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>FOSS robot cars seem like a great way to bypass emissions controls, safety regulations, and plain common sense. It'd take what, half a day, for some teenager t

by serf 3y ago

>FOSS robot cars seem like a great way to bypass emissions controls, safety regulations, and plain common sense. It'd take what, half a day, for some teenager to modify the firmware to double the 0-60 and blow up the battery pack at the same time? generally we don't pen laws in order to save a singular idiot teenager -- more-so the aforementioned teenager bought a product and then ruined it; the teenager already received the punishment for his actions by the destruction of their own property without the need for jurisprudence and complexity. Also : Nearly every major car manufacturer in the world has been caught semi-recently violating emissions standards. Some have violated safety standards. Given that this hasn't been an impasse for the worlds largest companies, why presume that the FOSS equivalents would be worse? Our regulations have failed to constrain the largest companies who are apparently beholden to the most regulation and law the world has ever seen, but somehow FOSS individuals/collectives need to do better than these billion dollar behemoths? Nice. I don't get why people suddenly think that when something is 'dangerous' then it's okay to throw in the towel on personal property ownership and take whatever lend-lease-borrow program is offered in exchange. Cars have always been dangerous, and aside from gross safety and emissions laws, we're allowed to modify them. I don't understand why this changes radically when a vehicle becomes electric, were gas tanks and high pressure fuel injectors suddenly safer than I remember them being? "The stupid teen who burns his house down" certainly applied to things in the past, and we didn't go out of the way to lock down the fuel tank into an inaccessible black box in response, we just dealt with the inherent risk of dangerous equipment and somehow avoided full-blown chaos and calamity through educated precaution and training. Here's what I want: I want the freedom to modify my own property, and when that modification becomes in violation of an agreed upon law I should be punished. Forget all this pre-crime 'what-if' save the children bullshit. Punish offenders and let civilian non-offenders do as they please until such time that they violate a law or standard -- which would be more enforcement than the world is seemingly applying to every other car manufacturer in the world.

ceejayoz 3y ago
> I don't understand why this changes radically when a vehicle becomes electric, were gas tanks and high pressure fuel injectors suddenly safer than I remember them being? That’s not what’s changing. We’d be having the same balancing act discussion of collective safety versus individual rights if self-driving cars were all combustion powered.
bluejekyll 3y ago
> the teenager already received the punishment for his actions by the destruction of their own property > Cars have always been dangerous, and aside from gross safety and emissions laws, we're allowed to modify them. These statements are inherently ignoring the externalities that the dangers pose to others on the roads and streets. For years we’ve allowed people to essentially modify their cars however they want, we’re allowing car companies to build vehicles that are literally killing people on the streets with little action to prevent it. This status quo is really bad and we should fix it. People should not be allowed to drive lifted vehicles on urban streets. If modifying your car was only something that negatively impacted the owner, that would be fine. But the fact is that modifying cars tends to make them more dangerous to others on the street, not just the occupants of the car. We need more safety controls on car companies, not less. We need cars to have automatic speed controls that limit them to the speed limit on the street. This isn’t a debate about if people should be allowed to modify their equipment, but if they do, they shouldn’t be allowed to drive that on public roads. Take it to the track or some off-roading specific place, not our public streets where we’re now seeing the highest pedestrian death rates in the last 40 years.
- shkkmo 3y ago
  > These statements are inherently ignoring the externalities that the dangers pose to others on the roads and streets. No, they don't. We don't ban alcohol or cars because of drunk drivers. We don't even require a breathlyzer reading before cars start. Instead, we try to discourage that behavior with education and penalties. We penalize drunk drivers after they harm other road users or we try to catch them beforehand based on driving irregularities. I do suspect we will see restrictions on what software can be run on cars. I hope those restrictions allow open source solutions to be viable. Ideally there would be a cost effective federal system of safety approval for any release of self driving software and we'll allow users to run any approved system on publix roads so that ownership of devices isn't lost. Unfortunately I think regulatory capture makes a positive outcome here unlikely.
  - bluejekyll 3y ago
    > We don't even require a breathlyzer reading before cars start. Actually we do for repeat offenders. On top of that there is active discussion of having car companies detect if someone is impaired before driving. Driving is not a right, it’s a privilege, and far too many people abuse that privilege. > we try to discourage that behavior with education and penalties. Try is the operative word here, we try and we fail because there isn’t enough enforcement on our streets.

by serf 3y ago

ceejayoz 3y ago

> I don't understand why this changes radically when a vehicle becomes electric, were gas tanks and high pressure fuel injectors suddenly safer than I remember them being? That’s not what’s changing. We’d be having the same balancing act discussion of collective safety versus individual rights if self-driving cars were all combustion powered.

bluejekyll 3y ago

> the teenager already received the punishment for his actions by the destruction of their own property > Cars have always been dangerous, and aside from gross safety and emissions laws, we're allowed to modify them. These statements are inherently ignoring the externalities that the dangers pose to others on the roads and streets. For years we’ve allowed people to essentially modify their cars however they want, we’re allowing car companies to build vehicles that are literally killing people on the streets with little action to prevent it. This status quo is really bad and we should fix it. People should not be allowed to drive lifted vehicles on urban streets. If modifying your car was only something that negatively impacted the owner, that would be fine. But the fact is that modifying cars tends to make them more dangerous to others on the street, not just the occupants of the car. We need more safety controls on car companies, not less. We need cars to have automatic speed controls that limit them to the speed limit on the street. This isn’t a debate about if people should be allowed to modify their equipment, but if they do, they shouldn’t be allowed to drive that on public roads. Take it to the track or some off-roading specific place, not our public streets where we’re now seeing the highest pedestrian death rates in the last 40 years.

shkkmo 3y ago
> These statements are inherently ignoring the externalities that the dangers pose to others on the roads and streets. No, they don't. We don't ban alcohol or cars because of drunk drivers. We don't even require a breathlyzer reading before cars start. Instead, we try to discourage that behavior with education and penalties. We penalize drunk drivers after they harm other road users or we try to catch them beforehand based on driving irregularities. I do suspect we will see restrictions on what software can be run on cars. I hope those restrictions allow open source solutions to be viable. Ideally there would be a cost effective federal system of safety approval for any release of self driving software and we'll allow users to run any approved system on publix roads so that ownership of devices isn't lost. Unfortunately I think regulatory capture makes a positive outcome here unlikely.
- bluejekyll 3y ago
  > We don't even require a breathlyzer reading before cars start. Actually we do for repeat offenders. On top of that there is active discussion of having car companies detect if someone is impaired before driving. Driving is not a right, it’s a privilege, and far too many people abuse that privilege. > we try to discourage that behavior with education and penalties. Try is the operative word here, we try and we fail because there isn’t enough enforcement on our streets.