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I'd be more amenable to this argument if motorcycles etc were products that stopped production years ago, and we were left with a handful of privately maintaine

by Sodman 6y ago

I'd be more amenable to this argument if motorcycles etc were products that stopped production years ago, and we were left with a handful of privately maintained vehicles. The reality is though that you can still buy a brand new Harley today, for a relatively affordable price (starting at ~$7.5k). To be clear - I'm not saying we should outlaw motorcycles entirely... my point is that since I can buy a brand new loud motorcycle for funsies, neighbors noise complaints be damned, I should also be able to buy and operate a drone too. I'm all for new noise restrictions, but they should apply to everything. I don't know if I can put much stock in the frequency argument either... If you live in a neighborhood and 3 guys with motorcycles move in, you'll be hearing them very regularly. Drones aren't going to come any more often than delivery trucks do today, and they're certainly loud enough to be heard, not even counting the extra wear on the local roads, and increased pedestrian danger.

robbrown451 6y ago
"they should apply to everything." Well that seems based purely on consistency, and I just disagree with that. I'm all for outlawing (or heavily taxing) newly produced, loud motorcycles, but it's not a hill I want to die on. Internal combustion is a fading technology anyway. Remember that internal combustion replaced horses, which at one time covered city streets in massive amounts of manure. As new transportation technology arrived, should we have just said "anything that is equal or better than tons of horse crap is A-ok"? Or should we hold new technology to higher standards, while letting the annoying old stuff fade away on its own? "Drones aren't going to come any more often than delivery trucks do today" I find that an odd assumption. If the cost gets low enough, as it will, you'll have people ordering drone-delivered trivially small purchases that they want delivered immediately, such as cups of coffee. Meanwhile, the frequency of loud motorcycles will get less and less, as electric vehicles become more common over the next few decades. If it were up to me, drone deliveries would just have to pay an annoyance tax, to compensate. This would create an economic incentive to develop other alternatives, such as robotic deliveries that roll on the ground.... which to me makes far more sense anyway, since they aren't spending most of their energy simply keeping themselves airborne as drones do.
- Sodman 6y ago
  ICE powered regular passenger cars are going to die off sooner or later sure, but I don't think motorcycles are going away in our lifetimes without some heavy regulations. My gut says an annoyance fee makes sense, but I think we need to be careful... Maybe it's only something you enforce after you hit a threshold of deliveries per day/week or something? Today I can place a single amazon order for multiple small items (think batteries, toilet roll, etc), and there's a decent chance they'll all come on separate trucks, maybe even from different mail carriers. That doesn't feel much different? I can't think of too much more beyond a fresh cup of coffee that a drone could deliver that you can't already get today with services like UberEats et al. Should my neighbors pay an annoyance fee when they order pizza and the 18 year old delivery guy swings by with his radio on full blast? I'd love if the answer was yes, but that doesn't feel realistic. Re: holding new technology to a higher standard... Sure, but we have to make sure not to disadvantage the new tech so much as to completely prevent adoption. If it costs $50 to get some batteries delivered in the next hour via drone vs $0 on an old ice-powered truck in the next day, we'll never move on. Even if we electrify the delivery trucks, they still cause significant wear and tear on local roads, and still pose a hazard to pedestrians (especially kids playing in otherwise quiet residential streets). We should be incentivizing companies and consumers to move away from this as fast as possible in my opinion. Make triple-glazed windows cheaper, invest in quieter drone motor tech, whatever it takes. If we regulated car emissions in the early days like we do today, we might still all be on horses...

by Sodman 6y ago

robbrown451 6y ago

"they should apply to everything." Well that seems based purely on consistency, and I just disagree with that. I'm all for outlawing (or heavily taxing) newly produced, loud motorcycles, but it's not a hill I want to die on. Internal combustion is a fading technology anyway. Remember that internal combustion replaced horses, which at one time covered city streets in massive amounts of manure. As new transportation technology arrived, should we have just said "anything that is equal or better than tons of horse crap is A-ok"? Or should we hold new technology to higher standards, while letting the annoying old stuff fade away on its own? "Drones aren't going to come any more often than delivery trucks do today" I find that an odd assumption. If the cost gets low enough, as it will, you'll have people ordering drone-delivered trivially small purchases that they want delivered immediately, such as cups of coffee. Meanwhile, the frequency of loud motorcycles will get less and less, as electric vehicles become more common over the next few decades. If it were up to me, drone deliveries would just have to pay an annoyance tax, to compensate. This would create an economic incentive to develop other alternatives, such as robotic deliveries that roll on the ground.... which to me makes far more sense anyway, since they aren't spending most of their energy simply keeping themselves airborne as drones do.

Sodman 6y ago
ICE powered regular passenger cars are going to die off sooner or later sure, but I don't think motorcycles are going away in our lifetimes without some heavy regulations. My gut says an annoyance fee makes sense, but I think we need to be careful... Maybe it's only something you enforce after you hit a threshold of deliveries per day/week or something? Today I can place a single amazon order for multiple small items (think batteries, toilet roll, etc), and there's a decent chance they'll all come on separate trucks, maybe even from different mail carriers. That doesn't feel much different? I can't think of too much more beyond a fresh cup of coffee that a drone could deliver that you can't already get today with services like UberEats et al. Should my neighbors pay an annoyance fee when they order pizza and the 18 year old delivery guy swings by with his radio on full blast? I'd love if the answer was yes, but that doesn't feel realistic. Re: holding new technology to a higher standard... Sure, but we have to make sure not to disadvantage the new tech so much as to completely prevent adoption. If it costs $50 to get some batteries delivered in the next hour via drone vs $0 on an old ice-powered truck in the next day, we'll never move on. Even if we electrify the delivery trucks, they still cause significant wear and tear on local roads, and still pose a hazard to pedestrians (especially kids playing in otherwise quiet residential streets). We should be incentivizing companies and consumers to move away from this as fast as possible in my opinion. Make triple-glazed windows cheaper, invest in quieter drone motor tech, whatever it takes. If we regulated car emissions in the early days like we do today, we might still all be on horses...