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This is a great example of why I figured Google Maps for navigation. I don't use Maps to express my environmental values, I use it to get from A to B the fastes

This is a great example of why I figured Google Maps for navigation. I don't use Maps to express my environmental values, I use it to get from A to B the fastest way. If they default to something else, they are actively getting in the way of why I would use their product. I have no interest in activist software.

prewett 6y ago
Wow, I'm impressed, I've never been downvoted to -4 before. I wouldn't have expected that this would be the post to get that, though.
dataflow 6y ago
Do you believe humans are causing climate change? If so, how do you envision it should be addressed that doesn't involve us changing our habits?
- datavirtue 6y ago
  Quit eating factory beef.
- doubleunplussed 6y ago
  A carbon tax. If addressing climate change relies on people changing habits against their selfish interests, then we are doomed. The externality should be internalised with a carbon tax. It's the simple, most obvious solution and it will cause selfish interest and ethical choices to align when it comes to carbon emission.
  - devmunchies 6y ago
    I prefer a "green credit" to a "carbon tax". A tax will always be passed on to the consumer, even if the govt taxes Ford, it will just make the car more expensive. Using game theory, a question could be "how do we get Ford to make more electric cars, improve efficiency of electric car production, and incentivize them to advertise electric cars?" My take is that businesses drive change, not consumers. On the whole, consumers are told what they want.
    - TheSmiddy 6y ago
      When the carbon tax* was introduced in Australia our tax free threshold was increased from $6k to $18k which more than covered the increase in costs caused by the tax. *This has since been repealed, a decision I strongly disagree with.
      - anchpop 6y ago
        I believe canada proposed doing it by taking all the money collected through the carbon tax and giving it equally to all Canadian citizens. This would mean everyone gets back the amount that the average person paid, making it so the average person sees no change in their level of taxation. (It also has the effect of turning it into a highly progressive tax)
    - hntrader 6y ago
      Of course it makes the ICE car more expensive (when including fuel costs). That's the whole idea. Consumers will see that EVs are cheaper (post-tax) and will switch to EVs as a consequence. You can make the tax revenue neutral.
    - mcherm 6y ago
      When you propose a "green credit" instead of a "carbon tax", what do you mean? Is it just a different name for the same thing, or would it work differently? If it would work differently, then HOW? I'm assuming that a carbon tax would put a fixed tax per weight of C02 released charged either to the end-user or somewhere higher in the value chain (eg: a gas tax).
      - devmunchies 6y ago
        it's a subsidy vs a tax.
        eru 6y ago
        That sounds pretty bad. I'd want to put driving-less on similar footing to buying a fancier car. A carbon tax does that automatically with no extra bureaucracy. (I'm all for taking the proceeds of a carbon tax and distributing them equally amongst all voters, if you want to make the whole thing revenue neutral for both the government and the 'average' consumer.)
- galangalalgol 6y ago
  I think that is a false dichotomy, GP might care and want to change habits, but considers car exhaust such a small piece of the problem that it isn't worth changing driving habits. I'm not saying that is right, simply pointing out it isn't certain GP doesn't value changing habits.
- uoaei 6y ago
  Not pinning the onus on individuals, but instead addressing the leverage points such as the corporate emissions regulations and enforcement mechanisms that exist today.
oh_sigh 6y ago
The quoted paragraph clearly states that the lower-emissions route will only be given by default when there are multiple routes with a similar ETA. So it will never tell you to take a route that takes longer just to reduce your emissions, without also telling you about the shorter route with higher emissions. Since you have seemingly already abandoned google maps due to their activism before reading this story, what were the other reasons that made you quit?
- datavirtue 6y ago
  How is the fastest route not the least carbon footprint?
  - vmladenov 6y ago
    Efficiency drops sharply at high speed.
    - NathanielK 6y ago
      For long distance driving speed is key. Highways can be faster even when they are indirect. This is what the OSMAnd "Fuel Efficient Way" routing is based on. It biases towards the shortest routes that may have lower speed limits. This is nice for road trips and bicycling, but can be quirky with city driving.
      - datavirtue 6y ago
        OK...so google just fixed maps then. I don't know anyone who wants to get on the highway if they don't have to.
  - drusepth 6y ago
    It looks like part of the carbon footprint model is based on road inclines and traffic congestion. For example, a super-fast route that's up an extremely-steep incline on the way may technically be faster from point A to B, but would be less carbon efficient than taking a slightly-longer route that is flatter.
reidjs 6y ago
If you need the extra 5 minutes, it seems possible to turn the feature off or ignore it. It seems pretty dumb to me too, but at least it will bring some awareness to climate change, right?
Alex3917 6y ago
I have no issue with this. The bigger issue I have with Google Maps is that it makes zero effort to avoid dangerous routes. If two routes for a ~45 min drive are within 30 seconds of another, why would I want to risk death by taking the one with an extremely dangerous left turn through oncoming traffic? It makes zero sense.
- 5cents 6y ago
  This looks like a governmental issue in my eyes: it's the government's responsibility to ensure that the roads are reasonable safe and the traffic reasonable regulated, not Google's. If a route is dangerous, something should be done with the route itself (not the suggestion). But if Maps' suggestions breaks regulations and propose an illegal route, I agree!
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    The roads are mostly reasonable and safe. There are always going to be turns and intersections that are more difficult than the others. Google (and every other consumer map provider for that matter) has a habit of picking unnecessarily complex routes to shave a few seconds. Unnecessarily routing through difficult intersections and using a dozen side streets to cut the corner off a route are just specific examples of that.
    - Fogest 6y ago
      You've noticed Google Maps do this? I personally find Google will take the simpler routes even if sometimes a faster route comes up while driving. Sometimes on a longer drive I'll see it is showing a greyed out route I could take that is sometimes even 5-10 minutes faster but it won't suggest it to me. No whereas with Waze it is a lot more aggressive and it will take faster routes and shortcuts even if it means taking a gravel road to save 30 seconds.
  - mint2 6y ago
    But what you’re saying is all roads that technically conform to standards are equal in safety or should be. That does not seem realistic or practical. For example windy mountain roads vs urban freeways. Or unprotected left turns versus protected left turns. Should unprotected left turns be made illegal. Why can’t a third party routing software assess safety? It’s not a realistic expectation to expect all roads to be equivalent in safety.
danaliv 6y ago
> they are actively getting in the way of why I would use their product No they aren't. They're being completely transparent about this and giving you the option to keep the old behavior with a one-time settings change. So what's the problem exactly?
- ehsankia 6y ago
  Google also explicitly says that it only does it when the ETAs are very close, so realistically, it will still be doing what you want. It feels pretty extreme to write such an angry comment about maybe getting a route than 1-2% slower.
  - prewett 6y ago
    Wasn't intended to be angry. It's more frustration that I used to love Google Maps, but over the years it just gets less and less useful. I can't see street names like I used to, for instance. Now I have to have the overhead of choosing a route, when I used to know that the default is the fastest. Sure, I can turn it off in settings. But at what point does this get to be Windows Explorer, where the first thing I do on a new Windows install is invert pretty much all the settings? I guess maybe I'd like a little bit of say in how the software I use gets updated. I don't know how that would be implemented, but this got me thinking that maybe there is a way that this software thing could be move a little closer towards a partnership than the autocratic "hey we're going to arbitrarily change this piece of software you use frequently". (You can see similar thoughts with people complaining how Big Sur uses more space, or the complaints when GMail changed things to be less dense.)
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - jachee 6y ago
      Hypothetically, given the choice between a 10 minute, higher-environmental-impact route and an 11-minute, lower-impact one: Are you really going to take the literally selfish, worse-for-the-planet route to save one minute? Wouldn't you like to make a small "sacrifice" (the choice is only given when the ETAs are similar) that might help slow the destruction of the only environment we have?
blitz_skull 6y ago
“I have no interest in activist software” that’s my exact sentiment. Provide the option, sure. Plenty of people care enough to use it. But don’t force it on me. I’ll find software that actually wants to serve its purpose.
- drusepth 6y ago
  If you read the article, there's an option in the settings to not have this option "forced" on you. Even when it's "forced", it's only defaulting to more carbon-positive routes when the ETAs are comparable, so it shouldn't have much of an effect on whether you care about the feature or not.
- klyrs 6y ago
  What if they released the exact same product as "minimize fuel cost if it doesn't take more time" and set that to default? You can still change to "fastest" if that's your preference. My personal annoyance: their walking directions assume you don't know parkour and there isn't even an option for that
  - shrikant 6y ago
    I genuinely cannot tell if that last bit is sarcasm or not!
    - klyrs 6y ago
      It's a near-truth, told to own my selfish tendencies while I'm on the topic of somebody else's. The truth being that I don't want that info from google, rather I delight in beating its time. I do wish that I could dial in a walking speed, though, and so do people with reduced mobility.
lovemenot 6y ago
>>I don't use Maps to express my environmental values Actually, you do. Your environmental values happen to be efficiency (Km/hour) trumps efficiency (Km/gram of CO2). You wish the software to continue to express only your environmental values. It is an activist stance nonetheless.
- arsome 6y ago
  What percentage of the limited time in your life is worth what level of impact on climate change? Do something much more likely to be useful: implement a reasonable, even revenue-neutral carbon tax and stop with this non-sense.
  - lovemenot 6y ago
    This is complex and will vary significantly by person. But for anyone the answer is almost certainly non-zero. Even if only marginally. And the trend seems to be increasing. The second part of your comment, seems to assume only one kind of action is possible. Others might say, great let's do both.
    - throwawayboise 6y ago
      There is absolutely nothing I can do individually that will have any impact whatsoever on CO2 levels or the climate. Nothing. One person's activity is simply too small a contributor. By the same token, whether I vote or not, or who I vote for, is also irrelevant in the outcome of elections.
    - lovemenot 6y ago
      I cannot respond to throwawayboise directly because of thread limitations. On its face, this argument is clearly wrong. "Absolutely nothing", is not equivalent to extremely little. Especially when, as in the case of Google Maps, there is a large multiplier. Elections are a different beast. Assuming first-past-the-post system where impact is only at the margin (50.0001%). Whereas direct action on CO2 production is incremental. We can argue it's not enough, but we cannot argue it is literally nothing.
maxerickson 6y ago
Everybody is trying to explain that it's fine or that you should care or whatever, but the real counterpoint is that Google doesn't care what mapping app a few motivated cranks use. On average people won't even notice.

prewett 6y ago

Wow, I'm impressed, I've never been downvoted to -4 before. I wouldn't have expected that this would be the post to get that, though.

dataflow 6y ago

Do you believe humans are causing climate change? If so, how do you envision it should be addressed that doesn't involve us changing our habits?

datavirtue 6y ago
Quit eating factory beef.
doubleunplussed 6y ago
A carbon tax. If addressing climate change relies on people changing habits against their selfish interests, then we are doomed. The externality should be internalised with a carbon tax. It's the simple, most obvious solution and it will cause selfish interest and ethical choices to align when it comes to carbon emission.
- devmunchies 6y ago
  I prefer a "green credit" to a "carbon tax". A tax will always be passed on to the consumer, even if the govt taxes Ford, it will just make the car more expensive. Using game theory, a question could be "how do we get Ford to make more electric cars, improve efficiency of electric car production, and incentivize them to advertise electric cars?" My take is that businesses drive change, not consumers. On the whole, consumers are told what they want.
  - TheSmiddy 6y ago
    When the carbon tax* was introduced in Australia our tax free threshold was increased from $6k to $18k which more than covered the increase in costs caused by the tax. *This has since been repealed, a decision I strongly disagree with.
    - anchpop 6y ago
      I believe canada proposed doing it by taking all the money collected through the carbon tax and giving it equally to all Canadian citizens. This would mean everyone gets back the amount that the average person paid, making it so the average person sees no change in their level of taxation. (It also has the effect of turning it into a highly progressive tax)
  - hntrader 6y ago
    Of course it makes the ICE car more expensive (when including fuel costs). That's the whole idea. Consumers will see that EVs are cheaper (post-tax) and will switch to EVs as a consequence. You can make the tax revenue neutral.
  - mcherm 6y ago
    When you propose a "green credit" instead of a "carbon tax", what do you mean? Is it just a different name for the same thing, or would it work differently? If it would work differently, then HOW? I'm assuming that a carbon tax would put a fixed tax per weight of C02 released charged either to the end-user or somewhere higher in the value chain (eg: a gas tax).
    - devmunchies 6y ago
      it's a subsidy vs a tax.
      - eru 6y ago
        That sounds pretty bad. I'd want to put driving-less on similar footing to buying a fancier car. A carbon tax does that automatically with no extra bureaucracy. (I'm all for taking the proceeds of a carbon tax and distributing them equally amongst all voters, if you want to make the whole thing revenue neutral for both the government and the 'average' consumer.)
galangalalgol 6y ago
I think that is a false dichotomy, GP might care and want to change habits, but considers car exhaust such a small piece of the problem that it isn't worth changing driving habits. I'm not saying that is right, simply pointing out it isn't certain GP doesn't value changing habits.
uoaei 6y ago
Not pinning the onus on individuals, but instead addressing the leverage points such as the corporate emissions regulations and enforcement mechanisms that exist today.

oh_sigh 6y ago

The quoted paragraph clearly states that the lower-emissions route will only be given by default when there are multiple routes with a similar ETA. So it will never tell you to take a route that takes longer just to reduce your emissions, without also telling you about the shorter route with higher emissions. Since you have seemingly already abandoned google maps due to their activism before reading this story, what were the other reasons that made you quit?

datavirtue 6y ago
How is the fastest route not the least carbon footprint?
- vmladenov 6y ago
  Efficiency drops sharply at high speed.
  - NathanielK 6y ago
    For long distance driving speed is key. Highways can be faster even when they are indirect. This is what the OSMAnd "Fuel Efficient Way" routing is based on. It biases towards the shortest routes that may have lower speed limits. This is nice for road trips and bicycling, but can be quirky with city driving.
    - datavirtue 6y ago
      OK...so google just fixed maps then. I don't know anyone who wants to get on the highway if they don't have to.
- drusepth 6y ago
  It looks like part of the carbon footprint model is based on road inclines and traffic congestion. For example, a super-fast route that's up an extremely-steep incline on the way may technically be faster from point A to B, but would be less carbon efficient than taking a slightly-longer route that is flatter.

reidjs 6y ago

If you need the extra 5 minutes, it seems possible to turn the feature off or ignore it. It seems pretty dumb to me too, but at least it will bring some awareness to climate change, right?

Alex3917 6y ago

I have no issue with this. The bigger issue I have with Google Maps is that it makes zero effort to avoid dangerous routes. If two routes for a ~45 min drive are within 30 seconds of another, why would I want to risk death by taking the one with an extremely dangerous left turn through oncoming traffic? It makes zero sense.

5cents 6y ago
This looks like a governmental issue in my eyes: it's the government's responsibility to ensure that the roads are reasonable safe and the traffic reasonable regulated, not Google's. If a route is dangerous, something should be done with the route itself (not the suggestion). But if Maps' suggestions breaks regulations and propose an illegal route, I agree!
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  The roads are mostly reasonable and safe. There are always going to be turns and intersections that are more difficult than the others. Google (and every other consumer map provider for that matter) has a habit of picking unnecessarily complex routes to shave a few seconds. Unnecessarily routing through difficult intersections and using a dozen side streets to cut the corner off a route are just specific examples of that.
  - Fogest 6y ago
    You've noticed Google Maps do this? I personally find Google will take the simpler routes even if sometimes a faster route comes up while driving. Sometimes on a longer drive I'll see it is showing a greyed out route I could take that is sometimes even 5-10 minutes faster but it won't suggest it to me. No whereas with Waze it is a lot more aggressive and it will take faster routes and shortcuts even if it means taking a gravel road to save 30 seconds.
- mint2 6y ago
  But what you’re saying is all roads that technically conform to standards are equal in safety or should be. That does not seem realistic or practical. For example windy mountain roads vs urban freeways. Or unprotected left turns versus protected left turns. Should unprotected left turns be made illegal. Why can’t a third party routing software assess safety? It’s not a realistic expectation to expect all roads to be equivalent in safety.

danaliv 6y ago

> they are actively getting in the way of why I would use their product No they aren't. They're being completely transparent about this and giving you the option to keep the old behavior with a one-time settings change. So what's the problem exactly?

ehsankia 6y ago
Google also explicitly says that it only does it when the ETAs are very close, so realistically, it will still be doing what you want. It feels pretty extreme to write such an angry comment about maybe getting a route than 1-2% slower.
- prewett 6y ago
  Wasn't intended to be angry. It's more frustration that I used to love Google Maps, but over the years it just gets less and less useful. I can't see street names like I used to, for instance. Now I have to have the overhead of choosing a route, when I used to know that the default is the fastest. Sure, I can turn it off in settings. But at what point does this get to be Windows Explorer, where the first thing I do on a new Windows install is invert pretty much all the settings? I guess maybe I'd like a little bit of say in how the software I use gets updated. I don't know how that would be implemented, but this got me thinking that maybe there is a way that this software thing could be move a little closer towards a partnership than the autocratic "hey we're going to arbitrarily change this piece of software you use frequently". (You can see similar thoughts with people complaining how Big Sur uses more space, or the complaints when GMail changed things to be less dense.)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - jachee 6y ago
    Hypothetically, given the choice between a 10 minute, higher-environmental-impact route and an 11-minute, lower-impact one: Are you really going to take the literally selfish, worse-for-the-planet route to save one minute? Wouldn't you like to make a small "sacrifice" (the choice is only given when the ETAs are similar) that might help slow the destruction of the only environment we have?

blitz_skull 6y ago

“I have no interest in activist software” that’s my exact sentiment. Provide the option, sure. Plenty of people care enough to use it. But don’t force it on me. I’ll find software that actually wants to serve its purpose.

drusepth 6y ago
If you read the article, there's an option in the settings to not have this option "forced" on you. Even when it's "forced", it's only defaulting to more carbon-positive routes when the ETAs are comparable, so it shouldn't have much of an effect on whether you care about the feature or not.
klyrs 6y ago
What if they released the exact same product as "minimize fuel cost if it doesn't take more time" and set that to default? You can still change to "fastest" if that's your preference. My personal annoyance: their walking directions assume you don't know parkour and there isn't even an option for that
- shrikant 6y ago
  I genuinely cannot tell if that last bit is sarcasm or not!
  - klyrs 6y ago
    It's a near-truth, told to own my selfish tendencies while I'm on the topic of somebody else's. The truth being that I don't want that info from google, rather I delight in beating its time. I do wish that I could dial in a walking speed, though, and so do people with reduced mobility.

lovemenot 6y ago

>>I don't use Maps to express my environmental values Actually, you do. Your environmental values happen to be efficiency (Km/hour) trumps efficiency (Km/gram of CO2). You wish the software to continue to express only your environmental values. It is an activist stance nonetheless.

arsome 6y ago
What percentage of the limited time in your life is worth what level of impact on climate change? Do something much more likely to be useful: implement a reasonable, even revenue-neutral carbon tax and stop with this non-sense.
- lovemenot 6y ago
  This is complex and will vary significantly by person. But for anyone the answer is almost certainly non-zero. Even if only marginally. And the trend seems to be increasing. The second part of your comment, seems to assume only one kind of action is possible. Others might say, great let's do both.
  - throwawayboise 6y ago
    There is absolutely nothing I can do individually that will have any impact whatsoever on CO2 levels or the climate. Nothing. One person's activity is simply too small a contributor. By the same token, whether I vote or not, or who I vote for, is also irrelevant in the outcome of elections.
  - lovemenot 6y ago
    I cannot respond to throwawayboise directly because of thread limitations. On its face, this argument is clearly wrong. "Absolutely nothing", is not equivalent to extremely little. Especially when, as in the case of Google Maps, there is a large multiplier. Elections are a different beast. Assuming first-past-the-post system where impact is only at the margin (50.0001%). Whereas direct action on CO2 production is incremental. We can argue it's not enough, but we cannot argue it is literally nothing.

maxerickson 6y ago

Everybody is trying to explain that it's fine or that you should care or whatever, but the real counterpoint is that Google doesn't care what mapping app a few motivated cranks use. On average people won't even notice.