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Most do. These days, most building codes are international and places like Turkey (where I lived up until very recently) now have earthquake codes on par with C

Most do. These days, most building codes are international and places like Turkey (where I lived up until very recently) now have earthquake codes on par with California due to recent experience with a devastating quake (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_İzmit_earthquake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_İzmit_earthquake). Granted, enforcement may not be on par with the US, but that's more a question of corruption as a general problem, not limited or specific to safety. That said, Turkey has a stupidly high traffic accident death rate. So, yes, as the 19th biggest economy in the world, with 70+ million people, I think heavily subsidizing AI cars would definitely be in the country's best interest (and well within its means...Turkey already has at least one world-famous robotics laboratory). I'd wager economies number 20-50 are probably in similar situations. Yes, truly impoverished nations and regions of nations likely have more important things to worry about, but I'd still wager at least ⅕ the world's population falls into the "can't afford AI cars individually, but would benefit from gov't subsidization of such".

et-al 10y ago
We're drifting a bit, but perhaps our differences are due to the definition of a developing country. Another commenter mentioned countries where a significant portion of its citizens don't have basic sanitary conditions, and that's what I'm picture. And in the case of Turkey, I wouldn't call it a developing country using this definition. > I'd still wager at least ⅕ the world's population falls into the "can't afford AI cars individually, but would benefit from gov't subsidization of such" Agreed.
- jballanc 10y ago
  > And in the case of Turkey, I wouldn't call it a developing country using this definition. Yes, off topic, but I could've sworn that "developing" was the term used. Apparently, according to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country): > In the 2016 edition of its World Development Indicators, the World Bank made a decision that there is no longer distinguished between “developed” countries and “developing” in the presentation of its data. Nobody has ever agreed on a definition for these terms in the first place. So much for the vagaries of human language! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - et-al 10y ago
    Ha, yup. Going back to Turkey, I really enjoyed my time there and it didn't fit into the developing country stereotype since the middle class seemed to be doing alright and there were plenty of outdoor leisure activities (my personal marker of how "developed" a country is). If the political situation was better, I wouldn't mind living there at all.

et-al 10y ago

We're drifting a bit, but perhaps our differences are due to the definition of a developing country. Another commenter mentioned countries where a significant portion of its citizens don't have basic sanitary conditions, and that's what I'm picture. And in the case of Turkey, I wouldn't call it a developing country using this definition. > I'd still wager at least ⅕ the world's population falls into the "can't afford AI cars individually, but would benefit from gov't subsidization of such" Agreed.

jballanc 10y ago
> And in the case of Turkey, I wouldn't call it a developing country using this definition. Yes, off topic, but I could've sworn that "developing" was the term used. Apparently, according to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country): > In the 2016 edition of its World Development Indicators, the World Bank made a decision that there is no longer distinguished between “developed” countries and “developing” in the presentation of its data. Nobody has ever agreed on a definition for these terms in the first place. So much for the vagaries of human language! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- et-al 10y ago
  Ha, yup. Going back to Turkey, I really enjoyed my time there and it didn't fit into the developing country stereotype since the middle class seemed to be doing alright and there were plenty of outdoor leisure activities (my personal marker of how "developed" a country is). If the political situation was better, I wouldn't mind living there at all.