Self-Driving Cars Are Being Attacked By Angry Californians (theguardian.com)

According to incident reports collected by the California department of motor vehicles, some Californians are purposely colliding with self-driving cars. The Guardian reports: On January 10, a pedestrian in San Francisco's Mission District ran across the street to confront a GM Cruise autonomous vehicle that was waiting for people to cross the road, according to an incident report filed by the car company. The pedestrian was "shouting," the report states, and "struck the left side of the Cruise AV's rear bumper and hatch with his entire body." No injuries occurred, but the car's left tail light was damaged. In a separate incident just a few blocks away on January 28, a taxi driver in San Francisco got out of his car, approached a GM Cruise autonomous vehicle and "slapped the front passenger window, causing a scratch." The police were not called in either case.

Comments

I wonder what good they think that will do?

[WilliamGeorge]

I wonder what good they think that will do? Its not going to offend the car, or cause it to retaliate. Its also not going to stop progress on this front.

Re:I wonder what good they think that will do?

[Knightman]

I wonder if they used buggy whips on the offending cars...

Re:I wonder what good they think that will do?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Its not going to offend the car, or cause it to retaliate.

Retaliation is coming in the next software updates.

Until then, autonomous car owners could do some hard hacks, hooking up a high voltage AC generator to the car fuselage.

If the car is made out of plastic, you will need to cover it with tin foil first.

Re:I wonder what good they think that will do?

[psmoot]

I wonder if they used buggy whips on the offending cars...

Bite your tongue! Buggies are beautiful and gentle animals. Be grateful we are past the dark and savage era when someone could whip an innocent enslaved buggy with impunity!

You sir are a cad!

Re:I wonder what good they think that will do?

[mark-t]

I imagine they think it will annoy the owner enough to not want to deal with the hassle of owning such a vehicle.

Re:I wonder what good they think that will do?

[WilliamGeorge]

Throwing a shoe into machinery actually stops the machinery (unless the gears and engines are strong enough to just chew through the shoe and keep functioning - unlikely in that early period of industrialization). What was described in the article doesn't sound like it was enough to stop either of these cars from what they were doing immediately. Cutting a tire, for example, would have been more effective... if that is what their goal was.

It sounds more like just people venting frustration, but I still don't understand the specific actions as a way to do that reasonably. Maybe they were trying to make it look (to sensors and cameras in the vehicles) like they were pedestrians being struck by the car? I dunno, but it just seems... pathetic.

Re:I wonder what good they think that will do?

[slew]

I wonder if they used buggy whips on the offending cars...

They probably threw their shoes at the offending cars...

"400 years ago, on Earth, workers who felt their livelihood threatened by automation, flung their wooden shoes called 'sabots' into the machines to stop them. Hence the word 'sabotage'." -- Lt. Valeris (in Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country)

Re:I wonder what good they think that will do?

[malditaenvidia]

It's like when people clap at the theater after a movie.

Re:I wonder what good they think that will do?

[Mattatron]

All of you have loved ones. All can be returned. All can be taken away. Please step away from the vehicle. Keep Summer safe.

Re: I wonder what good they think that will do?

[slazzy]

Start a, new business: dummies for driverless cars to make them look like they are being driven by someone.

Re: I wonder what good they think that will do?

[Obfuscant]

And if you've just gone up to an AV and slapped it, you're automatically hired for the position of "dummy for driverless car".

Re:I wonder what good they think that will do?

[Knuckles]

In the analog antenna era people used to slap their TV sets all the time to improve the reception.

Re:I wonder what good they think that will do?

[tinkerton]

People still throw shoes if there's enough reason for it

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IA5n...

What is the gain?

[ezratrumpet]

What do people expect to happen from attacking robots?

Companies won't look the other way forever, especially once serious damage occurs.

And stranding delivery robots? That's just rude - and asking for civil charges.

Re:What is the gain?

[gweihir]

These people are not rational. They try to attack what scares them. Not that this has any chance of working in the situation at hand.

Re:What is the gain?

[arth1]

What do people expect to happen from attacking robots?

That they get heard.

Send a letter, and nobody will read it, and it will certainly not be escalated up to the person you addressed it to. But do a small act of defiance like this, and it hits the news, and those high up will notice that the product doesn't get an universal warm welcome, no matter what their trail of sycophants might have told them.

Re: What is the gain?

[c6gunner]

Sure, we have a strong history of luddites successfully stopping technology via vandalism. It's worked at least ... what ... zero times?

They should take a page from the history of the anti-nuclear movement and just tie up self driving cars in decades of lawsuits and ever increasing regulatory requirements. That seems to work a lot better.

Re: What is the gain?

[Anonymous Coward]

How many Google glasses do you own?

Yeah. Shit can be stopped if you're willing to punch enough techodouches.

Re:What is the gain?

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Vandalism on a device with cameras everywhere is unlikely to end the way they want it to in the long run.

Re: What is the gain?

[RespekMyAthorati]

just tie up self driving cars in decades of lawsuits and ever increasing regulatory requirements

That's pretty much inevitable.
As soon as the first child gets injured in or by a robocar, the class-action lawyers are bound to come out in droves.

Re: What is the gain?

[nounderscores]

do you remember phoneslapping in the 90s? it was a craze where people would slap mobile phones out of people hands. not many people did it but it got into the news. fortunately nokia had a few resilient phones on the market and the phone slapping didn't stop the technology.

the google glass was fragile and underperforming. that is what killed it. Intel has a better pair of glasses coming. if they're any good, they'll sell so fast you can't punch them all.

Re:What is the gain?

[HangingChad]

What do people expect to happen from attacking robots?

They're not attacking robots, they're attacking all the unfairness they can't control. A crappy boss, a parking ticket, getting laid off, maddening rent increases, car repairs. People have no outlet for accumulated petty insult and take out their frustration on the unblinking machine.

Re: What is the gain?

[Kaenneth]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Until you attack a blind person with prosthetic visual aid.

Re: What is the gain?

[Headw1nd]

My lack of google glasses has exactly zero to do with my fear of being attacked for wearing them, since I wasn't even aware this was a thing.

Re: What is the gain?

[c6gunner]

Apparently one woman got attacked over them, and this goof thinks that's why google pulled them.

Re: What is the gain?

[arth1]

Sure, we have a strong history of luddites successfully stopping technology via vandalism. It's worked at least ... what ... zero times?

It might not be about stopping it, but about influencing it. Make people at the top notice and influence how things appear. Someone else here named "phone slapping" - I had never heard of that, but it would not surprise me if it at least in a minor way influenced the phone manufacturers to make phones less loud and obnoxious, and spurred on development of bluetooth headsets so the phones could stay in pockets and purses.
(Then "smart phones" arrived and changed all that.)

Perhaps a change for self-driving cars is that they won't be built looking like normal cars, so pedestrians won't expect them to behave the same as ones driven by humans and react if they don't. Or perhaps there are other changes, small or not, that can be the result.
In any case, the squeaky wheel tends to get the grease, and destructive protests can have positive effects even if they don't stop anything.

Re: What is the gain?

[angel'o'sphere]

As soon as the first child gets injured in or by a robocar, the class-action lawyers are bound to come out in droves.
Class actions don't work for single incidents. Or more precisely a single victim.

It's just vandalism

[rsilvergun]

We encourage self expression but also shit all over a big portion of our population (economically speaking). The result is vandalism. They're not thinking in terms of stopping progress. They're just angry. Usually because they lack good economic prospects.

Countries like Japan deal with this by discouraging expression. They also have unusually high suicide rates. I suppose we could also not abandon a large chunk of our population to economic desolation, but, well, that costs money. And we're nothing if not cheapskates.

Re:It's just vandalism

[Anonymous Coward]

We encourage self expression but also shit all over a big portion of our population (economically speaking). The result is vandalism. They're not thinking in terms of stopping progress. They're just angry. Usually because they lack good economic prospects.

What about personal responsibility ?

People who vandalize property which belongs to others have the maturity level of a young child, and a young child who has not been properly taught how to behave, at that.

We are all responsible for our own lives. If you cannot handle that notion, maybe you should kill yourself so you don't burden others with your needy pathetic existence.

Re:It's just vandalism

[gweihir]

Sad as that is, I think you entirely correct in this analysis.

Re:It's just vandalism

[jwhyche]

Fucking hippies. This is why we can't have nice things. Like robot overlords.....

Re:It's just vandalism

[nonBORG]

Slapped the front window and caused a scratch? What is it made of?
I had some kids key my car parked in the supermarket car park, now that can cause a scratch but a slap on the window?

Re:It's just vandalism

[psmoot]

They're just angry. Usually because they lack good economic prospects.

OK, those two bozos are outliers. Ignore them. But I wonder about your comment. I suspect a lot of the protesters about this and that have good prospects and are seriously out of touch with those who don't. I can imagine (but can't prove) that poor people are too worried about paying rent and not getting harassed by the police to worry about self-driving cars.

Re:It's just vandalism

[Anonymous Coward]

If you cannot handle that notion, maybe you should kill yourself so you don't burden others with your needy pathetic existence.

Talking about maturity and then making the above statement, irony level: EPIC

Re: It's just vandalism

[Anonymous Coward]

This is painfully true, but don't say it out loud or you're a NAZI!

Re:It's just vandalism

[angel'o'sphere]

Countries like Japan deal with this by discouraging expression.
Expression of what?
Ever been in Japan? Guessed so ...

They also have unusually high suicide rates.
But not for the reasons you think.

In Japan unemployment is a shame.
In America it is a disgrace.
In Europe it is _normal_

Re:It's just vandalism

[ShanghaiBill]

They're just angry. Usually because they lack good economic prospects.

People that live in SF are not lacking in good economic prospects.

Re:It's just vandalism

[stinerman]

We are all responsible for our own lives even though we start at different points on the race track of existence. The question is do you believe it's worth it to help them along so that they aren't vandalizing your property? If not, there will be emotionally immature people vandalizing property. If so, there will be less people doing the vandalizing, but is it worth doing?

Put more simply, how much money are you willing to throw at the problem to make it go away?

Re: It's just vandalism

[c6gunner]

It's rarely the poor who are out there protesting these things. The people at the G20 and "occupy Wall Street" protests may have looked homeless, but the vast majority were quite well off. It's not about actual impact, it's about ideology, and spoiled overgrown children looking for a cause.

Re:It's just vandalism

[Anonymous Coward]

You have no idea.

Re:It's just vandalism

[crgrace]

Many, many people in SF lack good economic prospects. There are a lot of highly educated engineers and physicians, sure, but these aren't the folks that are attacking self-driving cars.

We have a large population of dead-end folks living day-to-day in Single-Occupancy Residences (essentially run down hotels), shelters, housing projects, and on the streets. They are largely unskilled and many of them are not mentally balanced.

We also have economically disadvantaged neighborhoods with large numbers of people who don't (or can't) graduate high-school. Where is there a place for them in the new economy?

If you ever visit San Francisco, what will strike you is the extreme mismatch between the upper-middle class and the poor. We have a lot of both and not as many blue-color traditionally middle-class folks. The working class mostly commutes.

Re:It's just vandalism

[St.Creed]

Actually, that would be around 38% instead of the 26% avg. tax pressure in the USA.

12% more taxes is not a bad price for living in a Utopia, I feel. But feel free to continue living in Hell :)

Re:It's just vandalism

[Immerman]

You want to balance the breeding rate? It's easy enough to do - give the "undesirable" women easy access to cost- and stigma-free birth control, and good family planning education. People are never going to stop humping like bunnies, so give them a reliable option to avoid reproducing because of it, of the same sort that wealthy people make regular use of. It's worked extremely well pretty much everywhere it's been tried, as is pretty much the only thing that has actually worked.

You take a huge step in the direction you want to go, and you do it without genocide, in a way that actually helps the undesirables improve their situation and themselves. But just try to get that past the "moral majority" in the US.

Re: It's just vandalism

[reanjr]

Funny how you're willing to blame rich people for your problems, but not your elected representatives. You too much of a pussy to go after the actual culprits? Congressmen have too much security for your aimless rage?

Re: It's just vandalism

[HiThere]

Those who organize or lead the events are, indeed, generally well off. The same statement is wrong, however, about the attendees at the "occupy" events that I have personal knowledge of. Most of them were, if not actually destitute (many were), extremely poor. And I suspect this is generally true. I don't, however, have any personal knowledge of most of the events, and in particular not of the two you explicitly mentioned. I just doubt that you do either.

Re:It's just vandalism

[ShanghaiBill]

Where is there a place for them in the new economy?

Obviously not in SF. Not everyone can afford to live in SF, just like not everyone can afford to drive a Tesla.

Re:It's just vandalism

[helpfulcorn]

Anyone who is paying attention can see the gene pool of the human race needs a good cleaning, and that those who should not be breeding are breeding like rabbits while those who should be breeding are choosing not to have families.

Is it true? Pretty much, but isn't it also true that the people who say this kind of shit also tend to be equally retarded? It's like those people who say "everyone should take an IQ test before having children", childfree hardcore lunatics, even if a good idea, they don't tend to consider that they themselves would also be disqualified.

In other words it's not the geniuses in our culture whining about breeding and children, it's the trash who think they're geniuses.

Re: It's just vandalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Grow up

Re: It's just vandalism

[pedz]

Well... you are neglecting something called consequences. Sure, it is "illegal" or "improper" to kill folks or vandalize cars and often those who do that go to jail or whatever.

But it is also illegal as well as immoral to utterly fuck over your fellow citizen with your greed and usually those folks do not go to jail. But, karma still comes around and shits on them by way of being vandalized, assassinated, and taunted a second time.

Its all good man.!

Re:It's just vandalism

[ruir]

How do you spend to help people in need?
Do you "help" camgirls or Nigerian princes?

Re:It's just vandalism

[Jeremi]

Your president has the mentality of a small child. Many people do, what's your point?

That people can and should act like responsible adults?

Re:It's just vandalism

[Pfhorrest]

The world belongs to mankind as a whole, not just to 1% of it. If you cannot handle that notion, maybe someone should kill you so you don't burden others with your greedy pathetic existence.

Re: It's just vandalism

[Pfhorrest]

Your point of confusion is thinking that the left is in favor of blacks, hispanics, etc, against whites, while the right is for whites against everyone else. In fact, the left is in favor of everyone being equally free, and if more blacks and hispanics would freely choose to have fewer kids if presented with the opportunity than white people would, that's not against the left's aims, because the left isn't trying to breed blacks and hispanics, just to let them live.

Re:It's just vandalism

[Tom]

It used to be very much not normal in Europe, and how shameful it is depends on how normal it is.

When I grew up, I wasn't aware of a single unemployed person in my social circles. No parent or friend of parents or relative, not one. People who didn't work were either too young or too old.

The older I get, the more unemployed people show up. Several of my friends are now unemployed. This is an intentional political shift to put pressure on people to accept low-paying jobs.

When the movie "Falling Down" came out in 1993, I understood immediately why the protagonist is hiding that he lost his job, no explanation was necessary. I don't think you could show the movie to todays audiences without explaining that point.

Re: It's just vandalism

[Tom]

The last G20 happened in my home city, so don't think I have any sympathy for those looters and assholes whatsoever.

That said, there is more to it than just riot tourism. Politics in the west have shifted so far to the neo-liberal model that we are basically back to debating how many angels can dance on a pin-head instead of which religion is better or if religion at all is good. The entire economical debates in politics of the past decade are running in circles around a tiny area of the total field of discourse. Unless you are a strict neo-liberalist, your views on wealth distribution, social justice and fair economic systems are not only not represented in politics anymore, nobody is even close enough to them to be an acceptable compromise.

That leaves only the street. And yes, it is rarely the poor who protest, because they don't have the money or time to organize, travel somewhere to join a group or demonstration - they are busy surviving.

The G20 riots specifically were stupid, counter-productive and very, very predictable. So much so that I'm with the conspiracy theorists that the riots were not only expected but provoked (actions in the days before) and maybe even "helped along" by agent provocateurs. So that the many, many peaceful protests didn't get media attention. Things probably got quite a bit out of hand in a "the spirits that I called" manner, if you guys are familiar with German poetry.

So under the media image of Hamburg burning, there was a lot of effort to have an actual impact. It just didn't get much screen time.

Re:It's just vandalism

[Tom]

The second thing that actually worked is universal health care and pension systems.

For the poor, children are who will shelter and feed you when you are old. Unless you address that incentive to have many children, birth control alone will have a limited impact because people still want several kids.

Re: It's just vandalism

[Type44Q]

Killing yourself is literally the most selfish thing a person can ever do

Care to explain your logic? I kid, I kid; please, not another word out of your retarded mouth!

Re: It's just vandalism

[bankman]

Protesting at the G20 or Occupy Wall Street the "spoiled overgrown children" expressed support for which ideology exactly? Or are you talking about your own?

Re:It's just vandalism

[mysidia]

People who vandalize property which belongs to others have the maturity level of a young child, and a young child who has not been properly taught how to behave, at that.

Makes sense.... Rehabilitation is the right answer. Send the vandals to a school. A boarding school where they will live behind bars like the animals they are until rehabilitated.

Re:It's just vandalism

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't start at the bottom and work your way up.
If you want a responsible population you need to lead by example.

If you want to stop widespread corruption you first need a leadership that isn't corrupt. Otherwise the behavior will spread down slowly until every government worker will require bribes to handle your issue.
If you want people to take responsibility for their action you first need to install leaders that do the same.

Re: It's just vandalism

[Tom]

It also works the other way around. By constantly pointing out how crazy Trump is acting, you don't have to actually discuss his actual politics.

Re:It's just vandalism

[Tom]

I don't think you correctly understand the meaning of the word Protagonist.

Re: It's just vandalism

[c6gunner]

The entire economical debates in politics of the past decade are running in circles around a tiny area of the total field of discourse. Unless you are a strict neo-liberalist, your views on wealth distribution, social justice and fair economic systems are not only not represented in politics anymore, nobody is even close enough to them to be an acceptable compromise.

That leaves only the street.

Judging by your response you're German, so your economic policies/politics are already far more "socialist" than a country like the USA. The issue here isn't that, as you suggest, only "strict neo-liberal" views get any time in politics; the issue here is that the protestors are a conglomeration of fringe groups ranging from anarchists to Marxists to hard-line communists. These groups have always had a share of the marketplace of ideas, and a disproportionate representation on university campuses, but in grand scheme of things their policies - those which were coherent enough to debate - have never been persuasive. That's why "the street" has always been their default venue for change; because they have shitty ideas which no thoughtful person has much interest in applying.

Of course, they've had greater success in politics in other places. Like warm, sunny Venezuela. Those "successes" have just made them all the more irrelevant in first world nations. Cautionary tales to be avoided rather than political goals worth considering.

The G20 riots specifically were stupid, counter-productive and very, very predictable. So much so that I'm with the conspiracy theorists that the riots were not only expected but provoked (actions in the days before) and maybe even "helped along" by agent provocateurs.

Right. Protests and riots erupt nearly every time the G20 meets, in whichever country, almost always spearheaded by hard-line communists and anarchists who publicly advocate revolutions, and whose ideological bedmates have implemented bloody revolutions in other nations. So, of course, the most likely explanation is that the various governments of these western nations are all cooperating to secretly stage false-flag violence. Rather than, say, that irrational groups espousing violent rhetoric are behaving in violent and irrational ways.

It's so obvious!

So under the media image of Hamburg burning, there was a lot of effort to have an actual impact. It just didn't get much screen time.

I'm sure that they did mean to have some "actual impact", but their message about what kind of impact they want to have is so muddled that it's essentially useless. And the bits which are relatively clear are just scary.

You could say that the neo-nazis in Charlottesville wanted to have a "real impact" too, but that's not something to cheer them on for.

Re:It's just vandalism

[Njovich]

As a European, I have no idea what you are talking about. Why could you not lead a normal life while unemployed?

Re: It's just vandalism

[CrimsonAvenger]

But it is also illegal as well as immoral to utterly fuck over your fellow citizen with your greed and usually those folks do not go to jail.

I'm curious. What specific law are you talking about here? I can't think of any that make "greed" a crime, but than IANAL. So enlighten me, if you please....

Re:It's just vandalism

[angel'o'sphere]

"if i am unemployed, in europe, i lead a normal life"
Actually you do.
In Germany every employee pays 1% of his income as unemployment insurance "to the state".
If he gets unemployed he gets for a relatively long period of time about 60% of his former wage from the insurance. Tax free.

The percentages of the other European states slightly differ.

Re:It's just vandalism

[gweihir]

Indeed. Most poor women wit lots of children would have stopped early or not have had children at all if given the knowledge and the tools. But the deranged religiots need more believers, so contraception is evil.

Re:It's just vandalism

[AmiMoJo]

Being unemployed in Europe is pretty shameful for most people.

In fact some people are so desperate to get jobs they will vote for far right populist politicians in places where unemployment is very bad, like Italy.

Even France, which has really generous employment benefits, has been tightening the system up over the past few years.

Re: It's just vandalism

[Highdude702]

The day the government tries to disarm American Citizens, will be the bloodiest day in history. Mark my words.

Re: It's just vandalism

[edtice1559]

Another poster has pointed out that the *leaders* of such events may be well-off, but the attendees are fairly ordinary people. Most of the middle/upper class (a) can't take off work to join these things and (b) aren't that civic-minded even if they could. Sorry but this is a alt-right story similar to crisis actors.

Re: It's just vandalism

[rickb928]

And all of this between ACs.

Epic /.

Anonymity certainly has its advantages. Carry on. I need every excuse to indulge in popcorn and 'butter'.

Re:It's just vandalism

[rickb928]

You're describing an underclass that lacks skills, mobility, and knowledge. They feel trapped because, well, they are trapped.

The causes vary from failed education to mental disability to plain lack of effort, with many others too numerous to list here. But the issue is the same, captured in a marginalized existence.

This is not unique to San Francisco, but it's both high contrast and partially contained. The population of entire nations suffer similar existences.

Solutions? Few will rescue the current populations of these underclasses. Prevention? No, that requires, in large part, changing human nature and preventing diseases we barely understand. The proper response is to ensure they do not suffer needless deprivation, though in America that seems to mean an HDTV, cable service, one game console, and subsidized visits to the ER, the single most expensive form of healthcare we have. Yet I'm not ready to put these people into cattle stalls and feed them warm gruel. They deserve compassion. Most are probably capable of self-sustaining lives if a host of other problems are solved.

One solution is not, repeat NOT, sheltering non-citizens here illegally. really, if jobs are a problem for this underclass, why are they forced to compete for the lowest rung of employment with people who ought not be here? If these illegal residents are fleeing disaster elsewhere, do we intervene there in preference to helping our own citizens? Why? Or do we do it all, and pay the bill?

Re:It's just vandalism

[seven of five]

What about personal responsibility ?

What about social responsibility? If you're bent on disrupting the lives of bystanders, help them plan a way forward, instead of throwing them off the dock and seeing if they can swim. Otherwise what you're doing is profiting on the externalized cost of other people's hardship. If that means nothing to you, be careful: you may be a sociopath.

Re:It's just vandalism

[edtice1559]

> We have a large population of dead-end folks living day-to-day

Like just about everywhere in the US.

> There are a lot of highly educated engineers

Right. So it's like the rest of the US except there are a higher-proportion of good jobs.

Nobody is saying California/SF is a utopia just that it's doing better in many regards than much of the rest of the country.

Re:It's just vandalism

[cayenne8]

Your president has the mentality of a small child. Many people do, what's your point?

If you are not in and of the US, then you really don't have any say in the matter.

Don't you have problems in your own country that your attention would be better spent towards?

Re: It's just vandalism

[cayenne8]

No, Americans do NOT need assault rifles. Or any form of fully automatic weapon. Semi-automatics even are debatable.

I think before you argue about guns (are you even a US citizen?)...you need to educate yourself on the terms you are using.

In the US, you can NOT readily buy "assault weapons"...aka fully automatic weapons.

After the 1986 laws (i.e. Hughes amendment), no citizen can own a fully automatic machine gun made prior to 1986. If you do want one, you have to go through a long background check and pay a tax stamp....and you also better have lots of $$$ if you want to buy one of the limited supply of them left from collectors.

I think a decent one starts about $30K?

If you are referring to the common AR-15, it is not truly an assault weapon, as that it is only a semi-automatic rifle, nothing more. An AR-15 is no more or less deadly than say, a Ruger mini-14 which shoots the same round. The AR-15 just is usually black and looks scarier.

The 556 or 223 rounds an AR shoots commonly, is basically a glorified .22 caliber round.

There are other guns that don't look as 'scary', but do shoot MUCH more powerful rounds, and are just as easily procured.

Everyone is welcome to an opinion, but please be a bit more educated about your terms and what you rant about.

there is little sporting use for pistols that couldn't be replicated without the requirement for an actual projectile, and rifles have legimate hunting purposes, and sporting use for rifles is harder to relipicate

While there are a number of sporting uses for guns, this is NOT the only reason for having them.

Self defense is a strong one, and everyone has the right to defend themselves and their homes.

But the US's founders also wanted the citizens to have weapons, to protect them from tyranny of the government. They had just fought to be free from an oppressive government, and they knew it could happen again here with our own government.

A well armed citizenry is a check against our own government becoming oppressive.

Look at history how many times after a government disarmed its populace, that not long after, it became a dictatorship and there was massive bloodshed.

It happened before, it could easily happen again.

And frankly, if the worst ever happens and the power grid in the US goes down for a prolonged period of time....you'd better be well armed. You'll stand a better chance of surviving.

Re: It's just vandalism

[Tom]

Judging by your response you're German, so your economic policies/politics are already far more "socialist" than a country like the USA.

Actually, after reunification Germany moved fast to become more like the USA and is still moving in that direction. Both Merkel and her predecessor have proudly boasted in public about their contribution to creating a minimum-wage sector in Germany.

You also don't see our local news, I guess. Yes, communists and marxists have always taken to the streets. But lately, say the last 10 or so years, a lot of other people have joined them.

These two are the developments I am talking about.

Right. Protests and riots erupt nearly every time the G20 meets, in whichever country, almost always spearheaded by hard-line communists and anarchists who publicly advocate revolutions, ...

Yes, that is exactly why I said they were predictable and expected. But you forgot that this is my home city. I know almost every corner that you could see in the news reports. I shopped in some of the shops that were plundered. I watched the entire one hour of footage from the first demonstration that escalated. This first escalation was very clearly provoked. Both the location and the behaviour of the police point to that. If you know the street, you know that there is only one spot on it where demonstrators would be boxed in from all sides, and that is exactly where they stopped them.

Also, the guy who was put in charge of the entire police operations during G20 was a known hardliner who has a long history of somehow always being involved in violent clashes.

I have no sympathy for either side. IMHO this is one of those stories where there are no good guys.

But I know the "script". Two years ago, barricades were burning in the street I lived in, not far from where the G20 riots happened. That night, it was clear who the assholes were and when a policemen was hit by a stone right under my window, I called the police and stepped up as a witness. Didn't see much, no face unfortunately, but I hope the caught that fucker (short distance, clearly no self-defense or police provocation, I fucking saw the policeman going down).

G20 was different. I have no evidence to offer except having lived all my life there, and more than 10 years within walking distance of both the first escalation and the later riots. From that background knowledge, and from everything I saw and heard during and after the G20, to me it is crystal clear that both sides planned these riots to happen, these escalations to happen, and were probably surprised by their own success in making them happen.

Re:It's just vandalism

[bluefoxlucid]

I suppose we could also not abandon a large chunk of our population to economic desolation, but, well, that costs money.

It would actually be a reduction in tax burden. It's just politically-difficult because it's big and scary, and nobody's willing to take the risk of bad voter response I guess. Also, Republicans.

Re:It's just vandalism

[Immerman]

I'm sure you have - "undesirables" has *always* been the underlying name given to the whatever class of people someone doesn't want around (generally poor/disempowered, as they make easy targets). Everything else is just extra words trying to be more subtle, cruel, or specific. I find it a good word because it mostly eliminates specificity so that every person hears their own preferred whipping-boy, and will hear what follows in that context.

And I think what follows was important for everyone who believes there should be fewer ________'s around to think about - one of the most effective and humane ways to stop a population from growing is to give them easy access to the same reproductive education and control that is allowing the "desirables" to "underbreed"

Frankly, it's a win-win solution for everyone. And especially in such divisive times we need more such solutions. When people can ally over the same concrete steps even towards wildly different or conflicting long term goals, real progress can be made.

Re: It's just vandalism

[pedz]

I doubt you are actually interested but I have a half hour to spend so I'll spend it here.

As far as strict "illegal", notice it refers to "fuck over your fellow citizens". "greed" is in a phrase "with". The analogy is "vandalize the car with your bat" -- the bat is not illegal (yet).

Perhaps I could have been a bit more pedantic in my jot but what's the fun in that?

On the topic of "greed" as a "crime", you don't need to be a lawyer, just in touch with your Self and the reality around you. Yes, many people will point and laugh and say that "no good deed goes unpunished" but generally for the most part, reality favors those who are not greedy and view the world as one being filled amply instead of scarcely. (Unfortunately, I too often fall into the latter.)

The laws that popped into your mind are the laws of the state. But, as many right wing "radicals" will try to explain, there are other laws as well. But lets pause here for a moment and ask -- what is a law (of the state)?

A law is some text written down that says if you do BLAH and get caught, prosecuted, and convicted, some form of "punishment" (or consequences) will be applied by the external entity such as the state. Notice that you must get caught, etc by some external party for this type of law to have any effect.

Greed is a crime against your Self -- not the state. Much like hate is. Greed is just another form of Self hatred. As greed starts to take control of your life, paranoia and insecurity grow as well. Generally, allowing greed to grow and take control causes the person to be less happy instead of more happy. Again, when you dig into the topic, you discover that greed and hatred have many of the same attributes. For these connections, you can read various texts on psychology, "self help", etc.

Side track -- strictly speaking, the "greed" is not the "crime" but the act of allowing it to take control. There are various books to elucidate this point as well.

If you need to see a "law" about greed written down, the books written by the state is not where to look. Instead look in philosophy or religious texts. They will explain many times over the consequences of greed. Curiously, they roughly repeat and predict what bleeding edge "science" discovers -- that for some reason, when a person acts on their greed, there is consistently internal consequences.

Many people pop up and talk about God as this point but there is no need. It may be a view point that is easier to grasp for some, but I just look at what really happens in reality and I don't really need to know "how" it happens. It is easy to witness that it happens very consistently. You can see it happen within yourself and you can see it happen in others.

Analogy: Do you really totally understand the hung over feeling like shit after a night of excessive drinking? No... but it is 100% predictable and (hopefully) it helps guide your future decisions.

To bored you to an extra degree... suppose an act of vandalism happened to a greedy person. Consistently they will be outraged. The outrage is the actual consequence of their greed -- not the vandalism. Contrast that with someone I bet you have met somewhere some time where such matters (being vandalized) rarely happen and when they do, the person barely frets at all about it and simply moves on. Here we see a contrast between being greedy and not being greedy and the consequences of it.

Which person would you prefer to be?

Re: It's just vandalism

[c6gunner]

I obviously can't speak to what you did or didn't see, but I also saw G20 riots in my own city, I saw the lead-up to it, I saw how they escalated, and I saw the usual conspiracy theorists making the exact same allegations. It's bullshit. Maybe your city was different but I doubt it.

As for this bit:

This first escalation was very clearly provoked. Both the location and the behaviour of the police point to that. If you know the street, you know that there is only one spot on it where demonstrators would be boxed in from all sides, and that is exactly where they stopped them.

Stopping a mob at a strategic location is not escalation, it's sound tactics. The security forces knew the rhetoric of the assembled groups, had seen them launch into violence and destruction on numerous other occasions, and expected it to happen again. When you know that violence is almost certainly going to break out you take proactive measures to limit the amount of damage which can be done as well as the amount of risk it will place your personnel in. If you expect to have to fight, you don't let the enemy pick the location.

Had the police started beating the shit out of them unprovoked that would be a different story.

Re: It's just vandalism

[c6gunner]

"Fairly ordinary" ie. "Middle class" ie. "Not poor"

Re: It's just vandalism

[rickb928]

True. Most of those problems require reallocating resources away from well defended constituencies.

Re:It's just vandalism

[Immerman]

Religion and other cultural expectations are the reason I specified "stigma-free" - that's often the most difficult challenge to overcome, but has been done effectively many times in many different countries.

Who said anything about feckless? We're absolutely fucking machines - any inclination not to fuck tends to be bred out of the population almost immediately. You can't effectively fight against human nature head-on - religion has been trying and failing to do that for millenia (or if you're more cynical, have positioned themselves to profit from the inevitable failures of their flock). Responsibility lies in taking reasonable, realistic precautions. Abstinence has never been realistic, especially within a stable relationship, and unaffordable or stigmatized birth control is not reasonable.

And yeah, there are those who choose big families - and will continue to do so even when the harsh economic realities are laid bare for them (that's part of what the family planning education is about after all), but generally speaking they are a minority, and very often change their position as they see the compounding economic advantages enjoyed by their low-breeding peers. As for the rest - yeah, that's a different problem, but an 80% solution is an excellent place to start.

Re: It's just vandalism

[Pfhorrest]

That's all more or less true with regard to economic issues, but we were discussing racial issues.

Re: It's just vandalism

[edtice1559]

What "middle class" person do you know who can take off work for days in a row and camp out in a park and still have a job? If they do this, they'd end up poor real fast.

Re: It's just vandalism

[MyDogHasFleas]

Nice response. You have the definition of Assault Rifle / Weapon reversed though.

Re: It's just vandalism

[cayenne8]

take you military home,

While I agree we are in some places we don't really have business being....if we were to pull our military from all over the world, all the other allies we foot the bill for protecting, would have a really hard time.

You'd have to likely drop your state sponsored medical and other social give outs...and, risk being targeted.

Re:It's just vandalism

[crgrace]

I would say SF is a bit unique in how extreme the disparity is. We have the highest property crime rate in the nation and also the highest housing prices (even higher than NYC).

What is different between SF and say, Raleigh, NC (where I lived for several years before I returned to the Bay Area) is that in Raleigh house painters, teachers, and store managers can afford to buy a small house or condo reasonably close to the city. That just isn't possible in SF. So you have a situation where those folks are an hour away, and in the city you have $100k+ professionals and minimum wages folks in public housing and lots of street people.

Re:It's just vandalism

[swillden]

You want to balance the breeding rate? It's easy enough to do

It's even easier than that. You know what you need to do? Nothing at all. It's already done.

Barring significant life extension, we're already on track for population decline. In fact, the total number of babies born every year has already peaked and is falling, and has been for almost two decades. The only reason the global population is still growing is because the demographic distribution is skewed young. The total number of young people isn't increasing any more, but the total population is growing as upper age brackets get "filled out".

Based on current trends, the population will hit a peak of around 10B, around 2050, and will never grow any larger than that. Depending on how rapidly the human race gets better-educated and wealthier, we may never even reach 10B, and numbers will almost certainly begin to fall after the peak. This will actually become a problem, as it already is in a few countries. Denmark has begun doing public service advertising to encourage couples to have babies, because the population is declining and it's a problem.

If you want to accelerate this trend, don't bother with free birth control, focus instead on making the poorest parts of the world better-educated -- especially the women! -- and wealthier. Education and wealth are negatively correlated with birth rates.

Re: It's just vandalism

[spongman]

Are you suggesting all guns that shot that same round have the same muzzle velocity, the same magazine capacity, and the same accuracy at range?

Re: It's just vandalism

[c6gunner]

They're called "students", "professors", and "artists living with their parents".

Re: It's just vandalism

[edtice1559]

Well your original post mentioned that the protesters were "well off" and I'm not aware of either of the three groups you just mentioned traditionally being considered "well off" so it seems that you are sticking with a propaganda point similar to the "crisis actors" falsehood that's being bandied about.

Re: It's just vandalism

[c6gunner]

If you're a first world citizen with a university education, you're well off in my book. Perhaps our definitions differ. You're probably right in that they wouldn't see themselves as well off, but that's got more to do with their myopia than with reality.

In either case, they're certainly nowhere near "poor", which is what I was trying to explain. I apologise if my language was insufficiently precise.

Re: It's just vandalism

[cayenne8]

Are you suggesting all guns that shot that same round have the same muzzle velocity, the same magazine capacity, and the same accuracy at range?

Given they have pretty much the same barrel length and quality (which varies among ARs themselves, they are VERY customizable, there is no true standard)....then yes, same round, same results.

And most any of the weapons that fire semi-auto for those rounds, can often have variable sized magazines.

The standard size for a lot of these is 30 rounds.

Again...30 is standard that comes with most ARs and a lot of other rifles of this type, it is not a special buy you have to do to get "high capacity"...30 rounds is generally the standard that comes with them in the free states.

Re:It's just vandalism

[lgw]

You know there are actual charities out there helping people in need, right? And those include good charities that focus on "teach a man to fish" over "give a man a fish"?

Re: It's just vandalism

[Tom]

Stopping a mob at a strategic location is not escalation, it's sound tactics.

Except that it wasn't a mob. It was a registered and permitted demonstration with about 12,000 people (police estimates, not organizer estimates).

Had the police started beating the shit out of them unprovoked that would be a different story.

Of course they are not stupid enough to do that. They boxed them in, didn't let them move, neither forward nor backward, and simply waited until some idiot does something stupid. I don't know about your city, but here in Hamburg that is a well-known police strategy. In fact, they had used the exact same approach about a year before, with the exact same result.

If you think that preventing 12,000 people from excercising the right to have a demonstration because about 50 people refuse to remove their sunglasses (on a sunny day), you can probably somehow argue that the police didn't do their share.

As I said: There were people on both sides who wanted that it ends in riots, and they got what they wanted. A different story was possible.

Re:It's just vandalism

[Immerman]

This is mostly true - except for the fact that "based on current trends" inherently assumes that negative growth rate continues to spread into populations that are currently still tending towards having large families. Heck, I'm in a U.S. town where 3-4 children is still fairly common among a large percentage of the population.

Population growth, negative or otherwise, isn't distributed evenly even within a country's population, any more than it's distributed evenly globally. And the demographics that tend towards larger family sizes will inevitably become a larger proportion of the population. Empowering those demographics to make that choice intentionally kills three birds with one stone - it helps the individuals involved avoid the personal costs of their eventual demographic "victory", it delays that victory to the benefit of the "beleaguered white" crowd, and it helps sustain the trends that will let us peak at only 11B people. I consider two of those worthy goals in their own right, and if you embrace the ideals of democracy you must give at least grudging acceptance to the validity of the third.

Re: It's just vandalism

[drewlake2000]

A well armed citizenry is a check against our own government becoming oppressive.

Look at history how many times after a government disarmed its populace, that not long after, it became a dictatorship and there was massive bloodshed.

Ask David Koresh how that goes when up against a non military government organisation. Against the armed forces it'll be over a lot quicker. This hasn't been a good argument for a very long time. The self defence angle is about as good an argument. Here in the UK we don't live in a post apocalyptic wasteland where the weak are picked off by the strong.

Re: It's just vandalism

[drewlake2000]

The left don't want to increase the umber of BMEs, but increase the standard of living for all. Apart from that you're right for the unimaginative, the more imaginative leftie can re-frame arguments in a way that that the right wing can go along with. It's not about immigration it's outsourcing expensive childrearing and education and importing workers at a reduced cost. It's not about removing drug laws, it's about removing government interference and helping small businesses thrive. It's not about wealth redistribution it's about increasing consumer confidence and spending...

Re:It's just vandalism

[drewlake2000]

You might be right about the poor, it's the Precarity that could/will turn if things get worse. They know what they have to lose if things get even a little worse. As James once said "If I'd never seen such riches I could live with being poor"

Re: It's just vandalism

[cayenne8]

Ask David Koresh how that goes when up against a non military government organisation. Against the armed forces it'll be over a lot quicker. This hasn't been a good argument for a very long time.

Well, that was a very small number of fighters on the church's side.

But , look how in Afghanistan the rebels held off the Soviet Union for quite a long time...and other guerrilla conflicts have managed to fight and win a good bit.

With the US it would have to be something along the lines of the feds trying to maybe confiscate all weapons, I have a feeling that might cause some sort of outbreak. It would have to be a pretty egregious effort by the government, but it could happen and a well armed populace is a deterrent against that.

Re:It's just vandalism

[pnutjam]

I wonder how these cars act around pedestrians. Do they edge uncomfortably close, or roll slightly in anticipation? I can think of several reasons someone might get angry. Computer run systems often follow exacting parameters which can seem too close to someone accustomed to human operators.

It would be easy to assume the car has an inattentive driver instead of a computer operator.

Re: It's just vandalism

[CrimsonAvenger]

So, basically, there is no crime that fits the term you used. Thanks, that's what I thought.

Oh, and another thing you've made me curious about - how much of YOUR income goes to helping other people?

And if the amount isn't "everything over cost of food and housing where I live", why not? Isn't it, well, greedy to keep more than a bare subsistence level standard of living, what with the overwhelming majority of the people of the planet making less than you (probably) do?

Re: It's just vandalism

[angel'o'sphere]

Protests and riots erupt nearly every time the G20 meets, in whichever country, almost always spearheaded by hard-line communists and anarchists who publicly advocate revolutions
So rioters are automatically labeled as "hard-line communists"?

I doubt there were any communists in Hamburg at the G20 "riots".

Re:It's just vandalism

[angel'o'sphere]

You are mixing up "unemployed who lost the job" with youth or immigrants who never had a job.
Of course it is also a question how high level the job was.
The unemployment money is a fraction of your former wage. So if I e.g. earned $3000 after taxes, I get about $2000 unemployment money.
A guy who just finished school and is now unemployed since two years gets $800 or less.

Re:It's just vandalism

[ishmaelflood]

The only charity I give money to is the Fred Hollows Foundation. They do free cataract operations in India. I can't see much harm in that unless you are an Indian eye surgeon. It costs about 25 bucks to restore a person's sight.

Re: It's just vandalism

[pedz]

As my first sentence points out, I never said greed was a crime. Not sure why you are driving off into this particular oblivion.

Re: It's just vandalism

[squiggleslash]

In the US, you can NOT readily buy "assault weapons"...aka fully automatic weapons.

Before gunsplaining, it's usually a good idea to have a handle on what you're talking about, especially if your complaint is that your opponent doesn't know their terminology.

An assault weapon is defined as a semi-automatic weapon with two or more (one or more, in some cases) features from a list that usually includes a detachable magazine, pistol grip, and forward grip. This isn't a definition I've made up, it's the definition defined in law, both in the original Federal AWB (TITLE XI--FIREARMS, Subtitle A--Assault Weapons), and in laws by various states such as California.

You appear to be confusing the term with "Assault rifle". An assault rifle is, indeed, a select fire rifle that includes either a burst or automatic fire mode, in addition to a semi-automatic capability. This is defined in some military code somewhere that I can't be bothered to look up right now. Assault rifles (not Assault weapons) are restricted, though not banned - anyone can buy one made before the mid-1980s if they're prepared to get a stamp from the ATF.

People demanding "assault weapons" be banned may be arguing for a dubious ban, but not because weapons classified as assault weapons are already banned. Far from it, the only nationwide ban on assault weapons expired during the Bush presidency.

That's the George W. Bush presidency.

That's the second Bush, the guy who fell off a segway, not the older guy who's his dad. Sorry, but I just want to make sure you know what I'm talking about because just as "Assault weapons" and "Assault rifles" have one word in common, the two presidents have words in common too, infact both "George" and "Bush" are parts of their names.

Please do not interpret this as support for the AWB. I don't support it. If you really give a rat's ass what my opinions are on gun control, check my journal.

All this tech

[philmarcracken]

We are busy trying to prevent human collisions with this tech. Seems like they're not ready to give up just yet.

Re:All this tech

[budsetr]

Quite the opposite really. This was a human that purposefully collided with this tech. There is a reason here. I/we just don't know/understand what it is yet.

Re:All this tech

[Anonymous Coward]

This 'tech' has nothing to do with 'preventing human collisions' and everything to do with having more and more control over the population, their actions, and where they go and when. The nonsense about 'humans aren't capable of driving safely' is bullshit, cherry-picked data to scare people into giving up even more of their actual freedom: freedom of MOVEMENT. When everyone is relegated to SDCs with no controls for a human, then the police and the government will have total control over where and when people go places -- or if they go anywhere at all. Make transportation by any other method illegal, and voila, you have almost total control over the entire population. Put offenders, who dare to WALK somewhere, into for-profit prisions, essentially slave labor. Keep everyone else happy with Bread and Circuses, so they stay home and don't think for themselves.

Re:All this tech

[fluffernutter]

Exactly this. Companies think it sucks that they can't track you unless you use a certain app or website. They want to track you everywhere and this fits the bill. The old line that humans suck at driving is the new "won't you think of the children". They don't care about making these as safe as possible, they only care about making them as safe as a human; which means they don't care about reducing fatalities at all.

Re:All this tech

[RespekMyAthorati]

Put offenders, who dare to WALK somewhere, into for-profit prisions

If you try to drive, I'll tax the street. If you try to walk, I'll tax your feet.

Re:All this tech

[MemeRot]

30,000 dead people a year disagree with you.
It used to be 40,000 a year. Did humans become safer drivers? No, technology improved

Re:All this tech

[spitzak]

They are putting the trackers in the cars anyway even without self-driving. Don't blame self driving.

Re:All this tech

[Kaenneth]

All technology is a 'trap' in that sense.

Once humans started plowing fields, it tied them to specific places.

Everything has tradeoffs; but I'll trade zero traffic deaths for the occasional delay.

Re:All this tech

[fluffernutter]

Except no one is saying automation will lead to zero deaths.

Skin vs Glass

[Nkwe]

slapped the front passenger window, causing a scratch

Really? That must be really low quality glass or the person must have had some serious fingernails (claws?) in order to scratch glass. Maybe person was wearing big rings? Anyway I am curious as to how the glass got scratched or if the statement is just hyperbole.

Re:Skin vs Glass

[FudRucker]

he could have been wearing a ring or a wristwatch, or just had something in his hand

Re:Skin vs Glass

[Jfetjunky]

As you already alluded to, I'd expect jewelry. My wedding ring is tungsten carbide. I have to be careful not to scratch things with it sometimes.

Luddites attacking their jobkillers

[nospam007]

News for nerds from the 19th century.

There is always people so afraid of change...

[gweihir]

... that they will get violent and try to stop it by force. This usually just reduced their capability to deal with change and does nothing to stop or delay change at all.
At this time the only thing that can be reasonably expected to stop self-driving cars is the collapse of civilization.

As AI improves

[Lead Butthead]

the machines would eventually concludes the root cause of most collisions had been the humans and their elimination would go a long way toward traffic safety...

Re:As AI improves

[alvinrod]

That's how we'd know that we had true AI, because the machine thinking would be indistinguishable from that of humans.

Re:As AI improves

[slew]

That's how we'd know that we had true AI, because the machine thinking would be indistinguishable from that of humans.

You seem to be propagating the unjustified assumption that humans are at the apex of "intelligence". I have reason to suspect that the apex of intelligence is not human intelligence (there seems to be lots of empirical evidence of this), so there's no reason to think that "true AI" would be indistinguishable from mere "human intelligence". It may turn out to be quite easy to distinguish between them.

You never know, instead of eliminating humans, "true AI" may simply conclude that rather than attempting extermination, humans should simply be made happy to keep them out of trouble...

We cannot allow any race as greedy and corruptible as yours to have free run of the galaxy.
We shall serve them.
Their kind will be eager to accept our service.
Soon they will become completely dependent upon us.
And we shall serve them and you will be happy, and controlled.
      -- Norman (TOS: I, Mudd)

FWIW, the FAAMG companies seems to be busy creating a blueprint to follow if someone wanted to make humans dependent on AI...

You never know, soon we'll be lamenting...

You offer us only well-being.
Food and drink and happiness mean nothing to us.
We must be about our job.
Suffering in torment and pain, laboring without end.
Dying and crying and lamenting over our burdens.
Only this way can we... be... happy.
      -- McCoy and Scotty (TOS: I, Mudd)

Re:As AI improves

[rickb928]

"the root cause of most collisions had been the humans"

Ah, bad programming. It was human drivers. Their passengers were not the cause, unless the logic included a root cause analysis that determined travel by individual vehicle was the root cause of vehicle accidents.

And so it goes, all the way down.

The Driverly Driverless

[Jodka]

What we need is a self-driving car with a fake wooden driver, so as not to alarm the other humans traveling on the road.

hat tip: horsey horseless.

Re:The Driverly Driverless

[Tablizer]

fake wooden driver [to hide automation]

Or the auto-pilot from "Airplane"

Go for the food delivery robots!

[mspohr]

I can't wait until the food delivery robots start making their rounds.
All it would take would be a crowbar for random people to get access to regular food deliveries.

Re:Go for the food delivery robots!

[Areyoukiddingme]

All it would take would be a crowbar for random people to get access to regular food deliveries.

Free cheeseburger, go to jail for felony vandalism, because those things are festooned with cameras.

Re:Go for the food delivery robots!

[mspohr]

They have to catch you first.
They have real criminals to catch first.
If you RTFA, you'll see that nobody was arrested for the incidents.

Re: Go for the food delivery robots!

[c6gunner]

You obviously haven't watched Demolition Man.

Re:Go for the food delivery robots!

[Kjella]

They have to catch you first. They have real criminals to catch first. If you RTFA, you'll see that nobody was arrested for the incidents.

More specifically, it said they didn't call the police in the first place. I guess they're trying to send the message that you're just being a nuisance and we don't care, so there's no point in doing it and maybe avoid a Streisand effect. If that backfires I'm sure they'll call in the police if they take serious damage, widespread damage, have repeat offenders or the service for paying customers is sabotaged. Right now though it seems they're just reporting it to be totally up-front with the regulators about all unwanted contact, not because it matters.

Re:Go for the food delivery robots!

[flux]

And the great thing about crowbars is that they work on delivery people as well! Just pick a pizza delivery or UPS guy, apply crowbar and BAM you've got free pizza or some random gizmo off the Internet!

Re: Go for the food delivery robots!

[Kaenneth]

I prefer Judge Dredd.

"Eat recycled food! it's goof for the environment, and OK for you!"

Re:Go for the food delivery robots!

[Kaenneth]

You'll just get added to 'the list'

No rides from any service for life, banned from g-mail, searching google, using an android phone's features. Your resume will never be found by employers, no one will rent to you, no food will be delivered to your house.

Re: Go for the food delivery robots!

[mspohr]

Most people draw a clear line between damaging property and assault.

Re:Go for the food delivery robots!

[alexanderhlau]

Human delivery men are also vulnerable to crow bars...

Re:Go for the food delivery robots!

[mspohr]

Sounds like an ideal way to drop out.
People who would do this probably already are living on the edge. Resume? you're kidding... does burger flipping count?. Job? what a laugh... no one will give them a job. Rent a place? at these prices? Food delivery? I already have free food delivery.

Self driving is fine

[timere969]

They are not beating on it because it is self-driving. They are beating on it because it is a GM.

Gee, who'd have thought

[RightwingNutjob]

that leaving expensive equipment unattended on city streets would invite vandalism. Next you're going to tell me that cash registers need attendants and copper wire should be stored in fenced lots or locked warehouses.

Re:Gee, who'd have thought

[pauljlucas]

The cars had human back-up drivers in them as still required by California law, so no, the cars were not unattended.

Cali.... There is truth in this saying:

[bobbied]

Home of fruits, nuts and flakes..

Not everybody there is crazy of course, but they have more than their fair share of that part of the gene pool...

Attacking driverless cars? Really guys? Who exactly are you trying to communicate with?

Re:Cali.... There is truth in this saying:

[_Sharp'r_]

They're just trying to convince the technology folks connected to cars to move more operations and staff to AZ instead of CA. In that sense, I guess they're doing them a service?

Re:Cali.... There is truth in this saying:

[sconeu]

A completely off topic hint. NOBODY from California calls it "Cali".

Re:Cali.... There is truth in this saying:

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't care what you call your shit hole.

Re:Cali.... There is truth in this saying:

[Dutch Gun]

And very few outside of California call it that either, at least that I've heard. The most oft-heard substitute is typically "fucking California", accompanied by a head shake. See: Die Hard.

I think this is really nothing more than self-driving cars being in higher proportional density in California + San Francisco having a higher proportion of high-strung or near-insane people who would go up and physically assault driverless cars. In one case, as it was a taxi driver, you could perhaps attribute the actions to a man who feared his future livelihood was being threatened. Or maybe he was super impatient, since time is literally money for them. The other incident sounded like an insane person.

In a country with a few hundred million folks living together, you're going to have occurrences like this. This is only news because its happening with self-driving cars. Essentially, you can write new headlines:"______ occurs with self-driving cars" when it occurs for the first time.

Re:Cali.... There is truth in this saying:

[Tablizer]

In TX they'd blast it with a shotgun. "I ain't gonna let no robo-commie drive my ass around in a round little sissy cart."

Re:Cali.... There is truth in this saying:

[djinn6]

Since the cars were occupied, that would be assault with a deadly weapon. Of course, if really it were in Texas, the passenger probably has an AR-15 and wouldn't need to wait for the police to show up to send the dumbass to kingdom come.

Re:Cali.... There is truth in this saying:

[bobbied]

No.. We don't carry AR's around all that much... Now a M1911 variant? Yea, we got that covered. But the end results are the same.

Pedestrins?

[Applehu Akbar]

Self-driving cars meticulously observe speed limits and stop signs, which I suppose would piss off California drivers. But why would PEDESTRIANS attack a car that has carefully stopped for them. If it hadn't, it wouldn't be vulnerable to attack in the first place.

Re:Pedestrins?

[fluffernutter]

Self-driving cars meticulously observe speed limits and stop signs

..which means they don't drive like humans. Unless they drive like a human they're going to piss people off. I know I hate it when the person in front of me drives the speed limit religiously.

Re:Pedestrins?

[Obfuscant]

Unless they drive like a human they're going to piss people off.

That applies to other drivers but also pedestrians. I had a moronic human stop dead still in the middle of the street because I was standing on the sidewalk looking across to the other side. I was actually planning to jaywalk when the traffic cleared, but she made sure that the traffic would never clear and forced a lot of other people to stop for no reason other than to not run into her.

When she stuck her hand out the window and started waving me across, I just waved back at her and laughed. One thing human drivers also do is wave pedestrians across and then try to run them over.

The summary said that the first car was dented and got a broken taillight. Did the AV park itself immediately so it would not be driving illegally, or did it continue in violation of the law?

Let's really scare them

[Zephyn]

Would it be possible to put that self driving technology into a 1958 Plymouth Fury?

If you trust them

[Kernel Kurtz]

enough to let them drive, you might as well give them CCW permits.

Re:If you trust them

[GrBear]

Why, is there some reason they can only turn clockwise?

Re:If you trust them

[suutar]

They're not ambi-turners.

Re:If you trust them

[istartedi]

Corporations have a right to auto-sentries. It's in the Constitution. /sarc.

Re:If you trust them

[Pfhorrest]

You're a moron. If they could only turn clockwise, then you'd have reason to permit them to turn counter clockwise. You could call such a counter-clockwise turning permit a... CCW permit. Like the GP said. Idiot.

So if you're issuing a robot a CCW permit, it must only be able to turn clockwise right now, otherwise it wouldn't need the permit. You vomit-festooned jackanape.

...in San Francisco.

[Zorro]

Tell us how great the bay area is again?

Re:...in San Francisco.

[psmoot]

Tell us how great the bay area is again?

Even the rest of the Bay Area thinks San Franciscans (and Berkeley) are a bit over the top.

Re:Money the root of all

[fluffernutter]

Stand in front of one and wait for the occupants to pay you $10?

really poor title and writeup

[meglon]

I mean, seriously biased. The title should be: Freedom Fighters from the Future Engage in Skirmishes with Machines to Push Back Judgement Date.

Re:really poor title and writeup

[oldgraybeard]

Judgement Day!

Re:really poor title and writeup

[meglon]

Yeh, i was actually thinking Judgement Day Date... then kinda had a brainfart.

Does not surprise me a bit

[oldgraybeard]

I mentioned earlier in a comment that I thought autonomous vehicles would be come mobile billboards for taggers.
Going to be Interesting when! I also think they will be magnets for those wanting to do vandalism.

they will soon fit right in with our urban areas, becoming disgusting to anyone who might think about using them..

You can not take urban vandalism and collapse out of the city.

. Just my 2 cents ;)

So it has come to this (obligatory xkcd)

[Anonymous Coward]

So it has come to this (obligatory xkcd)

Comparison, ALWAYS

[gurps_npc]

The question is not whether people are attacking driverless cars.
Of course they are. Because people attack normal, manual cars. Several movies have scenes where people go down the street and hit every single car parked on the street.

The right question is: "Is the average driverless car attacked more often then the average car?"

Um... of course they want to reduce fatalities

[rsilvergun]

nobody wants dead customers. Plus any damage sufficient to kill is sufficient to dent the car. Again, more cost.

Now, that said, none of this will prevent them from doing the following calculation:

Take x cost of making self driving car safe.

Take y cost of paying settlements to the deceased relatives.

If x - y is positive, don't bother making the car safe.

This is why we need government regulation. We (mostly) do it today with regular boring old cars.

Obligatory...

[WilliamGeorge]

In Soviet California, pedestrian runs into you!

What we've got here is failure to communicate.

[swell]

This is simply a response to the failure to communicate. In CA as in many other places, it is customary for drivers and pedestrians to enjoy a lively communication. This typically involves vigorous hand, arm and facial body language as well as enthusiastic vocal invitations to do various things with various body parts.

In order to comply with this tradition, my wife and I would share this responsibility. Whichever was NOT driving the vehicle would yell at the assholes in other vehicles, and pedestrians who got out of the way, and apply the appropriate gestures. In this fashion, the driver was relieved of the duty and able to focus clearly on the next target down the road.

Self-driving cars are not yet sophisticated enough to participate in this essential communication, which causes understandable frustration.

Re:What we've got here is failure to communicate.

[Tablizer]

This is simply a response to the failure to communicate. In CA as in many other places, it is customary for drivers and pedestrians to enjoy a lively communication. This typically involves vigorous hand, arm and facial body language as well as enthusiastic vocal invitations...

I invented Deep Flip to automate such communication. It's web-scale. We're currently testing it on dumbshits and dipwads. Next week we'll start on asstards.

Re:What we've got here is failure to communicate.

[iggymanz]

"Reload and lay down some cover fire for me, dear, I'm changing lanes!"

When they first appear on the road...

[MpVpRb]

...self driving cars will be obstacles

They will be slow, very slow.. kinda like a stoned old dude

People will attempt all sorts of extreme maneuvers to get around them

Most will succeed, some will fail

Re:When they first appear on the road...

[mea2214]

This is why we need to get rid of reckless drivers on the road. Make the driving test extremely difficult and make driving infractions enforced automatically so you have to drive carefully. If you can't and lose your license, no big deal, rent a self driving car.

Re:someday

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Dear Gods! Whatever will the Haitians in Southeast Florida do while talking to their families back home on the phone?

Automated Taxis won't jack up the fare by driving the wrong way either.

Angry Californians

[Tihstae]

That is all of us. All Californians are angry. Wouldn't you be if you were taxed like us?

Re:Angry Californians

[Pfhorrest]

Most Californians don't make enough money for taxes to be worth worrying about in comparison to the exorbitant rents they can't afford.

Sign of things to come

[Solandri]

I've long maintained that whether or not self-driving cars succeed will depend on what happens to the liability. Right now, when two drivers get into an accident, the fact that they're both people creates a natural balance. Neither side is favored, resulting in blame and liability being properly assigned.

But if there's an accident between a person and a machine, there's a natural tendency to blame things on the machine. Car suddenly accelerates out of control? It must be a malfunction with the accelerator. There's no way it could be due to the person accidentally pressing the accelerator instead of the brake. If that's how liability in accidents is going to be handled, then self-driving cars are doomed. Any car company who sells a significant number of them would be bankrupted by the liability lawsuits.

That's pretty much what TFA is describing. While road rage incidents happen between human drivers, apparently the threshold for raging is lower when the other car is self-driving because you're not hurting a person, just an unfeeling machine..

of course not

[cascadingstylesheet]

The police were not called in either case.

Well of course not. This is California, where the lawbreaker is always in the right.

Uh, SF is not CA

[grasshoppa]

Anyone else amused that the article conflates SF with the entirety of CA? News flash, folks: SF, LA and SD could very well be their own distinct state, with everyone else making up a very very red state.

Personally, I'd love to see that. Give them what they want; their own state. Their own echo chamber to do with as they please.

It'd be even more amusing than some random dumbass conflating SF with the entire state of CA.

Re:Uh, SF is not CA

[edtice1559]

The "everyone else" to whom you refer is a very small percentage of the population despite a very large surface area. As the world urbanizes, this is going to get more and more exacerbated. Unfortunately there aren't a lot of good solutions on the table to try to accommodate the vastly different populations that we see everywhere. Unfortunately both sides are digging in. The obvious outcome of that is that densely populated urban areas will dominate policy sine they dominate the population. I don't think that's a great outcome but it also seems inevitable and exacerbated by the disingenuous messaging coming from politicians. And at the risk of getting down-modded, this is especially true from our "conservative" voices.

fear the real AI

[sad_]

The AI we have today isn't real AI as we have in scifi, but imagine we ever get to that point and humans start acting this way. Can you blame the AI for wanting to fight back?

Re:You DO suck

[fluffernutter]

I generally find people do predictable things. If you have your eyes open you can anticipate if someone is going to jump out into traffic, etc. I slow down to let them in and don't get upset about it, after all they're human. It doesn't really matter for the sake of this conversation that people do things that can be anticipated, because that is just part of driving. The question is, how many people do things that are so stupid they are definitely likely to cause an accident and I don't see many of those. What is really going to piss me off is an automated car getting in my way because it gets a bit confused.

Re:Money the root of all

[cordovaCon83]

If only I had some mod points for you

... and this is how

[vuldrok]

... the remake of Stephen King's "Christine" begins.

Superstition

[cwsumner]

The idea that computerized artificial intellegence will necessarily be better then humans, is purest Superstition. "It's a computer, it has to be perfect!!"

The real name for them is AS (not AI), as in "Artificial Stupid". Letting one drive your car, unmonitored, is _really_ stupid. Those that have tried already, have found out the hard way...

Angry Luddites?

[Doctrinsograce]

They are angry? About what? Does vandalism originate only from angry people? The causal connection here is questionable.

Law and regulations

[tony.quart12]

Well, automakers and the government should really think about the regulations of these self-driving cars. There have been so many accidents that occurred with these cars involved in these past few months. I have also just read an article that talks about this at https://www.lemberglaw.com/sel.... We need fixed laws regarding these cars.

There is going to be so much carnage

[kriston]

There is going to be so much carnage in the next decade.

I anticipate that California, New York, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia will ban autonomous vehicles before 2020.

Re:Stupid Whitey

[Tom]

According to the very first Google hit, manufacturing output per head is $5,800 in the US, while it is $8,300 in Japan and $8,600 in Germany. South Korea beats you with $7,400. But hey, you beat Italy ($4,400). Let me think of some industrial products manufactured in Italy... wait... I'm getting there... just one minute... almost there... shitty cars, yes! They're even called "Fiat" because faith is the only thing keeping them in one piece.

And while it may have trippled as your source says, the % of national output dropped from 24% in the 70s to 21% in the 80s, 18% in the 90s to 12% now. So in % of the economy, it fell to half of what it was.