
What Happens to American Myth When You Take the Driver Out of It? - Thevet
http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/10/is-the-self-driving-car-un-american.html
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acconrad
I completely disagree that self-driving cars are un-American. In fact I would
go so far as to say that self-driving cars are the future to the American
suburb. If America was founded on freedom and the pursuit of happiness, what
could be more American than having a robot car chauffeur you to and from work
while you work in your car? The ability to be free from an oppressive commute
may lead to a resurgence in the American suburbs. It's a far-fetched notion
but I wouldn't be surprised by it either.

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sandworm101
>> what could be more American than having a robot car chauffeur you to and
from work while you work in your car?

Really? The American myth of self-reliance and independent determination
doesn't mesh with being driven around by a robot. The person who buys an
diesel f150 or a Shelby Mustang isn't the sort of person who likes being
driven around by other people, let alone by a cellphone app. The American myth
is the lone cowboy on the horse, not the rich man in the stage coach.

Cars are not rational decisions. If they were, we would all drive gray
electric minivans. Cars are a means of expression. They are class identifiers.
They are thrill machines. They are weapons. They are Freudian. I'll be
convinced about autodrives in the US when I see ONE autodrive car take ONE
spectator to a nascar event. It won't happen in my lifetime.

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forgetsusername
> _The person who buys an diesel f150 or a Shelby Mustang isn 't the sort of
> person who likes being driven around by other people_

Indeed, it feels hard like a hard message to convey on these boards: some
people (me) _enjoy_ the act of driving a car. And almost every reasonably
wealthy culture seems to like watching other people do it competitively.

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gambiting
I work in IT and it's incredibly hard to find like-minded petrol heads.
Seriously, I have people who tell me on almost daily basis that they can't
wait until they don't have to drive any more and when all manual cars are
banned. It's nonsense. I love driving my car to work and for leisure, I spend
at least few hours every week cleaning, polishing, waxing it, it's really my
pride and joy. But for a lot of people it's this expensive box that is a
constant source of problems and they can't wait to get rid of it.

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devonkim
This isn't all that difficult of an analogy to computers for most people. Most
of us here like computers enough to program them or mess around with them for
our careers, but most people can hardly wait for the day they don't need to
use a computer as they currently use it - it's an appliance to them mentally.

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mathattack
Good riddance to drivers!

The American Myth survived our abandonment of horses. It didn't seem to crush
the importance of the Western in our culture.

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M_Grey
Not to mention that it was always a _myth_. The reality was always some form
of danger, pollution (horses are messy!), wasted energy and treasure.

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ocschwar
And it was not really a big institution.

Transportation in the early US relied on MULE teams more than horses. And east
of the Mississippi, we rowed.

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cwilkes
Rowed, in water? Luxury. West of the Mississippi we used to drag our boats
through rock beds while the sun beat down on us for 29 hours a day.

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rabboRubble
The driver in the American Myth will go the way of surrey with the fringe on
top.

Back when my grandmother was still alive, I was doing a crossword with she and
her friend. Crossword hint was "has a fringe on top". Her friend said
"surrey", the correct answer, and followed up with "my family had a surrey
with a fringe". My gobsmacked grandmother said dripping with envy "your family
had one with fringe?!"

Two generations later, I drool over phones and gadgetry. So yeah, the driver
will go the way of the fringe.

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rz2k
Note that the crossword was almost certainly referring to the song from the
musical Oklahoma. The pretend envy might have been about having something from
the popular lexicon, rather than fringe being like a technological feature.

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rabboRubble
You are probably right about the crossword clue. But the grandmother's envy
was not pretend, but perhaps colored by surprise. I think the surrey with
fringe was a luxurious status symbol, like having a Mercedes-Benz or
something. The surprise would be like finding out that your plain Jane
unassuming friend grew up in a fairly rich family.

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yardie
I'm currently sitting in a train station parking lot watching my Uber drive
around in circles. Apparently Google maps is unaware there is a new easier
entrance and still instructs drivers to enter through the old construction
site.

This has gone on for the 3 months I've used them as part of my commute.

I'm looking forward to the day where I get into an argument with a wheelless
self-driving car about taking shortcuts and avoiding traffic. Simply because I
have local knowledge on traffic patterns which most maps still lacks.

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CamperBob2
The #1 pro tip with Uber is never, ever call for a ride unless you have clear
blue sky overhead. Otherwise, because you can't enable the satellite view,
it's hard to be sure what location is actually going to be reported to the
driver. Location services can be _way_ off base when GPS reception is poor,
and in many urban settings an error of a hundred yards might as well be ten
miles.

Uber could make life a lot easier for everyone if they'd just enable the
satellite view, so you can verify that the driver will be sent to the location
where you actually are.

(Edit: Instead of downvoting, consider explaining why I'm wrong. Maybe there's
something extremely silly that I'm missing.)

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yclept
Can't you just contact the driver... via your phone?

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yardie
This is South Florida, 40% of the Uber drivers don't speak English well enough
to drive and comprehend at the same time.

And my worry is automated cars with no steering wheel still rely on these
mapping services. They aren't 100% accurate and if you don't have any controls
you can't correct for that.

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CalChris
EVs pose a similar question. I have a Leaf which is silent. No growl at the
intersection. This has changed my driving and how I see other cars.

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holmak
Silent, deadly electric cars...

Joking aside, they've snuck up on me more than once when I'm about to cross
the street and they're trying to right-on-red. I'm surprised they don't have
some artificial noise to improve awareness.

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kwhitefoot
Please don't suggest adding noise to electric cars. There is a danger that a
politician or regulator will take the idea seriously.

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Digit-Al
There is already much going in in this realm:

[https://www.google.co.uk/#q=adding+noise+to+electric+cars](https://www.google.co.uk/#q=adding+noise+to+electric+cars)

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nixonpjoshua1
Good article, the mention of rural America is interesting though since self
driving cars to my knowledge still can't operate in an unmapped dirt road
properly or otherwise handle the challenges of going off the beaten path.

I'd like to see one of these self-driving cars tackle a mountain road in a
blizzard, just not when I'm on that road ;)

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rschuetzler
To be fair, most people can't tackle a mountain road in a blizzard. At least
if the streets of my hometown after a mild snowstorm are any indication.

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Aloha
So, this will work great in Downtown someplace - but not so well outer
whoknowswhereville - I spent a majority of the last three years driving on;
roads not on maps, dirt roads, logging roads, roads with no internet access,
and poorly marked roads.

We might be able to replace taxicabs thru automation likely in the next 20 - I
dont think we will ever replace drivers. I see automation in a car taking the
same route as autopilot in the airplane - not total automation, just partial.

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laughfactory
I agree in part, but think it'll go further than you expect. I suspect manual
driving will, in the next twenty years, require lots of additional training,
licensing, insurance, and certifications. And you'll have to prove special
circumstances (farm use only, etc). As the technology gets there maps will
catch up, and likely become more and more real-time. It seems impossible now,
but I'll bet the next wave of mapping will marry a thick web of satellites and
machine learning to essentially figure out what is a road, a dirt road, a road
with construction, etc. And that will be fed to the cars in their respective
areas. The present situation will seem quaint indeed. So even in rural areas,
there will likely be auto cars everywhere by in the most remote of areas
(similar to how in some places the snowmobile and ATV are more heavily
utilized than cars simply because of environmental/geographical reasons). I
also inside this sea change will heavily impact rural areas and many of them
will either be transformed or erased. Think about what happened when the
interstates were built. Many towns which had previously prospered on state
highways and the like almost literally overnight just vanished...Or turned
into just a gas station, diner, and bar for what few travelers remained.

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tedajax
I know Google has gone the route of removing the steering wheel but it seems
that even if vehicles have self-driving capabilities some level of "manual
override" will be desirable especially if you're not in a densely populated
area. Using a car to pull a stuck vehicle out of the mud is certainly a valid
use-case that not everyone will want to give up. Yeah it might become illegal
to use manual driving modes on public highways or something but I can't
imagine that we're going to be strictly limited to what the GPS software says
is a valid destination and I'd find it impressive if software was written for
every action people do with cars.

That being said these technology companies _always_ seem to move towards
smaller feature sets that intersect with the use-cases of the largest user
bases and power users are often forced to hack together their own custom
solutions if they don't fall into the general population of users so if
anything this article is a warning to not let the Apple's and Google's define
how we use self-driving cars.

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gumby
Any need for a manual controls is a failure of software.

~~~
madsushi
And software has failures.

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huffmsa
Does the Man with No Name have the same aura about him if he rides into town
on a self guided horse?

Transportation with know destinations (planes trains and self driving cars)
diminishes the role "fate" plays in ones destiny. The invisible hand becomes
visible because all arrival in a place is preceded by intent to be there.

So yes, it does signal at least a change to the American Myth.

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Ericson2314
Yes. Conservative areas may make a point of banning them. The house and the
car are the pinnacle of consumption in America.

On the flip side, car culture is already on its last legs. Cars became hideous
in the 80s, and monotonous in the 90s. And increasing gearheadom is derided as
lower class, non-white, or rural.

Cars themselves with their reduced noise, better suspensions, and more sealed
interiors isolate their inhabitants from the outside world _and_ the feel of
driving. I once had the joy of riding an MG-TD: thrilling at any speed.

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huffmsa
> And increasing gearheadom is derided as lower class, non-white, or rural.

Don't mind F1, Le Mans and club racing, three of the most capital and
technology intensive activities you can participate in.

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Ericson2314
I'm from America. Those are less well known here.

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bogomipz
This article reminded me of David Cronenberg film "Crash" based on J.G Ballard
book. Its interesting and worth a watch, although it might not be for
everyone. There's a few different versions and I think I saw the uncut one.

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allcentury
Wonderful read, interesting on so many levels.

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basicplus2
the difference in the American myth will be which seat in the car people will
be sitting in.

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mithoon
At first I read it "American Meth"

