel better about buying cheap goods made there, probably by its enslaved Muslims. And now we're paying the price.

 

So do you think by next time, the western world has the resources and the political will to embrace a Taiwan-level contact tracing strategy? Or would it be perceived as a greater infringement on privacy than lockdowns would be on freedom of movement?

[iNow]

51 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

The western world, on the other hand, would rather sugar-coat how screwed up China is.

What are you taking about? This is like the exact opposite of reality these last several years 

52 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

Or would it be perceived as a greater infringement on privacy than lockdowns would be on freedom of movement?

This one ☝️ 

[beecee]

5 hours ago, swansont said:

Taiwan, South Korea, and New Zealand, among others, have done things pretty well.

As we speak, Australia has now locked out New Zealand [the two countries previously had a travel bubble] due to a small outbreak of the contagious variant of covid 19....[2 cases] Also Melbourne as undergone a 5 day lockdown after a similar outbreak of this new more contagious variety, from hotel quarantine, via a "banned" breathing nebulizer. Obviously both outbreaks are minimal, and the prompt action taken, should see it contained and eliminated.

Lockdown in Australia and New Zealand are enforced pretty strictly, with some exemptions...[1] 2 hr excersise period a day [1] visit to medical facility if urgent. [3] Urgent shopping. [4] Work that cannot be done at home. No travel further then 5km from home, no visitors, school shutdowns, masks compulsory on public transport.

Yet in spite of the success of Australia and New Zealand in containing this virus, politics still rears its ugly head. A woman was thrown off a bus in Sydney because she claimed being forced to wear a mask was a violation of her  liberties...there have been attempted marches in both Sydney and Melbourne by extremists claiming their so called rights are being violated, some of those protesters infected with another imported American variant of this virus, sporting Trump caps and insignias.