I am well aware of "creep" into our social-economic fabric that comes so slowing that we never stop to consider the impact on society and our everyday lives.

I point to cashless monetary transactions and ubiquitous cellphones. In some cities you cannot pay for car parking unless you have a cellphone.

As for private ownership vs pay for service rendered I see apartment living as an example.
Some people choose to rent or lease a car rather and own it. Same example.

 

That "last mile" requires at least 80% of the technology so I expect to see AI driver-less system in mass transit long before they are popular for private transportation.

To rent or lease the same car is much different than to have some random AI 'uber' car at your door-step every time you need a car.

My question is still, "WHY" do we need self-driving cars?

 

I am not for or against self-driving cars.

I believe that the consumer has no say in the matter. It is going to be market driven, meaning, the companies that can dominate the market will dictate how it unfolds.

Rail transit in N.A. was wiped out by three big sectors in the economy.

 

If it's a superior product at the price point it will sell, if it's not, companies will go broke. That's the open market.

Rail transit in N.A. was wiped out because it couldn't compete with other modes of transportation for much of this wide-open country. Freight rail competes easily with other transportation modes.
https://railroads.dot.gov/rail-network-development/freight-rail-overview

Look at the California High-Speed Rail fiasco to see why rail transit failed in the US.

https://webcache.googleusercontent....maker-16253012.php+&cd=23&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

But the project has faced ridicule over repeated construction delays and soaring construction costs, with its budget growing from $33 billion to about $83 billion. Trains were initially supposed to start running last year. Now, the Rail Authority doesn’t anticipate the Central Valley segment will start operating until 2029, followed by the longer line in 2033.

Assembly Member Alex Lee, D-San Jose, said while he would have preferred a Bay Area line be built earlier, the state cannot lose momentum on what it has started building. He said California needs a modern transit system to meet its climate goals and compete economically with countries in Asia and Europe, where high-speed rail is ubiquitous.

Trying to emulate Asia and Europe high-speed rail in the USA is IMO a fools goal.

 

As the conspiracy theory goes, GM, Firestone Tire, and Standard Oil bought out rail and streetcar companies and then shut them down.

 

As the conspiracy theory goes, GM, Firestone Tire, and Standard Oil bought out rail and streetcar companies and then shut them down.

Yeah, but the lightbulb that lasts forever finally did come out after years of being suppressed.

Bob

 

As the conspiracy theory goes, GM, Firestone Tire, and Standard Oil bought out rail and streetcar companies and then shut them down.

Yeah, I heard about it here.

https://la.curbed.com/2017/9/20/16340038/los-angeles-streetcar-conspiracy-theory-general-motors

When it premiered in 1988, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? seemed most likely to be remembered for its innovative blend of live-action and animated footage (or for its uncomfortably sexualized presentation of a cartoon bunny).

But in Los Angeles, the film's legacy might always be its story of a great conspiracy that destroyed a once-great public transit system.

In a climactic scene, the maniacal Judge Doom, envisioning a future of “gas stations, inexpensive motels, [and] restaurants that serve rapidly prepared food,” confesses his plan to force Angelenos to embrace the freeway.

 

That 100 million degrees (Maxwellian temperature) is a containment energy density as a measure of collisions with each other, it doesn't really represent an actual physical temperature of a free plasma.

Yeah, that's why it is so easy to contain, because it is not a 'real' temperature
But feel free to stick your finger in there to make sure it is 'cool' enough (har har)

Ok seriously, there has got to be some 'temperature' to it but maybe you can elaborate.

Ok well back to the self crashing (ah ah ah, i mean 'driving') cars,..
I have read just yesterday that several companies are pulling out of the self driving car market and that is a sign that least some of them are getting smart.
On the other hand, i have also now read that there has arisen a "self driving car school" that tests and trains self driving cars to understand thousands of what it think they are calling 'edge' scenarios where unusual circumstances suddenly appear such as a deer darting out onto the road suddenly without warning.

The plan is to have every self driving car linked to a data base where it sends data on things it encounters while moving along roads anywhere in the world. The data is then sifted and utilized by the self driving car 'school' to teach the other cars to understand these problems. Presumable the data base will grow with time and thus every car will be more and more aware of what can go wrong and how to avoid a problem thus making the cars more and more safe. That's the idea anyway, to see if it works effectively will take time.
So far it think it is with just one company with their own cars but it may spread to other companies too.
The nice thing about this is that the car itself does not have to be physically there, it just needs the 'brain' to test and train, and that probably just means the 'program' because it uses simulations for the tests and training although i guess they might use a car too at some points.
So this looks promising, although while this is all taking place we are all guinea pigs.

Oh, and on a related note, electric cars are undergoing a generational change also moving from 'charge' to "replace" when it comes to the batteries that power them.
Several problems have stemmed up from the use of these cars when it comes to charging. One major problem is the time it takes to charge, the other is people that dont have a driveway have to charge their car on the street if they want to charge at home, and another is that municipalities are not set with the required infrastructure that would be required to charge many cars with the kind of power they need to charge which is quite large if you dont want to wait 100 hours for a single charge.

The newer idea now is to have the driver go to a station that has batteries already charged and have the entire battery replaced with a newly charged one. This means the owner of the car does not own the battery, just the car, and they pay for each replacement rather than charge it themselves.
This eliminates several problems: the charge time, the sidewalk charge scheme which is not legal in many areas, and the infrastructure problem as the charged batteries can come from an area that is set up exclusively for charging batteries.
So man is making progress in some of these areas, which sounds good.

 

Back to the future

I see that there will be no reasonable reason for private car ownership. When you consider that most of the time most vehicles are parked somewhere not running. There will be no garages in homes. Compare that to the airline industry where the duration that the aircraft is in service in the air exceeds the time it is on the ground.

Instead of owning a car you will summons a car to come to you and take you to your destination. If you needed a car for a weekend trip into the country you would rent one.

As for cars at 4-way stops and narrow streets, all cars in the vicinity would be in communication with each other. They will negotiate which one goes first.

That's a good idea if they can communicate with each other. The question comes up though can they do that now.

 

So man is making progress in some of these areas, which sounds good.

We are deluded into believing that technology is going to save humanity from its excessive lifestyle.

We have allowed big business, the governing elite and the exponential growth of the money supply to take over in a game of "winner takes all".

Sadly, it is all too late.

A global pandemic is the best thing that could have happened in order to force degrowth on society. Too bad it was temporary.

 

Our Wal-Mart has for years, a floor moping "truck" that drive all over the store and avoids people and displays on the floor. It is not very smart, only walking speed. For years there are tractors that operate with out a driver. The ware house, go get my parts, machines are not new. The first I saw was in the Heath Kit factory 42 years ago. They ran on rails. Do you think a piolet flies a plane? Technology moves on. Like it or not.

 

We are deluded into believing that technology is going to save humanity from its excessive lifestyle.

We have allowed big business, the governing elite and the exponential growth of the money supply to take over in a game of "winner takes all".

Sadly, it is all too late.

A global pandemic is the best thing that could have happened in order to force degrowth on society. Too bad it was temporary.

and it didn't kill nearly enough people to make a dent in the overpopulation problem. Next time we need to hire a good Russian lab to make a world pandemic virus with a much higher death rate per million.

 

Our Wal-Mart has for years, a floor moping "truck" that drive all over the store and avoids people and displays on the floor. It is not very smart, only walking speed. For years there are tractors that operate with out a driver. The ware house, go get my parts, machines are not new. The first I saw was in the Heath Kit factory 42 years ago. They ran on rails. Do you think a piolet flies a plane? Technology moves on. Like it or not.
View attachment 242118

What's wrong with a mop, pail of water and a pair of able bodied elbows?
We are so clever that we can create technology so that people can sit on a beach and drink beer.

 

What's wrong with a mop, pail of water and a pair of able bodied elbows?
We are so clever that we can create technology so that people can sit on a beach and drink beer.

What’s wrong is that the per hour cost of operation of the robotic janitorial staff is less expensive than hiring a person, paying hourly wages, mandated benefits and governmental taxes.

We have robots that navigate around our grocery store and alert management of clean-ups and inventory issues. Then, a part-time employee takes care of the problem and returns to his primary job. Less people required.

 

We are deluded into believing that technology is going to save humanity from its excessive lifestyle

The one technology that really scares me is anti-aging and extension of life expectancy. People who talk about human immortality as a good thing haven’t thought it through very well. This was dealt with in an original Star Trek episode.

Bob

 

it didn't kill nearly enough people to make a dent in the overpopulation problem.

The one technology that really scares me is anti-aging and extension of life expectancy. People who talk about human immortality as a good thing haven’t thought it through very well.

Maybe time to pullout the formula for Soylent Green? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green

 

Maybe time to pullout the formula for Soylent Green? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green

If you can set up a factor and start delivering product by end of next year, l'll find the plot of that movie somewhat believable.

I lived less than a mile from a large computer company at that time - there was a neighborhood picnic and most neighbors worked at the computer company (my dad did not). The organizer kept telling everyone a special guest was coming. I eventually see the guy - he's discussing Soylent Green with a group of my neighbors, "it's supposedly 2022 and the Dad's house is full of books. People won't be reading books in 2022, they'll be using hand-held computers." I eventually saw the movie with that phrase in mind and couldn't believe someone would walk away from that movie concerned about books. I also eventually learned why his old co-workers at Control Data Corp we're excited to see him, he was Seymour Cray.

 

Our Wal-Mart has for years, a floor moping "truck" that drive all over the store and avoids people and displays on the floor. It is not very smart, only walking speed. For years there are tractors that operate with out a driver. The ware house, go get my parts, machines are not new. The first I saw was in the Heath Kit factory 42 years ago. They ran on rails. Do you think a piolet flies a plane? Technology moves on. Like it or not.
View attachment 242118

That's a good point about the pilot and plane. The skies are crowded but not as crowded as streets are though and there are three dimensions up there as opposed to just two down here. Still it's a good point because that is not an easy task either and yet it is the standard now.

 

That's a good point about the pilot and plane. The skies are crowded but not as crowded as streets are though and there are three dimensions up there as opposed to just two down here. Still it's a good point because that is not an easy task either and yet it is the standard now.

I think that people overestimate the level of operational automation in most commercial aircraft. The pilot still flies the plane because auto-pilot is equivalent to level 2 self-driving. It's assist technology.

 

I love the scene in “Back to the Future” where the flying cars are confined to crowded virtual highways. Not what people think of with flying cars, but probably necessary when traffic density is high enough.

Bob