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All life is a trade-off. There has been massive effort at reducing traffic fatalities, representing probably trillions of dollars of investment, including road

All life is a trade-off. There has been massive effort at reducing traffic fatalities, representing probably trillions of dollars of investment, including road design and barriers, speed limits, signaling, car safety features like crumple zones, seat belts, air bags, all manner of crash safety testing, enforcement actions, and much more. We haven't entirely banned cars, and carbon emissions weren't totally banned after the wet-bulb event in Ministry for the Future.

alangibson 3y ago
A massive failure judging by the numbers. Which is my point. We will continue to feel bad, maybe drop in some metaphorical traffic circles, but do nothing to actually solve the issue.
- rpdillon 3y ago
  Vehicle fatalities per capita and per mile travelled have been dropping in the US for decades. As has the absolute number of deaths. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_...
  - alangibson 3y ago
    Still proving my point. 35K deaths per year. We will normalize climate related deaths the way we have normalized traffic related deaths.
    - sokoloff 3y ago
      Without being clear about what replacement transportation mode you expect to substitute for cars, it's not clear to me that your point is being proven. If we replaced cars today with walking or the current state of public transport in the US, I think my life is made vastly better by the near-ubiquitous presence of cars, even if it means I have a lifetime risk of just under 1%. If cars save me just 10 minutes per day, my life is improved as compared to the just under 7 minutes per day of life lost to the lifetime risk of dying in a car accident. We normalize traffic deaths because there is a net benefit. Just like we normalize other negative outcomes from overall positive-utility activities.
- jabradoodle 3y ago
  How is a ~24x reduction in deaths per mile driven a massive failure? What would you call a success? No death, total ban on driving?
  - alangibson 3y ago
    Another post demonstrating my point. 35K people in the US alone die in traffic every year. We have normalized this figure (see your response) as we will normalize climate deaths. What I would do about traffic deaths is irrelevant to my point.
    - jabradoodle 3y ago
      I find your approach arrogant; of course I understand that people die in car crashes and yet we continue to use them. Your original point was: >Yet there is zero momentum toward doing anything about those from a policy standpoint. This is clearly false. There are many effective regulations and travelling by car continues to get safer. Yes people still die, yes we already somewhat normalise people dying from e.g. air pollution (not something that will happen, we already do it) There are people who do think about these things every day. There are people who dedicate life to working on problems and progress is being made. Saying that a major event would have no impact on the zeitgiest is questionable given history.
      - alangibson 3y ago
        I should have written "fixing the problem" instead of "doing anything about those" as I did in other comments. I define "fixed" as reaching and sustaining the lower bound. So basically excluding deaths due to act of god only. > There are people who do think about these things every day. There are people who dedicate life to working on problems and progress is being made. Exactly. Despite that, here we are with 35K traffic deaths a year. Here's what would actually be necessary to "fix" the problem: - 20 year project to build a tremendous amount of passenger rail - Manhattan project for self-driving cars - 10 year project to upgrade all city and highway signage to be self-driving car friendly - Close roads to human-driven cars when self-driving upgrades are ready This probably sounds crazy to you. It sounds crazy to me too. And that's why I'm blackpilled on climate change: if we can't and won't do what it takes to fix traffic or gun fatalities on a national level, we definitely won't do it for a problem several orders of magnitude more difficult on a global level. > Saying that a major event would have no impact on the zeitgiest is questionable given history. There will be an impact. Just most likely not a positive one. It could highly negative (see post-9/11 wars), or completely insufficient (our current response to climate change).

alangibson 3y ago

A massive failure judging by the numbers. Which is my point. We will continue to feel bad, maybe drop in some metaphorical traffic circles, but do nothing to actually solve the issue.

rpdillon 3y ago
Vehicle fatalities per capita and per mile travelled have been dropping in the US for decades. As has the absolute number of deaths. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_...
- alangibson 3y ago
  Still proving my point. 35K deaths per year. We will normalize climate related deaths the way we have normalized traffic related deaths.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    Without being clear about what replacement transportation mode you expect to substitute for cars, it's not clear to me that your point is being proven. If we replaced cars today with walking or the current state of public transport in the US, I think my life is made vastly better by the near-ubiquitous presence of cars, even if it means I have a lifetime risk of just under 1%. If cars save me just 10 minutes per day, my life is improved as compared to the just under 7 minutes per day of life lost to the lifetime risk of dying in a car accident. We normalize traffic deaths because there is a net benefit. Just like we normalize other negative outcomes from overall positive-utility activities.
jabradoodle 3y ago
How is a ~24x reduction in deaths per mile driven a massive failure? What would you call a success? No death, total ban on driving?
- alangibson 3y ago
  Another post demonstrating my point. 35K people in the US alone die in traffic every year. We have normalized this figure (see your response) as we will normalize climate deaths. What I would do about traffic deaths is irrelevant to my point.
  - jabradoodle 3y ago
    I find your approach arrogant; of course I understand that people die in car crashes and yet we continue to use them. Your original point was: >Yet there is zero momentum toward doing anything about those from a policy standpoint. This is clearly false. There are many effective regulations and travelling by car continues to get safer. Yes people still die, yes we already somewhat normalise people dying from e.g. air pollution (not something that will happen, we already do it) There are people who do think about these things every day. There are people who dedicate life to working on problems and progress is being made. Saying that a major event would have no impact on the zeitgiest is questionable given history.
    - alangibson 3y ago
      I should have written "fixing the problem" instead of "doing anything about those" as I did in other comments. I define "fixed" as reaching and sustaining the lower bound. So basically excluding deaths due to act of god only. > There are people who do think about these things every day. There are people who dedicate life to working on problems and progress is being made. Exactly. Despite that, here we are with 35K traffic deaths a year. Here's what would actually be necessary to "fix" the problem: - 20 year project to build a tremendous amount of passenger rail - Manhattan project for self-driving cars - 10 year project to upgrade all city and highway signage to be self-driving car friendly - Close roads to human-driven cars when self-driving upgrades are ready This probably sounds crazy to you. It sounds crazy to me too. And that's why I'm blackpilled on climate change: if we can't and won't do what it takes to fix traffic or gun fatalities on a national level, we definitely won't do it for a problem several orders of magnitude more difficult on a global level. > Saying that a major event would have no impact on the zeitgiest is questionable given history. There will be an impact. Just most likely not a positive one. It could highly negative (see post-9/11 wars), or completely insufficient (our current response to climate change).