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“At the moment, mobility is crushing the soul: Don’t speed, don’t drink, don’t text. [...] What inspires me... is giving back people their lifestyles, so they c

“At the moment, mobility is crushing the soul: Don’t speed, don’t drink, don’t text. [...] What inspires me... is giving back people their lifestyles, so they can do what they want to do: texting, vegging out, drinking.” Texting, vegging out, and drinking: truly the heights to which the soul would soar if not crushed by the villain of driving.

ForHackernews 11y ago
To be fair, driving is a huge pain in the ass. I love commuting by train, because I can read a book or take a nap instead of having to watch the road.
- seanp2k2 11y ago
  So true. Driving can also be aggravating and frustrating, and at least in the Bay, you have to be at least a little aggressive to get into traffic / turn out / not have other people hate you and honk. If a car could do that for me but still give me control when I wanted it (on the rare occasion I'm driving for pleasure), I'd say "shut up and take my money" in a hurry. It'd also be nice to be able to take a train or bus to work, but the bus doesn't go where I need and it's slower than riding a bicycle for my commute.
  - kenrikm 11y ago
    People in the Bay Area have such an adverse reaction to honking. They tend to freak out or drive erratically if honked at even if they deserve it. (Don't hit me!)
bsder 11y ago
Okay, how about reading a book? Writing something? Talking (gasp, how old fashioned) to people? Or, even better, just not getting on the road right now because the self-driving cars are trying to reduce congestion.
- trhway 11y ago
  >the self-driving cars are trying to reduce congestion. congestion reduction is such a goal only because people are wasting time in traffic :). If cars are empty or people inside are engaged in a dopaminergic activity (working, texting, having sex, etc...) it will become less of an issue. Especially with electric cars as idling of the engine becomes non-issue. Add to that that currently amount of time my car on the road is limited by my time (and thus i plan/optimize when/where to go, like getting into store on the way from work, etc...), the self-driving car can go to store for pickup or deliver some papers, etc... while i'm doing something else. I.e. the total sum of time of me getting quickly home from work and the car going to store on its own will be larger than one optimized trip - i.e. my time in the car would be lesser while car's time on the road would be higher if everything else was equal. Though it willn't be and thus- i'm looking forward for many productive hours stuck in "smart & autonomous" traffic trying to get home as quickly as possible and sending the car on whatever errands before and after - hope it will enjoy being stuck in traffic among the sames.
toomuchtodo 11y ago
> Texting, vegging out, and drinking: truly the heights to which the soul would soar if not crushed by the villain of driving. How about, "Providing efficiencies that would allow us to reduce the work week from 5 days to 4, thereby providing more time for people to actually live their lives"? Whenever another self driving car or truck article hits hacker news, I cringe at the inevitable post from someone who says "Ahh! Now they can code why the vehicle drives itself! They can be even more productive!" That is not what life is about. To you, it might be, but the purpose of life is not work. Work is simply a means of supporting yourself while you experience life.
- mgraczyk 11y ago
  I can't speak for everybody, but I enjoy my work and would do something very similar even if I didn't need the money. I don't view the opportunity cost of my morning commute in terms of the time I lose at home before work. I view it as lost time I would rather spend at work doing what I love.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    I don't fault you for enjoying what you do, but most people don't; therefore, we shouldn't create economic policy around the idea that people do enjoy work. People enjoy fulfillment; whether that is tied to a "job" or whatever we're going to call it in 10-50 years as labor gets automated away, that's an entirely other matter. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2013/10/10/only-13-percent-of-people-worldwide-actually-like-going-to-work/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2013/10... http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/10/10/unhappy-employees-outnumber-happy-ones-by-two-to-one-worldwide/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/10/10/unhappy-em... http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/opinion/sunday/why-you-hate-work.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/opinion/sunday/why-you-hat... http://www.gallup.com/poll/165269/worldwide-employees-engaged-work.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/165269/worldwide-employees-engage...
- trhway 11y ago
  >Work is simply a means of supporting yourself while you experience life. you can have reasonable experience of life only until you're not that far down from the middle (like whether salary is bad or good is defined not by absolute number, instead it is defined by the relation to other salaries in that region, etc...) Everybody running up toward and beyond the middle move the middle up. So, if people can additionally work while cars are driving themselves - they would as anybody who wouldn't would thus be sliding down farther from the middle and thus slipping into less than "average" life experience.

ForHackernews 11y ago

To be fair, driving is a huge pain in the ass. I love commuting by train, because I can read a book or take a nap instead of having to watch the road.

seanp2k2 11y ago
So true. Driving can also be aggravating and frustrating, and at least in the Bay, you have to be at least a little aggressive to get into traffic / turn out / not have other people hate you and honk. If a car could do that for me but still give me control when I wanted it (on the rare occasion I'm driving for pleasure), I'd say "shut up and take my money" in a hurry. It'd also be nice to be able to take a train or bus to work, but the bus doesn't go where I need and it's slower than riding a bicycle for my commute.
- kenrikm 11y ago
  People in the Bay Area have such an adverse reaction to honking. They tend to freak out or drive erratically if honked at even if they deserve it. (Don't hit me!)

bsder 11y ago

Okay, how about reading a book? Writing something? Talking (gasp, how old fashioned) to people? Or, even better, just not getting on the road right now because the self-driving cars are trying to reduce congestion.

trhway 11y ago
>the self-driving cars are trying to reduce congestion. congestion reduction is such a goal only because people are wasting time in traffic :). If cars are empty or people inside are engaged in a dopaminergic activity (working, texting, having sex, etc...) it will become less of an issue. Especially with electric cars as idling of the engine becomes non-issue. Add to that that currently amount of time my car on the road is limited by my time (and thus i plan/optimize when/where to go, like getting into store on the way from work, etc...), the self-driving car can go to store for pickup or deliver some papers, etc... while i'm doing something else. I.e. the total sum of time of me getting quickly home from work and the car going to store on its own will be larger than one optimized trip - i.e. my time in the car would be lesser while car's time on the road would be higher if everything else was equal. Though it willn't be and thus- i'm looking forward for many productive hours stuck in "smart & autonomous" traffic trying to get home as quickly as possible and sending the car on whatever errands before and after - hope it will enjoy being stuck in traffic among the sames.

toomuchtodo 11y ago

> Texting, vegging out, and drinking: truly the heights to which the soul would soar if not crushed by the villain of driving. How about, "Providing efficiencies that would allow us to reduce the work week from 5 days to 4, thereby providing more time for people to actually live their lives"? Whenever another self driving car or truck article hits hacker news, I cringe at the inevitable post from someone who says "Ahh! Now they can code why the vehicle drives itself! They can be even more productive!" That is not what life is about. To you, it might be, but the purpose of life is not work. Work is simply a means of supporting yourself while you experience life.

mgraczyk 11y ago
I can't speak for everybody, but I enjoy my work and would do something very similar even if I didn't need the money. I don't view the opportunity cost of my morning commute in terms of the time I lose at home before work. I view it as lost time I would rather spend at work doing what I love.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  I don't fault you for enjoying what you do, but most people don't; therefore, we shouldn't create economic policy around the idea that people do enjoy work. People enjoy fulfillment; whether that is tied to a "job" or whatever we're going to call it in 10-50 years as labor gets automated away, that's an entirely other matter. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2013/10/10/only-13-percent-of-people-worldwide-actually-like-going-to-work/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2013/10... http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/10/10/unhappy-employees-outnumber-happy-ones-by-two-to-one-worldwide/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/10/10/unhappy-em... http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/opinion/sunday/why-you-hate-work.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/opinion/sunday/why-you-hat... http://www.gallup.com/poll/165269/worldwide-employees-engaged-work.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/165269/worldwide-employees-engage...
trhway 11y ago
>Work is simply a means of supporting yourself while you experience life. you can have reasonable experience of life only until you're not that far down from the middle (like whether salary is bad or good is defined not by absolute number, instead it is defined by the relation to other salaries in that region, etc...) Everybody running up toward and beyond the middle move the middle up. So, if people can additionally work while cars are driving themselves - they would as anybody who wouldn't would thus be sliding down farther from the middle and thus slipping into less than "average" life experience.