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See, what I hear you saying is "Other people will needlessly die, but their sacrifice is a chance I am willing to take". The public takes risks every day, but

by gascan 8y ago

See, what I hear you saying is "Other people will needlessly die, but their sacrifice is a chance I am willing to take". The public takes risks every day, but it rarely gives companies a free pass to move fast and kill people.

zaroth 8y ago
I am saying we all go out into a chaotic world every day and face technology which companies have put into the world for their own profit-seeking motive which is just as likely (if not significantly more-so) to kill us as a self driving car. This has nothing to do with sacrafice. The government necessarily makes life and death trade-offs in setting regulatory hurdles. It’s entirely unconvincing to argue that the beta driver assistance and beta self-driving technology should be banned from roads because it can’t guarantee someone won’t die. Because in fact automobiles are killing over a million people per year. Self driving automobiles are responsible for exactly 1 of those 1.25 million deaths, and driver assistance technology have contributed to about a dozen more. What is indisputably moving fast and killing people are... people driving cars. The singular solution to this ongoing bloodbath may be only a few years away. But you seem to want millions of people to continue dying because of a misappropriated Facebook slogan? I’m not a big fan of populist outrage in the best of times, but when it seeks to perpetuate the status quo of 1.25 million annual auto fatalities I think we owe it to ourselves to elevate the discussion to the point where you are actually considering the implication of your proposed solution. Every year you shift the self-driving adoption curve you are killing hundreds of thousands of people. But in the real world today this technology could arguably share the blame for about dozen deaths. Should the government ban the technology from public roads and force companies like Tesla to recall their existing functionality? There’s a hysterical appeal to emotion be made, but nothing close to a cogent logical argument. If anything, government should be pushing self-driving requirements harder than carbon limits. Instead of municipalities claiming they are going to be banning gas engines by 2030 they should be claiming they will ban steering wheels. The steering wheel is far, far deadlier.
- Semirhage 8y ago
  I am saying we all go out into a chaotic world every day and face technology which companies have put into the world for their own profit-seeking motive which is just as likely (if not significantly more-so) to kill us as a self driving car. Whataboutism is a shitty argument, although it almost pales next to the other fallacies you engage in later in your post. The whole thing is a dishonest deflection of strawman arguments, false dichotomies, and more. Do you have a financial stake in this, or is it just an ideological position?
  - zaroth 8y ago
    That’s not whataboutism - I’m saying it’s the job of elected government to make exactly these determinations even when actual lives hang in the balance, and in fact many thousands of regulations make these sorts of risk/reward trade offs in all sorts of ways in our daily lives. Most of them are in fact significantly more risky than allowing self-driving cars on the road in return for significantly less potential reward. My point is primarily that the claim like “I didn’t consent to share the road with this nascent technology” — as if that means the technology should not be allowed — is not actually how our society functions. We don’t actually get to veto technology that minutely increases our risk of injury when we venture out in the world. I’m surprised to see your ad hominem attacks and accusation of shilling. You’re relatively new here so please allow me point out that kind of response is against HN guidelines.
    - Semirhage 8y ago
      Shilling is a very different thing from just being biased because of a personal stake in something. Shilling is dishonesty, bias is just human. I know you’re not shilling, I’m asking if you might be biased due to a personal stake, or ideology. Are you?
      - zaroth 8y ago
        > Shilling is dishonesty, bias is just human. I know you’re not shilling... But in fact your previous post asserted; >> The whole thing is a dishonest deflection... It seems like you’re trying to walk back your previous statement without apology or actually turning away from continued ad hominem attacks.

by gascan 8y ago

zaroth 8y ago

I am saying we all go out into a chaotic world every day and face technology which companies have put into the world for their own profit-seeking motive which is just as likely (if not significantly more-so) to kill us as a self driving car. This has nothing to do with sacrafice. The government necessarily makes life and death trade-offs in setting regulatory hurdles. It’s entirely unconvincing to argue that the beta driver assistance and beta self-driving technology should be banned from roads because it can’t guarantee someone won’t die. Because in fact automobiles are killing over a million people per year. Self driving automobiles are responsible for exactly 1 of those 1.25 million deaths, and driver assistance technology have contributed to about a dozen more. What is indisputably moving fast and killing people are... people driving cars. The singular solution to this ongoing bloodbath may be only a few years away. But you seem to want millions of people to continue dying because of a misappropriated Facebook slogan? I’m not a big fan of populist outrage in the best of times, but when it seeks to perpetuate the status quo of 1.25 million annual auto fatalities I think we owe it to ourselves to elevate the discussion to the point where you are actually considering the implication of your proposed solution. Every year you shift the self-driving adoption curve you are killing hundreds of thousands of people. But in the real world today this technology could arguably share the blame for about dozen deaths. Should the government ban the technology from public roads and force companies like Tesla to recall their existing functionality? There’s a hysterical appeal to emotion be made, but nothing close to a cogent logical argument. If anything, government should be pushing self-driving requirements harder than carbon limits. Instead of municipalities claiming they are going to be banning gas engines by 2030 they should be claiming they will ban steering wheels. The steering wheel is far, far deadlier.

Semirhage 8y ago
I am saying we all go out into a chaotic world every day and face technology which companies have put into the world for their own profit-seeking motive which is just as likely (if not significantly more-so) to kill us as a self driving car. Whataboutism is a shitty argument, although it almost pales next to the other fallacies you engage in later in your post. The whole thing is a dishonest deflection of strawman arguments, false dichotomies, and more. Do you have a financial stake in this, or is it just an ideological position?
- zaroth 8y ago
  That’s not whataboutism - I’m saying it’s the job of elected government to make exactly these determinations even when actual lives hang in the balance, and in fact many thousands of regulations make these sorts of risk/reward trade offs in all sorts of ways in our daily lives. Most of them are in fact significantly more risky than allowing self-driving cars on the road in return for significantly less potential reward. My point is primarily that the claim like “I didn’t consent to share the road with this nascent technology” — as if that means the technology should not be allowed — is not actually how our society functions. We don’t actually get to veto technology that minutely increases our risk of injury when we venture out in the world. I’m surprised to see your ad hominem attacks and accusation of shilling. You’re relatively new here so please allow me point out that kind of response is against HN guidelines.
  - Semirhage 8y ago
    Shilling is a very different thing from just being biased because of a personal stake in something. Shilling is dishonesty, bias is just human. I know you’re not shilling, I’m asking if you might be biased due to a personal stake, or ideology. Are you?
    - zaroth 8y ago
      > Shilling is dishonesty, bias is just human. I know you’re not shilling... But in fact your previous post asserted; >> The whole thing is a dishonest deflection... It seems like you’re trying to walk back your previous statement without apology or actually turning away from continued ad hominem attacks.