Speaking of choice, nobody "chooses" to save themselves in the event of a crash.
Not after the crash no, but they make choice to avoid crashes, and more importantly we make choices about about how fast we want to go, which lane we want to be in, and where we want to park. A lot of people actually enjoy the process of operating machinery, even if that brings a risk with it.
Robots are faster at reacting than flesh. It's just a fact,
And robots are also much easier to break or hack than humans, so it's not all positive.
There is no risk-free choice and there never will be. But one will eventually prove itself to be less riskier than the other...
And herein lies the catch.
1. Traveling is not just about safety. People chose to ride motorbikes for example which are far more dangerous than a city bus. Why do you think that is?
2. Averages are never useful in predicting personal choice, because while the average is an improvement for a lot of people, but a step down for others.
To expand on that point, using road safety you can say that the average road death per 100 million miles traveled is one (this is close enough to the actual figure). And a robot car might be able to improve this to 0.5, or even 0.2. But for a lot of people, people who don't speed, drive drunk, use their phone while driving, wear seatbelts, are alert, competent drivers etc, their risk is already 0.1, because of their choices they already make. So a change to 0.5 increases their chances of being killed. It also takes the choice away from them (ie would you prefer the opportunity to save yourself in the event of a likely crash, or are you happy to let the machine decide if you live or die?)
So yes, robot cars have the potential to reduce the average, and I'm sure robot vehicle technology will offer a lot of value (buses, taxis, moving freight for example), but I can't see the enitre population buying into it, the same way the not everyone takes a bus, or chooses an SUV over a less safe sports car or motorbike etc.
Choice is part of the human psyche, it would be foolish to ignore it.
Ok I think Trump is a moron who will probably fuck the country over, but I support the democratic process therefore support him as the elected leader.
One thing I am already sick of is the amount of anti-Trump articles doing the rounds based purely on speculation of what he might do as POTUS. This sort of thing is bearable during an election when everyone is trying to convince others to vote for their person, but its over, he won, let it go.
He should be given the chance to lead and be judged on his actual decisions, not what we think he might do. All this Anti-Trump hysteria is doing is proving Trump right and feeding the monster.
That's not true. But you're demonstrating with this comment that you live in the echo chamber that believes such things.
In my unqualified experience, there's about 20% of extremist nutters on any side of any debate, but these 40% get ALL of the press (as demonstrated by 42% of voters who chose not to participate in this circus). So if you want to find the other 60% of relatively normal people, switch off and get out more. That means no FB, no Twitter, no CNN, No Fox News. Switch it all off.
If you believe in echo chambers then switching off is the only logical path. Recognising an echo chamber but continuing to opt into it takes a special kind of fool.
What's odd about it? I don't have the resources to do this, but it's rather obvious that cheap energy has transformed society over the past few centuries beyond just the lower direct cost of the energy and most of our current technologies and industries came about in the first place because of the low cost of energy.
True, but that's not the question. Today, in 2016, is there more value in pursuing alternative energy sources over retaining purely existing legacy ones?
Similar to the argument from the 1980's of do we spend more money on these new PC things, or stick with our trusty typewriters? Sure PCs cost more, but there might be some additional value going forward that is worth the extra spend now.
You're making an obvious unwarranted assumption. Renewables are getting cheaper, yet somehow switching over to this cheaper renewables infrastructure in the future gets more expensive? That doesn't make sense.
You're right that doesn't make sense, you may need to rephrase your question.
The argument against procrastination is on really weak ground. We should make this expensive switch now even though it would be much cheaper and better justified economically later? Cheaper renewable and more expensive fossil fuels means you might not even have to lift a finger to incentivize the switch.
Someone has to lift a finger. Change doesn't just happen by magic fairies.
The kicker here is that the pro-business, anti-green right wing have shouted loudly how silly this all is. But the new energy market has invested over $2Trillion dollars in the last decade in this industry, and has consistent double digit growth year on year. Even if you hate hippies, and are the greediest free market capitalist, you have to admit that it would be good to get in on this action rather than let the Germans and Chinese take the lion's share of a new booming industry for free?
New Energy is the PC/Internet boom of the 80's and 90's, there are trillions of dollars to be made. You can choose stick with your cheap typewriter, and wait til PCs become cheaper, then maybe one day buy a PC and Apple Mac. Or you can get in early, spend money now, and become the next Microsoft or Apple. The saving millions of lives is just an added bonus.
Just to spell out how wrong you are: the Zimbabwean problems today is a direct consequence of the legacy of colonialism
I think you are missing the point. This has nothing to do with Zimbabwe's problems, it is that the famine in Zimbabwe was made much worse by preventing available food distribution. If all the crops in Canada failed today there would be no famine.
If you think that you either don't know much about the Ethiopian famine or you know very little about the Zimbabwe famine - the two have almost nothing in common.
They have one thing in common which is the topic of this thread. The attempts to prevent wide spread death by starvation were thwarted by deliberate efforts to restrict available food distribution. And your claim is this never happened in Africa which I have proven to be false.
To summarise the original point: We have always had enough food globally at any given time to sufficiently feed everyone on the planet. Starvation is a distribution issue, not a production issue.
So all the fish in all the oceans were all fished out? There has never been more people than food available in the world. Thus, all food issues are one of distribution.
Ah but she may or may not have. You are stating something as a fact when it is not a fact...
The current vote count has her ahead. You don't get much more fact than that dumb ass.
and like I said its a stupid response by leftist idiots. She lost. She lost 'bigely' so get over yourselves and move on.... just like 'you' said the right needed to do for the past 8 years.
Ok so you can't read, you've made that point clear. Go back to Reddit...
You're sitting in half a ton of steel, glass, and liquid explosive, as is everyone around you, and you're all navigating a concrete obstacle course with varying degrees of concentration at speeds you're not evolved to cope with.
OMG I should be afraid! Yet the reality is so much less scary...
True. But just because we've gotten so much safer in most thing, does that mean we should stop and not worry about making things even better?
Of course, but is a robot car "better"? Everyone will have their own opinion of better, mine involves not being part of a software experiment that could kill me.
I also like to have the perception that I have some control of my destiny (even if I don't)
While the former mitigates your risk in all cases, you have less control over the latter in other drivers (or sometimes if you're a passenger, say a child being driven by an adult).
I also have less control of software written by someone I don't know. At least I know another human has a similar interest in self preservation.
If there were more easy ways to avoid having such dangerous drivers at the wheel, it would save lives for OTHER people (passengers, other drivers, pedestrians) who still suffer risk based on OTHER'S behavior.
Maybe. I think the pinch in this argument is that even if robot cars reduce the overall risk, there are many other factors involved
eg. if robot cars work well, why would anyone need to own a car? If you accept that then you open up a Pandora's box of questions about the future of a shared use model. Communism! etc
Again, I completely agree. However, I do think it's worth pointing out that people are scared of all sorts of crap.
Some people also have an unrealistic perception of what is freedom. I don't think these people will buy into the Illuminati controlled robot car concept;)
Actually we still have millions of uncounted votes (that should increase her numbers more as mostly CA) so we do not know what the popular vote is.
I can't find an official source, but googling the vote count, they all say the same thing, Hillary currently has more votes, and is likely to get further ahead.
Nor does it matter.
I say no reasonable because no first world nation nor most of the world does not use a simple plurality for elect thier head of state. You can bitch moan and complain because your chosen one failed to win that does not change the fact she lost.
No-one is bitching or moaning except you. I merely pointed out the Hillary has more votes than Trump, and this seems to have gotten you upset up for some reason?
With autonomous vehicles we can finally make progress in defeating the real enemy of road safety: road users.
This is where we differ in opinion. I don't find road safety an issue. I know how to drive, merely being alert and in a modern vehicle solves 99% of all issues already.
My biggest issue with transport is congestion, which I've already solved by riding a motorbike. Autonomous cars don't solve this since even in a perfectly tuned network there simply isn't enough road for all of us to travel in cars expediently. The only scalable solution in large centres is a combination of trains (which are already automated) and feet/pedal power.
But what I said is true of many farmers in many African countries - while your theory is not true of any of them in any African countries I know about.
You are talking long term sustainability vs short term famine relief. There's plenty of examples of charity aid being actively blocked by malevolent people in power.
Source: I live in Africa, I have lived here for 36 years and have travelled extensively and lived in more than 30 African countries for extended periods.
Then there's the other side of the coin, the number of lives saved by fossil fuels instead of using less efficient, more costly renewable energy exclusively. It's obviously impossible for me to calculate, but 11k deaths is an easy number to beat and I think that happens here.
Impossible to calculate yet you'll happily make a conclusion based on this impossible to know number? That doesn't sound a little odd to you?
A key problem with computing fossil fuel externalities is that people invariably just calculate the negative externalities. But when it comes to something as fundamental as energy infrastructure, there are huge positive externalities to cheap energy which are being ignored. Those not only save lives, but they make every aspect of society cheaper and more efficient.
I don't disagree, but the positive curve is trending down, while new energy is curving up. It's only a matter of time before fossil fuels are obsolete. So the question becomes, do you spend more now to benefit more later, or continue to save now and get screwed over when your investment is no longer viable and you need to pay a lot more to catch up?
There are times when science and technology does not trump politics. Everybody knows Einstein but also Hitler.
Everyone knows what Hitler did, do you think the average man on the street could name anything Einstein did? This audience obviously can, but I don't think Joe Sixpack could come up with anything other than 'maths' or 'physics'.
No any reasonable system uses a majority wins and multiple rounds to get their or instant run off voting.
Is it reasonable because you say so? There are plenty of different voting systems, each with pros and cons, all 'reasonable'. Just because you prefer one over the other doesn't make it more 'reasonable' than the others.
None of this changes the point though, Hillary got the most votes in this election. That is a fact.
Bottom line -- being involved with cars (either as driver, passenger, or as a pedestrian around cars) is basically the MOST dangerous single activity people deliberately choose to do on a regular basis.
Most dangerous is not the same as dangerous. Out of a pillow and a kitten, one of those is most dangerous, but that doesn't make either of them particularly dangerous.
The reason car accidents are leading is because we've made everything else so safe. And even with cars, if you have a modern well maintained vehicle with ABS, airbags, crumple zones, wear seatbelts, don't drive drunk, speed, use you phone while driving, drive fatigued etc, you have next to no chance of being killed in a car accident (seriously look it up, you'll be surprised how many accidents could be avoided with these simple measures).
Before the invention of the car, the average life expectancy was about 40, that's how dangerous everything was only 100 years ago. The world is a much safer place now, even with cars in it.
Things have been getting slightly better in recent years, but if you take overall statistics ranging from the 70s or 80s 'till today, the number is pretty constant.
That's completely wrong. Road deaths have decreased significantly since the 70's. They are 1/3rd what they were in the 70's in my country, just on raw numbers. If you include the number of vehicles and kms traveled, it is much lower again.
I just checked the USA stats and fatalities per vehicle miles traveled is also 1/3 what it was in the 70's.
Is it? I drive a fair bit, and sure it's more risky than lying on your couch, but not by much. I think the word 'danger' gets over-exaggerated these days considering how safe just about everything is relative to even 50 years ago.
Slashdot Mirror
Speaking of choice, nobody "chooses" to save themselves in the event of a crash.
Not after the crash no, but they make choice to avoid crashes, and more importantly we make choices about about how fast we want to go, which lane we want to be in, and where we want to park. A lot of people actually enjoy the process of operating machinery, even if that brings a risk with it.
Robots are faster at reacting than flesh. It's just a fact,
And robots are also much easier to break or hack than humans, so it's not all positive.
There is no risk-free choice and there never will be. But one will eventually prove itself to be less riskier than the other...
And herein lies the catch.
1. Traveling is not just about safety. People chose to ride motorbikes for example which are far more dangerous than a city bus. Why do you think that is?
2. Averages are never useful in predicting personal choice, because while the average is an improvement for a lot of people, but a step down for others.
To expand on that point, using road safety you can say that the average road death per 100 million miles traveled is one (this is close enough to the actual figure). And a robot car might be able to improve this to 0.5, or even 0.2. But for a lot of people, people who don't speed, drive drunk, use their phone while driving, wear seatbelts, are alert, competent drivers etc, their risk is already 0.1, because of their choices they already make. So a change to 0.5 increases their chances of being killed. It also takes the choice away from them (ie would you prefer the opportunity to save yourself in the event of a likely crash, or are you happy to let the machine decide if you live or die?)
So yes, robot cars have the potential to reduce the average, and I'm sure robot vehicle technology will offer a lot of value (buses, taxis, moving freight for example), but I can't see the enitre population buying into it, the same way the not everyone takes a bus, or chooses an SUV over a less safe sports car or motorbike etc.
Choice is part of the human psyche, it would be foolish to ignore it.
Ok I think Trump is a moron who will probably fuck the country over, but I support the democratic process therefore support him as the elected leader.
One thing I am already sick of is the amount of anti-Trump articles doing the rounds based purely on speculation of what he might do as POTUS.
This sort of thing is bearable during an election when everyone is trying to convince others to vote for their person, but its over, he won, let it go.
He should be given the chance to lead and be judged on his actual decisions, not what we think he might do. All this Anti-Trump hysteria is doing is proving Trump right and feeding the monster.
That's not true. But you're demonstrating with this comment that you live in the echo chamber that believes such things.
In my unqualified experience, there's about 20% of extremist nutters on any side of any debate, but these 40% get ALL of the press (as demonstrated by 42% of voters who chose not to participate in this circus). So if you want to find the other 60% of relatively normal people, switch off and get out more. That means no FB, no Twitter, no CNN, No Fox News. Switch it all off.
If you believe in echo chambers then switching off is the only logical path. Recognising an echo chamber but continuing to opt into it takes a special kind of fool.
So you didn't actually read the fucking article.
Of course not. Are you new here?
Uh, no. I do not follow a religion of any kind.
Didn't say you did.
Good try being a dipstick though. A for effort. Good luck with that.
You get an F for comprehension, and another F for originality...
What's odd about it? I don't have the resources to do this, but it's rather obvious that cheap energy has transformed society over the past few centuries beyond just the lower direct cost of the energy and most of our current technologies and industries came about in the first place because of the low cost of energy.
True, but that's not the question. Today, in 2016, is there more value in pursuing alternative energy sources over retaining purely existing legacy ones?
Similar to the argument from the 1980's of do we spend more money on these new PC things, or stick with our trusty typewriters? Sure PCs cost more, but there might be some additional value going forward that is worth the extra spend now.
You're making an obvious unwarranted assumption. Renewables are getting cheaper, yet somehow switching over to this cheaper renewables infrastructure in the future gets more expensive? That doesn't make sense.
You're right that doesn't make sense, you may need to rephrase your question.
The argument against procrastination is on really weak ground. We should make this expensive switch now even though it would be much cheaper and better justified economically later? Cheaper renewable and more expensive fossil fuels means you might not even have to lift a finger to incentivize the switch.
Someone has to lift a finger. Change doesn't just happen by magic fairies.
The kicker here is that the pro-business, anti-green right wing have shouted loudly how silly this all is. But the new energy market has invested over $2Trillion dollars in the last decade in this industry, and has consistent double digit growth year on year. Even if you hate hippies, and are the greediest free market capitalist, you have to admit that it would be good to get in on this action rather than let the Germans and Chinese take the lion's share of a new booming industry for free?
New Energy is the PC/Internet boom of the 80's and 90's, there are trillions of dollars to be made. You can choose stick with your cheap typewriter, and wait til PCs become cheaper, then maybe one day buy a PC and Apple Mac. Or you can get in early, spend money now, and become the next Microsoft or Apple. The saving millions of lives is just an added bonus.
Just to spell out how wrong you are: the Zimbabwean problems today is a direct consequence of the legacy of colonialism
I think you are missing the point. This has nothing to do with Zimbabwe's problems, it is that the famine in Zimbabwe was made much worse by preventing available food distribution. If all the crops in Canada failed today there would be no famine.
If you think that you either don't know much about the Ethiopian famine or you know very little about the Zimbabwe famine - the two have almost nothing in common.
They have one thing in common which is the topic of this thread. The attempts to prevent wide spread death by starvation were thwarted by deliberate efforts to restrict available food distribution. And your claim is this never happened in Africa which I have proven to be false.
To summarise the original point: We have always had enough food globally at any given time to sufficiently feed everyone on the planet. Starvation is a distribution issue, not a production issue.
You shouldn't be afraid. Just pragmatically aware that the abstraction you're sitting in is leaky.
And so is the alternate abstraction in which software decides if I live or die. There is no risk free choice on offer at present.
Mugabe is an exception to the rule - what happened in Zimbabwe hasn't happened anywhere else on the continent.
The Ethiopian famine in the 80's suffered from similar issues. Maybe time to give up the "this never happened in Africa" line...
No, the food production was at the peak capacity.
So all the fish in all the oceans were all fished out? There has never been more people than food available in the world. Thus, all food issues are one of distribution.
Ah but she may or may not have. You are stating something as a fact when it is not a fact...
The current vote count has her ahead. You don't get much more fact than that dumb ass.
and like I said its a stupid response by leftist idiots. She lost. She lost 'bigely' so get over yourselves and move on.... just like 'you' said the right needed to do for the past 8 years.
Ok so you can't read, you've made that point clear. Go back to Reddit...
You're sitting in half a ton of steel, glass, and liquid explosive, as is everyone around you, and you're all navigating a concrete obstacle course with varying degrees of concentration at speeds you're not evolved to cope with.
OMG I should be afraid! Yet the reality is so much less scary...
True. But just because we've gotten so much safer in most thing, does that mean we should stop and not worry about making things even better?
Of course, but is a robot car "better"? Everyone will have their own opinion of better, mine involves not being part of a software experiment that could kill me.
I also like to have the perception that I have some control of my destiny (even if I don't)
While the former mitigates your risk in all cases, you have less control over the latter in other drivers (or sometimes if you're a passenger, say a child being driven by an adult).
I also have less control of software written by someone I don't know. At least I know another human has a similar interest in self preservation.
If there were more easy ways to avoid having such dangerous drivers at the wheel, it would save lives for OTHER people (passengers, other drivers, pedestrians) who still suffer risk based on OTHER'S behavior.
Maybe. I think the pinch in this argument is that even if robot cars reduce the overall risk, there are many other factors involved
eg. if robot cars work well, why would anyone need to own a car? If you accept that then you open up a Pandora's box of questions about the future of a shared use model. Communism! etc
Again, I completely agree. However, I do think it's worth pointing out that people are scared of all sorts of crap.
Some people also have an unrealistic perception of what is freedom. I don't think these people will buy into the Illuminati controlled robot car concept ;)
Actually we still have millions of uncounted votes (that should increase her numbers more as mostly CA) so we do not know what the popular vote is.
I can't find an official source, but googling the vote count, they all say the same thing, Hillary currently has more votes, and is likely to get further ahead.
Nor does it matter.
I say no reasonable because no first world nation nor most of the world does not use a simple plurality for elect thier head of state. You can bitch moan and complain because your chosen one failed to win that does not change the fact she lost.
No-one is bitching or moaning except you. I merely pointed out the Hillary has more votes than Trump, and this seems to have gotten you upset up for some reason?
With autonomous vehicles we can finally make progress in defeating the real enemy of road safety: road users.
This is where we differ in opinion. I don't find road safety an issue. I know how to drive, merely being alert and in a modern vehicle solves 99% of all issues already.
My biggest issue with transport is congestion, which I've already solved by riding a motorbike. Autonomous cars don't solve this since even in a perfectly tuned network there simply isn't enough road for all of us to travel in cars expediently. The only scalable solution in large centres is a combination of trains (which are already automated) and feet/pedal power.
But what I said is true of many farmers in many African countries - while your theory is not true of any of them in any African countries I know about.
You are talking long term sustainability vs short term famine relief. There's plenty of examples of charity aid being actively blocked by malevolent people in power.
Source: I live in Africa, I have lived here for 36 years and have travelled extensively and lived in more than 30 African countries for extended periods.
Yet never heard of Robert Mugabe? Odd...
Then there's the other side of the coin, the number of lives saved by fossil fuels instead of using less efficient, more costly renewable energy exclusively. It's obviously impossible for me to calculate, but 11k deaths is an easy number to beat and I think that happens here.
Impossible to calculate yet you'll happily make a conclusion based on this impossible to know number? That doesn't sound a little odd to you?
A key problem with computing fossil fuel externalities is that people invariably just calculate the negative externalities. But when it comes to something as fundamental as energy infrastructure, there are huge positive externalities to cheap energy which are being ignored. Those not only save lives, but they make every aspect of society cheaper and more efficient.
I don't disagree, but the positive curve is trending down, while new energy is curving up. It's only a matter of time before fossil fuels are obsolete. So the question becomes, do you spend more now to benefit more later, or continue to save now and get screwed over when your investment is no longer viable and you need to pay a lot more to catch up?
There are times when science and technology does not trump politics. Everybody knows Einstein but also Hitler.
Everyone knows what Hitler did, do you think the average man on the street could name anything Einstein did? This audience obviously can, but I don't think Joe Sixpack could come up with anything other than 'maths' or 'physics'.
No any reasonable system uses a majority wins and multiple rounds to get their or instant run off voting.
Is it reasonable because you say so? There are plenty of different voting systems, each with pros and cons, all 'reasonable'. Just because you prefer one over the other doesn't make it more 'reasonable' than the others.
None of this changes the point though, Hillary got the most votes in this election. That is a fact.
Bottom line -- being involved with cars (either as driver, passenger, or as a pedestrian around cars) is basically the MOST dangerous single activity people deliberately choose to do on a regular basis.
Most dangerous is not the same as dangerous. Out of a pillow and a kitten, one of those is most dangerous, but that doesn't make either of them particularly dangerous.
The reason car accidents are leading is because we've made everything else so safe. And even with cars, if you have a modern well maintained vehicle with ABS, airbags, crumple zones, wear seatbelts, don't drive drunk, speed, use you phone while driving, drive fatigued etc, you have next to no chance of being killed in a car accident (seriously look it up, you'll be surprised how many accidents could be avoided with these simple measures).
Before the invention of the car, the average life expectancy was about 40, that's how dangerous everything was only 100 years ago. The world is a much safer place now, even with cars in it.
However, a number of other owners have told me that AP save them from crashes.
So prior to owning a Telsa, these same people were crashing all the time?
Things have been getting slightly better in recent years, but if you take overall statistics ranging from the 70s or 80s 'till today, the number is pretty constant.
That's completely wrong. Road deaths have decreased significantly since the 70's. They are 1/3rd what they were in the 70's in my country, just on raw numbers. If you include the number of vehicles and kms traveled, it is much lower again. I just checked the USA stats and fatalities per vehicle miles traveled is also 1/3 what it was in the 70's.
Driving is dangerous,
Is it? I drive a fair bit, and sure it's more risky than lying on your couch, but not by much. I think the word 'danger' gets over-exaggerated these days considering how safe just about everything is relative to even 50 years ago.