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>When your technology starts working only when the entire world changes dramatically, you probably don't have a great technology idea. Exactly! No wonder those

>When your technology starts working only when the entire world changes dramatically, you probably don't have a great technology idea. Exactly! No wonder those pesky horseless carriages never caught on!

tsimionescu 5y ago
Cars had value without the need for major changes in the world. Road signs were codified and universally implemented only after cars proved their worth. Roads were not invented for cars, road-ready cars had existed for a good few thousand years before the first actual car.
- nautilius 5y ago
  Yeah, everyone remembers the famous 8 lane interstates built by the Romans, cutting through Europe, with gas stations every 16 miles. The only thing we needed to adapt were the road signs! So you see no qualitative difference between a couple of horse carriage crossing the North American plains, and an Interstate system (that requires no stopping) with gas stations, motels, parking lots, malls, suburbs? Have you looked at maps of cities with roads and parking lots? Cities in north America are literally built / rebuilt around cars, cities in Europe heavily modified. Or, conversely, that means you find any advance towards autonomy in cars, in their current form, such as lane assistants, or working well in good weather on interstates, etc. is completely worthless?
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    There is a huge difference between a technology that is useful in the current world, as cars were at their inception, but can be significantly be improved by infrastructure; and a technology that requires a huge change in the world's infrastructure before it becomes useful. That is, if autonomous cars can improve safety or convenience on current infrastructure, they will prevail, and new infrastructure will develop with them in mind. But if they are only useful after such changes, they will likely linger for decades before any adoption.
    - nautilius 5y ago
      You did not answer: Do you find any advance towards autonomy in cars, in their current form, such as lane assistants, or working well in good weather on interstates, etc. is completely worthless? Autonomy today is in the same situation that cars once were; even the current state of 'autonomy' has obvious advantages already and will only become more in the future. Edit: How do you think cars were useful at their inception? Slow, with a range of a few miles, needed to be rebuilt every few miles, gas to be bought in pharmacies. Quite a bit had to change before cars became something practically useful beyond showing 'I am rich'.

tsimionescu 5y ago

Cars had value without the need for major changes in the world. Road signs were codified and universally implemented only after cars proved their worth. Roads were not invented for cars, road-ready cars had existed for a good few thousand years before the first actual car.

nautilius 5y ago
Yeah, everyone remembers the famous 8 lane interstates built by the Romans, cutting through Europe, with gas stations every 16 miles. The only thing we needed to adapt were the road signs! So you see no qualitative difference between a couple of horse carriage crossing the North American plains, and an Interstate system (that requires no stopping) with gas stations, motels, parking lots, malls, suburbs? Have you looked at maps of cities with roads and parking lots? Cities in north America are literally built / rebuilt around cars, cities in Europe heavily modified. Or, conversely, that means you find any advance towards autonomy in cars, in their current form, such as lane assistants, or working well in good weather on interstates, etc. is completely worthless?
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  There is a huge difference between a technology that is useful in the current world, as cars were at their inception, but can be significantly be improved by infrastructure; and a technology that requires a huge change in the world's infrastructure before it becomes useful. That is, if autonomous cars can improve safety or convenience on current infrastructure, they will prevail, and new infrastructure will develop with them in mind. But if they are only useful after such changes, they will likely linger for decades before any adoption.
  - nautilius 5y ago
    You did not answer: Do you find any advance towards autonomy in cars, in their current form, such as lane assistants, or working well in good weather on interstates, etc. is completely worthless? Autonomy today is in the same situation that cars once were; even the current state of 'autonomy' has obvious advantages already and will only become more in the future. Edit: How do you think cars were useful at their inception? Slow, with a range of a few miles, needed to be rebuilt every few miles, gas to be bought in pharmacies. Quite a bit had to change before cars became something practically useful beyond showing 'I am rich'.