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>For example, if you tried to market a car that was as dangerous to drive as the safest motorcycle on the road the NHTSA would probably draw and quarter you. T

>For example, if you tried to market a car that was as dangerous to drive as the safest motorcycle on the road the NHTSA would probably draw and quarter you. They'd be happy to ignore you. But the nanosecond you try and market such a car people who would never buy your car would read the spec and start screeching about it. Internet commenters would make a stink. Journalists would speculate. The Youtube talking heads would summarize. The MSM would report on the fervor. And all these screeching would alert the regulator to the fact that there are political brownie points to be earned regulating or brownie points to be earned crapping on them for not regulating and they know which one they'd prefer so they break out the ban hammer. See the whole self driving deal. Nobody cared to regulate it until it became a contentious issue over which virtue points could be earned or lost. You see this in all sorts of areas. Regulators sit around doing what they've always done until some Outraged(TM) subset of the public comes along. It's not that they go around regulating un-entrenched things. It's that by the time you're entrenched you've long since pissed off some special interest group and got yourself regulated.

InitialLastName 4y ago
> See the whole self driving deal. Nobody cared to regulate it until it became a contentious issue over which virtue points could be earned or lost. How would you falsifiably distinguish this from "nobody cared to regulate it until it became a meaningful threat to the lives of road users"? Like, obviously before self-driving cars were being actively researched, nobody cared about their safety.
mschuster91 4y ago
> Nobody cared to regulate it until it became a contentious issue over which virtue points could be earned or lost. ... and until people died in mind-blowing spectacular accidents [1] and Tesla in particular repeatedly lied in public or did other questionable maneuvers. If the self-driving car industry wants someone to blame for their misery aka stricter regulations, they should look at Tesla. All it takes to make stuff worse for everyone is one who is caught doing stuff that simply is not OK. [1] https://www.npr.org/2022/01/18/1073857310/tesla-autopilot-crash-charges https://www.npr.org/2022/01/18/1073857310/tesla-autopilot-cr...

InitialLastName 4y ago

> See the whole self driving deal. Nobody cared to regulate it until it became a contentious issue over which virtue points could be earned or lost. How would you falsifiably distinguish this from "nobody cared to regulate it until it became a meaningful threat to the lives of road users"? Like, obviously before self-driving cars were being actively researched, nobody cared about their safety.

mschuster91 4y ago

> Nobody cared to regulate it until it became a contentious issue over which virtue points could be earned or lost. ... and until people died in mind-blowing spectacular accidents [1] and Tesla in particular repeatedly lied in public or did other questionable maneuvers. If the self-driving car industry wants someone to blame for their misery aka stricter regulations, they should look at Tesla. All it takes to make stuff worse for everyone is one who is caught doing stuff that simply is not OK. [1] https://www.npr.org/2022/01/18/1073857310/tesla-autopilot-crash-charges https://www.npr.org/2022/01/18/1073857310/tesla-autopilot-cr...