
Elon Musk’s “Innovations” Are Not the Future – They’re Delaying It - pje
https://medium.com/@parismarx/elon-musks-innovations-are-not-the-future-they-re-delaying-it-79a49f75507a
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dpcx
This mostly reads as a piece that derides Musk and the things he's trying to
do. For example, complaining that the first tunnel "conveniently from his
place of work to his home" doesn't really add much, in my opinion. Look at the
startups that are based in the Valley and _only_ support the Valley to begin
with. Why is that? Maybe because it fills their need better?

The article also repeatedly makes statements about getting less Americans on
the road, out of their cars, and on to public transport, using quotes like "He
valorizes individual transportation because he doesn’t want to be around other
people — even seems to fear them, based on his comments — but sticking
everyone in their own vehicle simply doesn’t work in the increasingly dense,
urbanized world in which we live." I hate to break it to some folks outside
the US: many people in the US despise public transport, specifically because
it means they have to be near other people. Anecdotally, I've heard stories
from 10-15 different friends who won't even call a store to find out if some
item is in stock _because they don't want to deal with people_.

The U.S. (in general, from my perspective) wants less traffic, less pollution,
etc. But we're not going to give up our cars to get it. I realize the Catch-22
nature of this.

That's why automated cars are the future, at least for the United States. Do
those cars have the ability to drive in the rain and snow? Not yet. That
hasn't been a focus for the companies training these models. Let the system
learn on the "easy" stuff first, and then tackle the harder things later.

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monktastic1
Musk on public transit: "there’s like a bunch of random strangers, one of who
might be a serial killer"

This "other people are weird and gross" idea strikes me as _exactly_ the wrong
kind of sentiment needed to help humanity pull itself together. And I'm the
sort of person who believes that motivation is a good predictor of outcomes.
So I agree, this is not the kind of visionary I want to follow.

~~~
lrajlich
the irony is that you're far more likely to get killed in a car accident than
by a serial killer on public transit.

~~~
perl4ever
If you want to start getting into who is irrationally afraid of what, I have
this amusing comparison.

Studies seem to show that marathon runners die from cardiac arrest at the rate
of one every 3 to 6 million miles. That is about 160 to 330 deaths per billion
miles. By comparison motor vehicle fatality rates are about 12 per billion
miles (including pedestrians). So I wonder if we should stop worrying about
cars and serial killers and start worrying about running...

Ironically, I got my 1 in 3 million figure from the abstract of a paper with
the opposite slant, which you may also find edifying:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18156224](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18156224)

Note that I translated hours to miles by multiplying 14 million hours by an
average speed of 5.67 mph. This was taken from the following link, with the
average time for the NYC marathon in 2016:

[http://time.com/5007486/new-york-city-marathon-runners-
slow/](http://time.com/5007486/new-york-city-marathon-runners-slow/)

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wyld_one
Well part of is the corporate need to have all the people at a site to do
work. A lot of job could be reevaluated to be 'work at home' thus eliminating
the need to travel somewhere to do it. This alone would free up traffic, make
it 'safer', reduce fuel consumption, and insurance rates. However; business
would have to put more trust in the individual, and I don't see that happening
anytime soon.

