4 ms·

Something completely lost on tons of nerds seems to be that people genuinely enjoy operating their cars (and motorcycles).

by tobiasu 13y ago

lamby 13y ago
And as status symbols go, they pretty much tick all the required boxes.
tluyben2 13y ago
People who enjoy that are also a kind of nerds; I was one and the feeling was about the same as I get now when I switch on one of my 70s/80s computers. I changed nerd-ness as an awful lot of people died around me on motorcycles and in cars. It's not important though; you are a menace to society if you drive yourself once robot cars are commonplace and thus you need to take your driving pleasures/status symbol to the track.
mgw 13y ago
I don't think it's lost on people discussing the subject, but it won't be able to stop this technological trend for several reasons. Autonomous cars will be safer than human operated ones so they will at some point be cheaper to insure. This will continue until it is either unaffordable for the average person to operate their own car or outright prohibited because of safety concerns. Driving will become a hobby which people will be able to pursue on dedicated (race)tracks.
- crusso 13y ago
  Once Congress is shown that at least 20,000 of the 30,000 deaths per year could be eliminated by forcing autonomous vehicles on everyone, it will be illegal to operate a vehicle manually on first the Interstates, then eventually on every public road.
saraid216 13y ago
Remember when people genuinely enjoyed riding horses?
- tfigment 13y ago
  I was just going to post this but forgot to login and here was your post. The hard part is the initial adoption when most cars are still manually driven and the good stuff comes when none of it is manually driven. How we get there will be and adventure.
  - discodave 13y ago
    The way we get there is through car sharing schemes like Zipcar and Getaround. v1 Zipcars automatically move themselves around between designated spots to rebalance supply and demand v2 Zipcar can come pick you up much like Uber << taxi industy is screwed at this point v3 Zipcar can pick you up and then drives you to your destination << Zipcar becomes much more desirable than owning a car at this point This will happen at first in big cities like NY or Sydney here in Australia where parking, registration and other costs make car sharing already popular.
- gaius 13y ago
  This is different. This is a horse you ask nicely to take you there but once you're locked inside it can take you anywhere. The issue is not safety, it's control.
  - leoc 13y ago
    Horses have control issues as well. And a properly designed autonomous car is likely to have a manual override or emergency stop, things for which there are no good equivalents on a horse.
    - gaius 13y ago
      The "manual override" will just be another button.
    - pretense 13y ago
      The manual override for a horse is a bullet in the brain. Why do you think cowboys carried six shooters?
philwelch 13y ago
People genuinely enjoy doing lots of things, and perhaps there will be tracks and courses where they may continue to do so, but allowing members of the public to operate massive vehicles on public streets leads to thousands of deaths and injuries and millions of dollars in property damage. Driving will become like smoking: you're still allowed to do it, but only in isolated places where you can't harm nonconsenting people.
itgoon 13y ago
I genuinely enjoy driving cars and bikes. I blow through 40-50K miles a year driving country roads and highways, for no other reason than enjoyment. I am completely on-board with having my commute automated. If public transportation was an option, I'd take it. This is the next best thing.
VLM 13y ago
One point missed in all the comments about enjoyment, is disruption doesn't care about enjoyment, just dollars and cents. No one in a position of authority cares if you liked your bank teller or not; you're simply told you're going to be using an ATM now for financial reasons. Ditto office automation vs clerks and secretaries. Did you enjoy getting magazines and newspapers before the web wiped them out, well, no one in a position of authority cares what you enjoyed.
- philwelch 13y ago
  If people liked bank tellers and magazines more than ATM's and the Internet, they'd still be in business. (Wait, they are!)
rwhitman 13y ago
I like the idea that in the future the only people manually operating cars and motorcycles will be doing it for fun rather than for the drudgery of daily life. That sounds like a better place to live. If the net benefit of driverless cars is reducing vehicles on the road and reducing traffic congestion think about how much more fun it will be to drive? The driverless cars will automatically take the safest action and let you through when doing something reckless like cutting them off on the freeway etc. It kind of sounds amazing, you could be a total asshole on the road and no one would care... Imagine cruising down the freeway at 90MPH in rush hour swerving between drone vehicles and watching as they politely get out of your way. Its a driver's utopia
electromagnetic 13y ago
Yes, and I'm one of those people. However, I basically don't drink because I drive. I have a 6 month old, if he's home I don't drink because I can't have more than a beer and run out if I need to. When he's at grandma's I'll drink, however I'm still conservative because I know I'm getting up early in the morning and can't drive hungover. I know in my cousins area they have a keys-to-us service. You drive to the party or wherever and they drop off a driver to drive your vehicle with you in home. Why? Because it's cheaper than a cab because you only pay one way, and you can get where you're going on time because you don't have to wait for a cab, which on say New Years Eve won't be on time or even in the ball park. It's foolish to believe that leisure will beat practicality. People will get automated cars because it means they can work on their commute. Forget the dash it's a desk. Or you could watch a movie. Heck, not only could you predrink for the party, you could drink whilst on your way there. Or the kids out at the movies and you decided to have a few drinks. They call wanting to be picked up? No problem, just send the car. You'd no longer have to pay for expensive downtown parking, you could either pay for it to park in a cheaper less convenient lot or you could have it drive home if it's a short distance. Yes I like to drive, but I also like starting fires with a bow and stick... but I normally just use a lighter.

Something completely lost on tons of nerds seems to be that people genuinely enjoy operating their cars (and motorcycles).

by tobiasu 13y ago

Something completely lost on tons of nerds seems to be that people genuinely enjoy operating their cars (and motorcycles).

lamby 13y ago

And as status symbols go, they pretty much tick all the required boxes.

tluyben2 13y ago

People who enjoy that are also a kind of nerds; I was one and the feeling was about the same as I get now when I switch on one of my 70s/80s computers. I changed nerd-ness as an awful lot of people died around me on motorcycles and in cars. It's not important though; you are a menace to society if you drive yourself once robot cars are commonplace and thus you need to take your driving pleasures/status symbol to the track.

mgw 13y ago

I don't think it's lost on people discussing the subject, but it won't be able to stop this technological trend for several reasons. Autonomous cars will be safer than human operated ones so they will at some point be cheaper to insure. This will continue until it is either unaffordable for the average person to operate their own car or outright prohibited because of safety concerns. Driving will become a hobby which people will be able to pursue on dedicated (race)tracks.

crusso 13y ago
Once Congress is shown that at least 20,000 of the 30,000 deaths per year could be eliminated by forcing autonomous vehicles on everyone, it will be illegal to operate a vehicle manually on first the Interstates, then eventually on every public road.

saraid216 13y ago

Remember when people genuinely enjoyed riding horses?

tfigment 13y ago
I was just going to post this but forgot to login and here was your post. The hard part is the initial adoption when most cars are still manually driven and the good stuff comes when none of it is manually driven. How we get there will be and adventure.
- discodave 13y ago
  The way we get there is through car sharing schemes like Zipcar and Getaround. v1 Zipcars automatically move themselves around between designated spots to rebalance supply and demand v2 Zipcar can come pick you up much like Uber << taxi industy is screwed at this point v3 Zipcar can pick you up and then drives you to your destination << Zipcar becomes much more desirable than owning a car at this point This will happen at first in big cities like NY or Sydney here in Australia where parking, registration and other costs make car sharing already popular.
gaius 13y ago
This is different. This is a horse you ask nicely to take you there but once you're locked inside it can take you anywhere. The issue is not safety, it's control.
- leoc 13y ago
  Horses have control issues as well. And a properly designed autonomous car is likely to have a manual override or emergency stop, things for which there are no good equivalents on a horse.
  - gaius 13y ago
    The "manual override" will just be another button.
  - pretense 13y ago
    The manual override for a horse is a bullet in the brain. Why do you think cowboys carried six shooters?

philwelch 13y ago

People genuinely enjoy doing lots of things, and perhaps there will be tracks and courses where they may continue to do so, but allowing members of the public to operate massive vehicles on public streets leads to thousands of deaths and injuries and millions of dollars in property damage. Driving will become like smoking: you're still allowed to do it, but only in isolated places where you can't harm nonconsenting people.

itgoon 13y ago

I genuinely enjoy driving cars and bikes. I blow through 40-50K miles a year driving country roads and highways, for no other reason than enjoyment. I am completely on-board with having my commute automated. If public transportation was an option, I'd take it. This is the next best thing.

VLM 13y ago

One point missed in all the comments about enjoyment, is disruption doesn't care about enjoyment, just dollars and cents. No one in a position of authority cares if you liked your bank teller or not; you're simply told you're going to be using an ATM now for financial reasons. Ditto office automation vs clerks and secretaries. Did you enjoy getting magazines and newspapers before the web wiped them out, well, no one in a position of authority cares what you enjoyed.

philwelch 13y ago
If people liked bank tellers and magazines more than ATM's and the Internet, they'd still be in business. (Wait, they are!)

rwhitman 13y ago

I like the idea that in the future the only people manually operating cars and motorcycles will be doing it for fun rather than for the drudgery of daily life. That sounds like a better place to live. If the net benefit of driverless cars is reducing vehicles on the road and reducing traffic congestion think about how much more fun it will be to drive? The driverless cars will automatically take the safest action and let you through when doing something reckless like cutting them off on the freeway etc. It kind of sounds amazing, you could be a total asshole on the road and no one would care... Imagine cruising down the freeway at 90MPH in rush hour swerving between drone vehicles and watching as they politely get out of your way. Its a driver's utopia

electromagnetic 13y ago

Yes, and I'm one of those people. However, I basically don't drink because I drive. I have a 6 month old, if he's home I don't drink because I can't have more than a beer and run out if I need to. When he's at grandma's I'll drink, however I'm still conservative because I know I'm getting up early in the morning and can't drive hungover. I know in my cousins area they have a keys-to-us service. You drive to the party or wherever and they drop off a driver to drive your vehicle with you in home. Why? Because it's cheaper than a cab because you only pay one way, and you can get where you're going on time because you don't have to wait for a cab, which on say New Years Eve won't be on time or even in the ball park. It's foolish to believe that leisure will beat practicality. People will get automated cars because it means they can work on their commute. Forget the dash it's a desk. Or you could watch a movie. Heck, not only could you predrink for the party, you could drink whilst on your way there. Or the kids out at the movies and you decided to have a few drinks. They call wanting to be picked up? No problem, just send the car. You'd no longer have to pay for expensive downtown parking, you could either pay for it to park in a cheaper less convenient lot or you could have it drive home if it's a short distance. Yes I like to drive, but I also like starting fires with a bow and stick... but I normally just use a lighter.