4 ms·

Broad public benefit is not the same as optimal traffic utilization. There's more to life than what can be quantified / sold / made to go faster. I think this g

Broad public benefit is not the same as optimal traffic utilization. There's more to life than what can be quantified / sold / made to go faster. I think this goes to the heart of the idea of what humans are for. People in the tech world tend to think humans are machines in a cosmic factory used to maximize economic output.

threatofrain 10y ago
He did not even slightly mention the frame of optimal traffic distribution. He's talking about whether roads belong to homeowners. Optimal traffic is your frame of discussion, and then you go off talking about how tech people model human systems as factories. It is worth framing this homeowners Waze sabotage as a NIMBY problem, because if the cars aren't being routed through their neighborhood, then it's being routed through someone else's neighborhood. The consequence of unequal distribution of traffic burden means that some people shoulder more burden because they lost in some conflict or competition, whether that's the war of politics or not having enough money or whatever. There should at least be the empty-handed gesture of discussing why other (poor) people should shoulder disproportionate burden. If people aren't discussing a substantial global reduction in vehicles, a revolutionary new transportation method without the same issues, or a decline in US population that outpaces growth, then they're talking in code about pushing the problem to somebody else.
- nickbauman 10y ago
  I think it's an solid albeit tacit frame: "broad" and "traffic" is the key terms here. You're either on the side of a street being most useful for the people directly connected to it (residents) or you're on the side of people far away who need to get somewhere else (commuters, et al). This is a case where "compromise" means both people don't get anything like what they want. And what brought us here? Treating people as abstractions. Something we in the tech industry do all too much. Myself included.

threatofrain 10y ago

He did not even slightly mention the frame of optimal traffic distribution. He's talking about whether roads belong to homeowners. Optimal traffic is your frame of discussion, and then you go off talking about how tech people model human systems as factories. It is worth framing this homeowners Waze sabotage as a NIMBY problem, because if the cars aren't being routed through their neighborhood, then it's being routed through someone else's neighborhood. The consequence of unequal distribution of traffic burden means that some people shoulder more burden because they lost in some conflict or competition, whether that's the war of politics or not having enough money or whatever. There should at least be the empty-handed gesture of discussing why other (poor) people should shoulder disproportionate burden. If people aren't discussing a substantial global reduction in vehicles, a revolutionary new transportation method without the same issues, or a decline in US population that outpaces growth, then they're talking in code about pushing the problem to somebody else.

nickbauman 10y ago
I think it's an solid albeit tacit frame: "broad" and "traffic" is the key terms here. You're either on the side of a street being most useful for the people directly connected to it (residents) or you're on the side of people far away who need to get somewhere else (commuters, et al). This is a case where "compromise" means both people don't get anything like what they want. And what brought us here? Treating people as abstractions. Something we in the tech industry do all too much. Myself included.