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Waymo has been operating near-flawlessly for years now in some busy, complicated cities. I don't see self-driving tech as the problem. It's been proven to work. I see irresponsible companies as the problem.

Waymo has conditionals (type of car, what roads it will drive on, range, etc) on how and where it can operate, FSD's conditionals are much less stringent.

I'm still waiting for Waymo to safely drive in the snow.


Waymo is level 4 while FSD is level 3. Waymo won't drive in the snow, because they know they cannot fully automate it safely in all situations. FSD will yolo any situation and just suddenly hand you the wheel whenever it likes, resulting in situations like the linked article.

> I'm still waiting for Waymo to safely drive in the snow.

I'm not, at least not especially. Technology doesn't need to be flawless to transform society. We put up with lots of limitation when we live in places with serious winters. Why should driverless cars be impervious?


You didn't read where he said "self driving cars with human backups"

If it needs a human backup then that's not a self-driving car though is it? That's an already-obsolete concept.

Hardly. Even for those limited few who can afford the extra cost, a business class seat only slightly insulates you from the worst part of any flight... other annoying passengers.

The ideal amount of time to travel between two places is almost always zero. Would you rather spend 12 hours going from VA to WA or zero hours?

I like the part where I don't die of dysentery and lose two children on the trip.

That's what makes the 2-hour early 'rule' so egregious. Manipulating passengers to sit around in a Disneyland-priced mall because of the 1 in 5 chance the TSA screwed up their staffing that day.

I think Singapore has a pretty good experience worked out now, the immigration is automated just with an iris scan.

Additionally moving security to the gate rather than having a single security point for all flights also makes the wait here shorter and more importantly predictable.

If I'm just taking a cabin bag I always arrive 35-40 minutes before a flight and have had no trouble with time, normally enough time to grab a coffee too before boarding.


I can handle some name-calling, but not the bad faith arguments. They can be whiny man-children all they want so long as they act like rational adults when it matters. But they can't even muster that anymore. It's all self-indulgent performance all the time. And just enough people are willing eat it up that it keeps reinforcing the behavior.

We are being shitty parents to our billionaire class. Billionaires need boundaries if we want them to grow up and turn into respectable adults.


There are genuine similarities between the current administrations actions and the actions taken by Hitler in 1933 in Germany that essentially ended their reign of democracy, and of course people are going to write about that and talk about that. Toss in Musk's loud and frequent support for far-right parties (including in Germany), and top it all off with a nazi salute on national television and you're bound to get a few comparisons.

What audit? They are mostly just stealing data.

I think that's a stretch. The nations with the best road/transit systems and the most law-abiding drivers are invariably the most prosperous.

> Almost no one wants to live in a super dense urban environment.

And yet that's where so many people choose to live, hence that aforementioned super density. If almost no one wanted to live there it wouldn't be dense at all. Not to mention people usually pay a premium cost for that density you think they hate.


Choosing to live, or need to live? I think it’s a bit of both. As the parent comment mentioned, you have to look at these things based on factors like age and income. I think the ones that are truly choosing to live in very dense environments are often younger and value some of the access they get in a city. I think there’s another population that doesn’t choose it but has to be there for work or to afford things or whatever (depending on the city). But most cities have a pattern where people on average move further away from city cores as they age, and there’s a reason for that.

> But most cities have a pattern where people on average move further away from city cores as they age, and there’s a reason for that.

Yeah, it's called kids. The thing people keep having less of.


> There's a reason that the first thing anyone, anywhere, does when they get some money is buy an SUV or (in Europe and Japan) a station wagon and move out to an American-style suburb.

Maybe if you have kids, otherwise that's just self-imposed exile. Not much fun to be had in a suburb if you're loaded and childless. Lots of driving though.


> Not much fun to be had in a suburb if you're loaded and childless.

Depends on what you want to do. Most childless couples I know moved away from their younger city lives. They don’t think of being “exiled” from restaurants or whatever. They’re closer to parks, hiking, friend. They’re able to do hobbies you can’t in the city like woodworking or whatever. And as for driving - it is much easier and painless away from cities. High density without matching roads makes driving painful. But low and medium density with lots of parking makes it great - driving then just becomes a means to live a high quality life.


I don’t live car-free in a city because I dislike driving in the city, I live car-free in a city because I dislike driving, period.

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