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spdrun
ParticipantNSR: I was speaking to transit ($2.75/$2.50 per trip) not taxis in NYC. Sorry to be unclear.
FlyerInHI: cars have already been democratized. Anyone who wants to own a car in the USA can get one. It might be undemocratic in cities, but most residents have other options there, and inner-city residents are a small % of population.
Real cities: DC, Boston, parts of Chicago, SF, even San Diego. You could get away with living without a car in many parts of San Diego or even North County. I knew someone who did for quite a while.
ParticipantNot in real cities — NYC works well enough, and $2.75 ($2.50 after bulk discount) takes you anywhere in the city. I’m concerned that self-driving cars will preclude any investment in transit infrastructure, which wouldn’t work well in East Coast cities, since traffic is often limited by routes in/out of the city.
Interestingly, trains would lend themselves better to self-driving than cars. The electric ones don’t have to find fuel or a charge, and their routes are basically determined externally. So you end up with one axis of freedom (accelerate/brake) vs two (steer).
Things like subways would work amazingly well if you could have SHORTER trains off peak running as frequently as on-peak. Automation would lend itself to short trains since you don’t have to hire more motormen and conductors.
ParticipantI think that you’re wrong. Density will become the norm because you no longer have to worry about parking in the city. Call a self-drive car when you need one. Take mass transit for daily commuting.
Don’t we already have that with taxis/Uber/buses/subways? All of these can be improved, but a lot of people don’t want to sit in a seat that’s just been sat in…
ParticipantYeah, it would make Robert Moses’s and Frank Lloyd Wrong’s ideas about car based sprawlfests finally viable. What’s the point of dense cities, transit, or even walking when a self-driving sensory-deprivation isolation-box will take you from door to door while you get fatter?
Fossil fuel non-use is best achieved by electric cars (for short distances) and rail for medium distances. A lot easier to power a vehicle over longer distances if you don’t need batteries.
Actually, electric rail + autonomous or semi-autonomous electric cars available for rent ubiquitously would be ideal. But Americans won’t go for it as long as gas prices are cheap. So we’ll end up with self-driving fossil-fool cars burning more energy since people will find it convenient to use them more.
AMERICA! YEAH!
We should be concentrating on hypergrids to move solar energy around the globe (sun always shines somewhere), not on the latest fart app or better ways to burn more fossil fool. But that’s long-range thinking, and there’s no easy money in that.
In a way, it’s a shame that the UN is not more powerful and that we can’t have world government implementing giant projects of that type for the benefit of all humanity.
ParticipantScotland might be brave, but it’s not always right.
ParticipantMaybe it’s easier to be angry at something you love if it doesn’t meet expectations. If you don’t love it, it’s not as easy to be disappointed.
ParticipantI love quite a few parts of the US. It’s hard to love all parts of a country almost the size of Europe. My patriotism is local and to individual people. Maybe even global. It’s the middle part, trying to worship something the size of the US that I don’t know all parts of, that I can’t seem to wrap around.
I love the principles it’s claimed to be founded on. Minus crap like the 3/5 rule, etc.
I hate that people twisted those principle to disadvantage certain other people.
I hate that our media seems to be feeding paranoia and war fever worldwide.
The visa question? I think borders should eventually disappear, but it will be a long road. I have no problem with visas and some level of vetting, but the restrictions should be reasonable, not born of knee jerk fear.
ParticipantThis country has never gone > 10 years without a recession. I’m hoping for the cycle to provide more “opportunity” soon. Didn’t create it, but riding it or hoping for a buying opportunity isn’t shameful.
Also, I think some of the innovations coming out of Sillycu*t Valley like self-driving cars will be actively socially and environmentally harmful. So a crisis which delays innovation by a few decades would be useful.
Cheap fossil fuel prices + people incentivized to drive more because commuting from exurban ratholes becomes easy isn’t great. Plus the privacy aspects have not been sorted.
As far as America, I have no particular love for the place as a whole, though I do like certain parts of it.
ParticipantUnless this is a dead cat bounce?
Let’s hope so. Chaos is opportunity.
Participant“Moslem center types” HA HA HA!
Are you really saying that all people who attend mosque are more dangerous than the more radical Christians?
I’m betting that in the last 25 years, even counting 9/11, many more people have been killed by self-identified strict Christians than by self-identified Muslims on US soil.
ParticipantRobots could insource a lot of manufacturing and make local custom manufacturing possible. Imaging going to a store, being measured for a suit electronically, and having it made in-house or nearby for $500 or so. Someone will still have to maintain the equipment, help customers choose/be measured, etc. Whereas right now, most of those jobs are in the Far East.
Participant.
ParticipantBuy a brownstone in Fort Greene.
ParticipantYou’re more likely to be accidentally shot in the foot by a family member cleaning their gun than be hurt by a terrorist. Yet people scream whenever slight restrictions on firearms are created, despite that laws are looser now than 20-30 years ago.
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