4 ms·

I find it shocking that something as simple as personal belongings would be a "lock in" to existing technology. It's like saying "I prefer my horse, I can feed

by criley2 10y ago

I find it shocking that something as simple as personal belongings would be a "lock in" to existing technology. It's like saying "I prefer my horse, I can feed it grass off the side of the road, but you have to find some fancy petro-chemical station for your auto-mobile? Insane! My gas grows next to the road!" I get it, but try to put yourself in the place of someone younger who doesn't make decisions like "I would never replace my car because I keep spare diapers there!" >If "mobility" were so desirable, ZipCar would have taken off 10 years ago. The "mobility" market will be about the size of the taxi, bus, and train market. This is very Bill Gates "no one would ever need more than ..." argument. Come on!! ZipCar has literally nothing on the future of mobility. You (and many people your age, conditioned from birth to place massive value on personal car ownership) may never move past that paradigm. You might go to your grave in 50 years a proud owner of a vehicle in an era where almost no one owns. I think, instead of sagely predicting failure, maybe try creativity, use that entrepreneurial mindset to solve future challenges. You want to keep spare diapers nearby? Why not have a secure storage module in the vehicle, lets say the trunk can be split into 2 or 4 secure storage modules. You order an autonomous electric vehicle to your location, ETA 5 minutes. You hit the "bring my secure storage container to my location" option, restricting the available pool of cars to meet your need to those close to your container, at a small additional fee. Boom, the "insolvable" problem of personal storage in a vehicle is solved by commoditizing the storage and use the AI vehicle to transport it where you need. I'm sure you could come up with a better solution if you tried.

username223 10y ago
It's not "personal belongings," it's "personal space." Hot-sheeting happens where sleeping space is extremely limited, like oil drilling camps, but it hasn't taken off among the general population, despite the fact that you only use your bed for around 1/3 of the day. People are willing to pay for their own beds and, frequently, their own apartments or houses, despite the fact that most of that space goes unused most of the time for someone with normal work and sleep schedules. Do you AirBnB your bed (at hourly rates)? Do you AirPantsAndT your clothes? Most people don't. I doubt I'll last another 50 years, but I'll probably live long enough to see the end of the current robot taxi fad.
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- criley2 10y ago
  Conflating a home and a car is a bad argument. Homes have been required for hundreds of thousands of years. Shelter has been a human need since before humanity. Cars have not been. The earliest proto-human sought shelter from a storm. They did not seek personalized shelter during transportation. I don't like the argument at all, and I think it's a cop out, a slippery slope argument. >Do you AirBnB your bed (at hourly rates)? Do you AirPantsAndT your clothes? Most people don't. This is just a very feeble slippery slope that ignores the very real differences. Yes, clothing and shelter have been humans needs for far longer than civilization itself. Can you say the same for micro-space in a personal transport? Were humans owning personal space inside of pack animals 10,000 years ago? It's a bad argument. There's no slippery slope here. Homes and clothes are fundamentally different than cars. You cannot live a civilized life without a home and clothes. You can live a civilized modern life without a car. Obviously we approach higher order needs differently than lower order.
  - clock_tower 10y ago
    > Conflating a home and a car is a bad argument. Homes have been required for hundreds of thousands of years. Shelter has been a human need since before humanity. > Cars have not been. The earliest proto-human sought shelter from a storm. They did not seek personalized shelter during transportation. Are you familiar with New World Economics' discussion of "really narrow streets"? One thing the author points out (in "Let's Take a Trip to an American Village") is that even in the 19th century, the US was very interested in what he calls "My Personal Means of Transportation" -- the fashionable thing to do was to have a carriage house, no matter how little you actually needed a carriage. I think you see less of this pattern elsewhere in the world (or else you just see less wealth; consider how "pedestrian" seldom has positive connotations and "equestrian" never has negative ones), but there's definitely an enthusiasm for personal transport in the US.
  - tomc1985 10y ago
    > Conflating a home and a car is a bad argument. Homes have been required for hundreds of thousands of years. Shelter has been a human need since before humanity. The need for transportation is just as ancient as the need for shelter. Before cars, it was a horse, or camel, or a chariot, or something else on wheels. I think you underestimate the strength of car culture, and the value people place in personal space (at least in the US). And as with so many things, why can't these unnecessarily-competing worlds coexist? There are millions of overly confident entrepreneurs rationalizing millions of wacky, over-engineered money-grabs and only a few of those ideas have strength to be so culturally and socially transformative as the world you describe. Is the end of car ownership one of those lofty ideas? I am not so sure. Edit: and on a more personal level, I see ideas like that -- the end of ownership, whether it be cars, software, or land -- as an attack on individual ownership, so that moneyed interests can instead own everything and lease it to the peasants at their leisure (and profit). The world needs the opposite: to make ownership easier and less costly, and to restore the the increasingly-stratospheric costs of everything* down to levels that put ownership within reach of the common man. Not owning cars is just another step towards feudalism. * As for how, there could be much to gain simply by analyzing the cost structure of stuff and stripping out unnecessary middlemen, expenses, and materials. Adopting a more restrained form of capitalism, like what one sees in tight-knit economic communities or in idealized small-business environments, could perhaps foster a business culture centered around balancing customer, employee, and shareholder value. The current system of only maximizing shareholder value creates much of the turmoil, unnecessary innovation, and naked profiteering we see today.
Judgmentality 10y ago
Some people just like owning cars. I live in San Francisco and don't currently own a car, but I want one. Perfect example where Uber fails - I can't take my dog anywhere. Different people have different values. Also I'm quite young, so I don't think age is a strict delineation.
- criley2 10y ago
  "Some people just like owning cars." Yes I did point out that most Americans and many people are conditioned from birth to value car ownership, even when it's a poor financial decision. "Perfect example where Uber fails - I can't take my dog anywhere As I told the other guy: Stop predicting failure based on problems, put on your creator and builder hat, and solve the problem. Why not have pet friendly vehicles available at a small charge, guaranteed clean? It bothers me that these problems are so easy to solve and yet people are so willing to write off a future possible technology without so much as thinking through any of the solutions.
  - Judgmentality 10y ago
    You seem very defensive. I was just pointing out that I don't own a car and live in the epicenter of the ride-sharing revolution, and I'd much rather go back to owning a car. Regarding the dog, I'm just pointing out something that currently doesn't work for me. Until they fix it I don't care - right now their solution does not help me and nobody has done anything to address it. My point is simple. Right now owning a car is better than not owning a car for me. Until that changes I will want to own a car. If you don't want to own a car then good for you - different people have different desires.
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  - emodendroket 10y ago
    If it's so easy to solve why don't you share the solution?

by criley2 10y ago

username223 10y ago

It's not "personal belongings," it's "personal space." Hot-sheeting happens where sleeping space is extremely limited, like oil drilling camps, but it hasn't taken off among the general population, despite the fact that you only use your bed for around 1/3 of the day. People are willing to pay for their own beds and, frequently, their own apartments or houses, despite the fact that most of that space goes unused most of the time for someone with normal work and sleep schedules. Do you AirBnB your bed (at hourly rates)? Do you AirPantsAndT your clothes? Most people don't. I doubt I'll last another 50 years, but I'll probably live long enough to see the end of the current robot taxi fad.

deleted 10y ago
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criley2 10y ago
Conflating a home and a car is a bad argument. Homes have been required for hundreds of thousands of years. Shelter has been a human need since before humanity. Cars have not been. The earliest proto-human sought shelter from a storm. They did not seek personalized shelter during transportation. I don't like the argument at all, and I think it's a cop out, a slippery slope argument. >Do you AirBnB your bed (at hourly rates)? Do you AirPantsAndT your clothes? Most people don't. This is just a very feeble slippery slope that ignores the very real differences. Yes, clothing and shelter have been humans needs for far longer than civilization itself. Can you say the same for micro-space in a personal transport? Were humans owning personal space inside of pack animals 10,000 years ago? It's a bad argument. There's no slippery slope here. Homes and clothes are fundamentally different than cars. You cannot live a civilized life without a home and clothes. You can live a civilized modern life without a car. Obviously we approach higher order needs differently than lower order.
- clock_tower 10y ago
  > Conflating a home and a car is a bad argument. Homes have been required for hundreds of thousands of years. Shelter has been a human need since before humanity. > Cars have not been. The earliest proto-human sought shelter from a storm. They did not seek personalized shelter during transportation. Are you familiar with New World Economics' discussion of "really narrow streets"? One thing the author points out (in "Let's Take a Trip to an American Village") is that even in the 19th century, the US was very interested in what he calls "My Personal Means of Transportation" -- the fashionable thing to do was to have a carriage house, no matter how little you actually needed a carriage. I think you see less of this pattern elsewhere in the world (or else you just see less wealth; consider how "pedestrian" seldom has positive connotations and "equestrian" never has negative ones), but there's definitely an enthusiasm for personal transport in the US.
- tomc1985 10y ago
  > Conflating a home and a car is a bad argument. Homes have been required for hundreds of thousands of years. Shelter has been a human need since before humanity. The need for transportation is just as ancient as the need for shelter. Before cars, it was a horse, or camel, or a chariot, or something else on wheels. I think you underestimate the strength of car culture, and the value people place in personal space (at least in the US). And as with so many things, why can't these unnecessarily-competing worlds coexist? There are millions of overly confident entrepreneurs rationalizing millions of wacky, over-engineered money-grabs and only a few of those ideas have strength to be so culturally and socially transformative as the world you describe. Is the end of car ownership one of those lofty ideas? I am not so sure. Edit: and on a more personal level, I see ideas like that -- the end of ownership, whether it be cars, software, or land -- as an attack on individual ownership, so that moneyed interests can instead own everything and lease it to the peasants at their leisure (and profit). The world needs the opposite: to make ownership easier and less costly, and to restore the the increasingly-stratospheric costs of everything* down to levels that put ownership within reach of the common man. Not owning cars is just another step towards feudalism. * As for how, there could be much to gain simply by analyzing the cost structure of stuff and stripping out unnecessary middlemen, expenses, and materials. Adopting a more restrained form of capitalism, like what one sees in tight-knit economic communities or in idealized small-business environments, could perhaps foster a business culture centered around balancing customer, employee, and shareholder value. The current system of only maximizing shareholder value creates much of the turmoil, unnecessary innovation, and naked profiteering we see today.

Judgmentality 10y ago

Some people just like owning cars. I live in San Francisco and don't currently own a car, but I want one. Perfect example where Uber fails - I can't take my dog anywhere. Different people have different values. Also I'm quite young, so I don't think age is a strict delineation.

criley2 10y ago
"Some people just like owning cars." Yes I did point out that most Americans and many people are conditioned from birth to value car ownership, even when it's a poor financial decision. "Perfect example where Uber fails - I can't take my dog anywhere As I told the other guy: Stop predicting failure based on problems, put on your creator and builder hat, and solve the problem. Why not have pet friendly vehicles available at a small charge, guaranteed clean? It bothers me that these problems are so easy to solve and yet people are so willing to write off a future possible technology without so much as thinking through any of the solutions.
- Judgmentality 10y ago
  You seem very defensive. I was just pointing out that I don't own a car and live in the epicenter of the ride-sharing revolution, and I'd much rather go back to owning a car. Regarding the dog, I'm just pointing out something that currently doesn't work for me. Until they fix it I don't care - right now their solution does not help me and nobody has done anything to address it. My point is simple. Right now owning a car is better than not owning a car for me. Until that changes I will want to own a car. If you don't want to own a car then good for you - different people have different desires.
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- emodendroket 10y ago
  If it's so easy to solve why don't you share the solution?