|
Peanut President posted:Building a train is mere sci-fi nonsense compared to a car that can drive itself! Like how exactly do you envision an America where the safety benefits of self-driving cars are moot? Everyone in the country just abandons their low density rural or suburban areas for places where high quality transit is viable because leftists on the internet told them it was a good idea? We somehow convince the GOP to go along with spending New Deal-levels of money on subways and commuter rail? NIMBYs everywhere suddenly realize the folly of their ways and support rezoning for higher density, mixed-use development in their neighborhoods?
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 17:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 18:23 |
|
|
Owlofcreamcheese posted:I don't understand this "but what about trains!" thing, who is it directed at? Non-automotive companies whose answer to traffic is more cars.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 17:49
|
|
|
sitchensis posted:Certainly, I'm not saying that driving should be abolished, it should just start to be de-emphasized. What's worrying to me about a lot of this AV talk is how it is sometimes used as a reason not to invest in transit initiatives and how we must start to think about how our cities should be redesigned to accomodate AV's.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 17:50
|
|
|
Cicero posted:Stop shitposting please. It's not about the technology for trains, it's about political feasibility, and how long it takes to build major new train lines. I'm sure people will absolutely love buses and trains when their brand new 90 thousand dollar car blue screens when a traffic cone appears in the road.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 17:51
|
|
|
I mean ultimately it'll be economics that does the car-centric model in. It's just too inefficient with resources. It's just that everyone has fallen in love with the car, because it represents this kind of romantic ideal of self-reliance, autonomy & individuality, as well as acting as a fairly obvious status symbol. Buuut this technology, if it works, is going to have much wider effects than 'cars'. Like, imagine a cleaning robot that cleans a shopping center while customers are still inside it, you could apply the same kind of tech to there as to here. At some level, once it's here, it's here to stay, for both good and ill. And its effect on employment is definitely an 'ill' modern america is not prepared to handle well.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 17:56
|
|
|
rudatron posted:Buuut this technology, if it works, is going to have much wider effects than 'cars'. Like, imagine a cleaning robot that cleans a shopping center while customers are still inside it, you could apply the same kind of tech to there as to here. At some level, once it's here, it's here to stay, for both good and ill. And its effect on employment is definitely an 'ill' modern america is not prepared to handle well. Autonomous tractors are gonna be pretty sweet for farmers that can afford them.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 17:58
|
|
|
Well, those that can't afford it will be bought out by those that can, so, prepare for farms to get even larger and more corporate, I guess?
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:00
|
|
|
Peanut President posted:Non-automotive companies whose answer to traffic is more cars. What solution are you proposing? Not "we need more buses and trains" I mean are you saying autonomous cars need to be illegal because they will take ridership from buses or that research needs to be illegal into them or that ford needs to be mandated to build trains or their research budget needs to be seized and diverted into trains or what? Or just "I'm sad about trains and autonomous cars make me sad because they make trains seem less attractive". Like what course of action specifically do you want autonomous car researchers to do for train ridership?
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:01
|
|
|
Cicero posted:Yeah but nobody in this thread has said that (I think). Heck even Uber supported that huge transit initiative in Seattle that just passed. This is actually a great point. Despite the promise of autonomous cars, it actually looks like investment in many major American cities is still going towards major transit projects. Pretty happy about that TBH. At least for now it shows that policymakers aren't swayed by the magical promises of AV boosters on the internet. Although in this day-and-age, who knows how long that will last. I recently attended a panel that discussed how autonomous cars could affect urban environments. On it were the heads of my local transit agency and regional transportation agency, as well as urban-planning professionals and a few university professors. The consensus was that AV's are definitely being considered by all levels of planning/governance when it comes to their potential impact on transit networks and urban design. Some of the more interesting ideas from the panel included how agencies could try to 'get in front' of AV developments by collaborating with manufacturers in their design process to standardize AV's (that is, to fit the design of the AV's around existing streets, rather than the other way around). Another thought was defining segregated lanes for all modes in future urban planning: wide sidewalks for pedestrians, wide bike lanes for cyclists, and relatively small travel lanes for AV's with occasional 'pull-outs' for loading/unloading. I think there is definitely opportunity for cities to become much better environments with the advent of AV's, but ultimately I still remain somewhat cynical, given the job we've done with cars over the past half-century.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:02
|
|
|
Cicero posted:It seriously feels like most of the self-driving detractors here don't actually pay attention to news about these cars. I mean Google has at least been testing the cars in regular, non-highway Mountain View traffic for several years now. Yes they do better on closed-access highways, because those are much simpler environments, but there's been tons of development and testing on surface streets. you're right that i dont pay much attention to glowing press releases but you're ignoring my point - self driving cars have far more utility, their utility is optimized, for one leg of road travel than another, where the current tech industry solution is "let's change the roads themselves" which is less than ideal Cicero posted:I love transit but a) unfortunately heavy investment in transit is not nearly as realistic as mandating cars be self-driving after a certain point, and b) even with excellent transit you still end up with some driving (see: Tokyo). again, please focus on what i actually write rather than what you imagine my argument is in your head trains exist, right now, and do all the things people want self driving cars to do - they just don't do them as conveniently. the key term here is convenience, for one's self at the expense of society. on the timescale that self driving cars are adopted we're going to see even further growth in socioeconomic disparity which will further lock some portion of the population out of car use and ownership. these are people who need trains, not cars, and they're probably going to get them if current trends continue - in the 2016 election, pretty much every major metro which had transit expansion on the ballot approved those measures so you don't need to wring your hands rhetorically about the feasiblity of tranist investment, because it's actually happening right now irl. but please don't get so worked up in defense of self driving cars that you start strawmanning everyone please rudatron posted:
they weren't, at all, and they were much filthier
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:03
|
|
|
Peanut President posted:Autonomous tractors are gonna be pretty sweet for farmers that can afford them. this already exists, and it already sucks if you can't afford them. tractors were one of the first things to be automated because you don't have to care much at all about avoiding obstacles and you can steer it via gps waypoints
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:07
|
|
|
Owlofcreamcheese posted:What solution are you proposing? No? I specifically said "non-automotive companies" are you blind or just an idiot?
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:12
|
|
|
boner confessor posted:trains exist, right now, and do all the things people want self driving cars to do - trains do barely any of the things people want self driving cars to do.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:12
|
|
|
Owlofcreamcheese posted:trains do barely any of the things people want self driving cars to do. There's no actual market for trains or buses that will drive through a truck because it thinks the lane is empty, indeed. Also autistic people are usually not the ones who are the most comfortable taking collective transit.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:13
|
|
|
Peanut President posted:No? I specifically said "non-automotive companies" are you blind or just an idiot? Owlofcreamcheese posted:trains do barely any of the things people want self driving cars to do. yeah they sure don't allow people to go from place to place without having to pay attention to operating a vehicle, the number one thing people want a self driving car for? im going to ignore you now because you're babbling everyone keep in mind oocc is approaching this conversation from the perspective of someone who subscribes to wired magazine and he really does not care at all about any interaction of self driving cars with society, government, urban development, etc.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:14
|
|
|
Peanut President posted:No? I specifically said "non-automotive companies" are you blind or just an idiot? What should they do? Like I get the idea "we should have public transportation instead of individual cars" but I don't understand what actions people are suggesting towards that end beyond "it would be nice". Like maybe we could tax car ownership more or subsidize public transportation or all the things like that but what does car automation have to do with it specifically except it makes cars nicer so people will want that less?
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:14
|
|
|
Owlofcreamcheese posted:What solution are you proposing? If I had the option to go back in time and prevent the car form being invented... I wouldn't do it. The development of the technology itself isn't the problem, it's how we use it. Like, if I had a time machine to go back in time and prevent freeways from plowing through US cities, then yeah, I would do that.   The issue for me is that we are all going ga-ga over this autonomous car technology and how wonderful it will be, and it feels to me like we are entering once again into this fantasy land straight from the 50's where we envision one thing....  ...but the reality of it turns out to be something entirely different, and with some very harmful consequences. But hey, let's go whole-hog into shaping our world around it because it's the ~~~future~~~ 
sitchensis fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Jan 18, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:15
|
|
|
Owlofcreamcheese posted:What should they do? Like I get the idea "we should have public transportation instead of individual cars" but I don't understand what actions people are suggesting towards that end beyond "it would be nice". Most people who want autonomous cars don't like to drive. If our backwards rear end government would get their head out of their rear end and dump 500B on infrastructure instead of aircraft carriers then most (not all, obv) folks who are attracted to autonomous cars wouldn't need one anymore.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:18
|
|
|
boner confessor posted:yeah they sure don't allow people to go from place to place without having to pay attention to operating a vehicle, the number one thing people want a self driving car for? im going to ignore you now because you're babbling People want to go exactly where they want to go exactly when they want to go, as that is the suburban driving mentality. They get annoyed with having to deal with everyone else's stops, or having to walk a few blocks. That's the big difference between driverless cars and trains/busses. Most of our market research pointed to people being entitled and lazy and avoiding city/public transportation for that reason.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:23
|
|
|
Darko posted:People want to go exactly where they want to go exactly when they want to go, as that is the suburban driving mentality. They get annoyed with having to deal with everyone else's stops, or having to walk a few blocks. That's the big difference between driverless cars and trains/busses. it's a tradeoff of time and convenience. i'm just making fun of oocc for making really bad posts this is another problem with self driving cars - you only realize the time savings if you personally own the vehicle and park it nearby. in that respect, it's the same as a regular car except under some conditions you can watch redtube behind the wheel with some relative guarantee you won't die in the future that some people envision, private car ownership is antiquated compared to subscribing to some automated car fleet service, which is extremely likely to have tiered subscription levels that are a tradeoff between time spent waiting and premium paid, in which case we've just reinvented and privatized mass transit with a more flexible breakpoint between "how long are you willing to wait" vs. "how much are you willing to spend"
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:29
|
|
|
People keep focusing too much on self-driving cars. Self-driving cars, since they go through residential areas, are by far the hardest problem both legally and technically. Self-driving trucks, on the other hand, are much, much easier technically (a highway is a significantly more controlled environment) and eliminates the passenger, making a lot of moral/legal questions go away or become a lot easier. And they're going to destroy the last major well-paying blue collar industry in the US, most likely.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:30
|
|
|
Darko posted:People want to go exactly where they want to go exactly when they want to go, as that is the suburban driving mentality. They get annoyed with having to deal with everyone else's stops, or having to walk a few blocks. That's the big difference between driverless cars and trains/busses. And unfortunately, having a society that feels entitled to living in dispersed single-family dwellings and then subsidizing/enabling that entitlement is so comically bad for so many things on so many levels that it's mind boggling. We either start to change things by re-thinking the way we live and move ourselves around, or we kick the can down the road and make for a more painful transition later.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:31
|
|
|
sitchensis posted:And unfortunately, having a society that feels entitled to living in dispersed single-family dwellings and then subsidizing/enabling that entitlement is so comically bad for so many things on so many levels that it's mind boggling. We either start to change things by re-thinking the way we live and move ourselves around, or we kick the can down the road and make for a more painful transition later. There is no scenario where you eliminate suburbs and rural areas, sorry.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:32
|
|
|
evilweasel posted:There is no scenario where you eliminate suburbs and rural areas, sorry. Rural areas are already largely self-eliminated. ""Rural" areas" where people just say they're rural because they're a two hour commute away from the nearest metropolitan area are literally just outgrowths of suburbs at this point.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:35
|
|
|
Agnosticnixie posted:Rural areas are already largely self-eliminated. ""Rural" areas" where people just say they're rural because they're a two hour commute away from the nearest metropolitan area are literally just outgrowths of suburbs at this point. There are entire states without what I would describe as a city. Their cities are more like suburbs or small towns. Either way it's a stupid idea, however you choose to define rural (which is a pointless exercise), those areas aren't going away. There's a lot of natural movement towards cities and many rural areas are dying off, but they're never going to be gone.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:37
|
|
|
evilweasel posted:People keep focusing too much on self-driving cars. Self-driving cars, since they go through residential areas, are by far the hardest problem both legally and technically. i think here also the picture isn't so clear - long haul trucking has a high value of goods (think medicine and specialized equipment) but as a proportion of freight moved by truck it's pretty small. a huge number of trucker jobs are short haul LTL or intermodal, where the same driver will take 20 containers in a day from a port or train yard to a nearby distribution center, or from a DC to a store ~30 miles away. in these cases the utility of self driving is less clear, where you may only be turning it on for a half hour or so and there's no real benefit to the driver who probably won't even fill out a 10 hour regulatory day evilweasel posted:There is no scenario where you eliminate suburbs and rural areas, sorry. nobody's talked about eliminating them. it's impossible to have a discussion about urban planning issues if everyone sticks words in everyone else's mouth.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:38
|
|
|
evilweasel posted:There is no scenario where you eliminate suburbs and rural areas, sorry. I wasn't talking about eliminating suburbs or rural areas. My beef isn't with suburbs -- suburbs can be retrofitted or built to be more walkable/transit friendly, same with rural areas. It's with aforementioned collective entitlement we have with single-family home ownership and our current way of subsidizing it so that it has become the dominant way we live. My fear is that AV's will just continue this trend. sitchensis fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Jan 18, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:38
|
|
|
evilweasel posted:There are entire states without what I would describe as a city. Their cities are more like suburbs. You can't define rural areas away, that's just dumb. What you would describe as a city is kind of irrelevant compared to what is actually considered a city.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:38
|
|
|
evilweasel posted:There is no scenario where you eliminate suburbs and rural areas, sorry.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:39
|
|
|
Agnosticnixie posted:What you would describe as a city is kind of irrelevant compared to what is actually considered a city. You can't really start complaining you don't believe in the existence of rural areas and then complain I don't use the definition of "city" you like. Pick one, either you're going to stick to definitions or you're not.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:40
|
|
|
evilweasel posted:You can't really start complaining you don't believe in the existence of rural areas and then complain I don't use the definition of "city" you like. Pick one, either you're going to stick to definitions or you're not. "Largely self-eliminated" means that they're essentially gone. Actual rural areas are barely 15% of the US population and dropping as more of them are swallowed up by exurbs. So yes, rural areas are an irrelevant part of the calculus.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:42
|
|
|
Agnosticnixie posted:"Largely self-eliminated" means that they're essentially gone. Actual rural areas are barely 15% of the US population and dropping as more of them are swallowed up by exurbs. So yes, rural areas are an irrelevant part of the calculus. to be fair, it's not that rural areas are "self-eliminated" but rather that the proportional growth in metropoles has dwarfed them to the point that being an actual rural american is relatively uncommon
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:43
|
|
|
boner confessor posted:i think here also the picture isn't so clear - long haul trucking has a high value of goods (think medicine and specialized equipment) but as a proportion of freight moved by truck it's pretty small. a huge number of trucker jobs are short haul LTL or intermodal, where the same driver will take 20 containers in a day from a port or train yard to a nearby distribution center, or from a DC to a store ~30 miles away. in these cases the utility of self driving is less clear, where you may only be turning it on for a half hour or so and there's no real benefit to the driver who probably won't even fill out a 10 hour regulatory day http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-the-most-common-job-in-every-state It's a much bigger deal than you'd think. Look at all those (red) states where it's literally the most common job in the state - and then think about all the industries that supports (rest stops, motels, restaurants, etc). While, as that article points out, a lot of short-haul jobs are lumped into "truck driver", when you just look at the states involved that isn't going to explain away very much. California and other coastal cities may be explained away by that but there's a whole lotta states with basically nothing in them that don't work for that explanation.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:44
|
|
|
evilweasel posted:It's a much bigger deal than you'd think. Look at all those (red) states where it's literally the most common job in the state - and then think about all the industries that supports (rest stops, motels, restaurants, etc). While, as that article points out, a lot of short-haul jobs are lumped into "truck driver", when you just look at the states involved that isn't going to explain away very much. as you said yourself though, trucks are more likely to be automated the more highway travel is involved where the fiddly driving on surface roads and in/around loading docks is more likely to be manual for the forseeable future. if this is true, then i don't see a large amount of job loss in the sector if we agree there are more truck driving jobs that are predominantly manual, short-haul trips versus the common stereotype of truckers driving long distances ups and fedex will be the two firms to watch here evilweasel posted:California and other coastal cities may be explained away by that but there's a whole lotta states with basically nothing in them that don't work for that explanation. long distance bulk freight in this country is handled by trains (trains again!  ) and even rural prarie states follow the same paradigm of train > train yard > truck > dc > local delivery to distribute goods as you see on the coasts. des moines isn't getting bulk video games or comic books via truck, that's all shipped in by train because it's way cheaper (because it's largely automated lol)
boner confessor fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Jan 18, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:47
|
|
|
Even in the best designed cities you aren't going to eliminate cars outside of the very densest center of downtown. Like you can laugh off people wanting "time and convenience" when you mean in Manhattan and it's a lazy bones that just needs to walk his fat lazy rear end over 2 blocks then wait five minutes but as you move out you are always going to end up with bigger distances and longer times and it's not just a thing you can wave off as moral failings. Even the very best cities in the world have cars and taxis as you move farther from the center. Cities could do so much better than they do with public transportation systems, but trains are not magic. No city on earth has eliminated cars beyond very small and hyper well connected city centers. Even when we implement the totally not sci-fi solution of bulldozing all existing cities and rebuilding them around trains we are still going to use and need cars sometimes.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:58
|
|
|
Owlofcreamcheese posted:Even in the best designed cities you aren't going to eliminate cars outside of the very densest center of downtown. i guess this would be an interesting post if anyone was talking about this but since nobody itt has proposed or even hinting at banning cars... like you realize "we can and should spend more on trains" is not in any way the same as "we need to make cars illegal" you do realize this, right? please type "yes" or "no"
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 19:04
|
|
|
boner confessor posted:as you said yourself though, trucks are more likely to be automated the more highway travel is involved where the fiddly driving on surface roads and in/around loading docks is more likely to be manual for the forseeable future. if this is true, then i don't see a large amount of job loss in the sector if we agree there are more truck driving jobs that are predominantly manual, short-haul trips versus the common stereotype of truckers driving long distances True, I didn't consider the trains. Either way though it's still relatively simpler - a train yard to a distribution center is much easier to automate (you're not in an urban or densely settled area pretty much by definition), and you still get the simplifying assumption that there isn't a human in the truck to worry about killing, giving you a simpler legal/moral universe to consider.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 19:06
|
|
|
How do you propose convincing people to willingly choose less convenient forms of transportation? It literally takes me an hour and a half to bus to work and honestly it's a miracle there's even a route there at all, people are not going to willingly subject themselves to that if they don't have to. This is living in the middle of a large city right by a high frequency bus line and riding at the times when the busses run most frequently.
MaxxBot fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Jan 18, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 19:08
|
|
|
sitchensis posted:I wasn't talking about eliminating suburbs or rural areas. My beef isn't with suburbs -- suburbs can be retrofitted or built to be more walkable/transit friendly, same with rural areas. It's with aforementioned collective entitlement we have with single-family home ownership and our current way of subsidizing it so that it has become the dominant way we live. My fear is that AV's will just continue this trend. This is all a question of semantics, really, the thing you're getting at is that people need to be more densely located and that basically requires changing it from a suburban/rural area into a town and vacating the areas outside your new town. As a practical matter cities are where the jobs are so there's social movement into them (and the crime problems that led to flight from the cities back in the 70s/80s are long gone). But ultimately there are just a lot of people who just plain want more space to live in/avoid other people in. You couldn't pay me enough to live in a rural area or really even a suburb, but I've got family members who view living in dense cities as their own personal hell. Autonomous vehicles aren't really going to affect that in any real way. Cars already exist.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 19:12
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 18:23 |
|
|
boner confessor posted:i guess this would be an interesting post if anyone was talking about this but since nobody itt has proposed or even hinting at banning cars... Okay, so in the world cars aren't illegal there will still be cars. So why is it not useful for those cars to be automatic cars?
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 19:14
|
|