Walter S

Not in bad weather.

Rollfast

ILTB defined the reason for the forum well earlier on this page. If this thread wants to continue as a shouting match about who insulted whom or typing etiquette, why should this thread continue?


One of the reasons I've tried to stay out of this forum anymore is because it seems every thread will degenerate into an us vs. them and messianistic thing and evolution can't occur. I don't want or need to do something stupid and get myself tossed out really. Maybe I try and stay out of some things for that reason. I don't find it useful to flame out and become useless.


I get accused of moderating and I have to say that we ALL are moderators in that our character and behavior is what shapes the entire site. Administrators are there to guide, correct or reject that though, because it is all for one (BF).


Maybe I have spinach in my teeth.

350htrr

So... Even "if" it ends up killing people because of some glitch, which will be fixed. It's happening all the time anyways with todays drivers... because of people driving, and they are incompetent to be driving, for what ever reason, inattention, incompetence because of motors kills/under the influence/racing/boredom/phones/changing the radio station/watching a movie... You cant' change that, but you can, improve the computer software and sensors to the point where, It's just better/safer. For everyone...

cooker

I never see you post about that stuff, yet you are one of the most prolific posters here - what's that all about? Is it only the rest of us who are supposed to post "relevant" stuff, while your posited rules don't apply to you?

cooker

As the thread OP, I defined the purpose of this thread. Can you give us your 5 year prediction?

I-Like-To-Bike

You never "see" a lot of stuff posted on this list, especially the idiotic P&R ranting or ridiculous fantasy schemes. Regardless, my "posted rules" (your wacky words, not mine) never claimed anyone has some sort of obligation to post the obvious here or anywhere else.

cooker

"Posited" - get it right.

As usual, the people complaining about the thread are the ones who don't actually contribute anything on topic.

I-Like-To-Bike

You are the person doing all the complaining about posts not following your POSITED RULES for this thread.

cooker

It is true, I have tried from time to time to remind people of the theme for this thread as defined in the OP, and in fact I am actually posting the kind of content defined in the OP, rather than your "rules don't apply to me" off-topic jibes and barbs.

Roody

Some of the back&forth bickering is boring, but most of the discussion has been interesting.

I understand that not everybody is interested in this kind of "predicting." It might not be your cup of tea. That's fine.

But the thread title "Living carfree, 5 year predictions" nicely summed up the topic. I don't see how anybody could have been tricked into opening a thread that they had no interest in!

But for me and at least a few others, this topic has been interesting. I hope those who are not interested will move along rather than stifling the freedom of the rest of us. Thanks!

In my own family, I started a conversation about predictions. My DIL and grandson have enjoyed it very much. But my son thinks it's "stupid." When we re-open the conversation, he says, "I'm just going to leave for a while until you guys are done talking about your stupid predictions!" Hint, hint--some of you could just leave this conversation if you find it stupid!

wolfchild

Self-driving cars seem so boring...What are you supposed to do ??, just sit there and daydream ??, while the software is doing all the work for you.. With a normal car at least you're engaged in the experience of driving and controlling the vehicle...I predict that self-driving cars will make people even more lazy then what they already are and all the car enthusiasts who love the experience of driving will be staging massive protests against these robots with 4 wheels.

tandempower

I was not behind the shift toward narrowing LCF, but I have done my best since certain people have voiced discomfort with what they consider to be P&R posting. Personally, I wouldn't have minded if the ALL CAPS post contained P&R ideas if it was done in a polite way and contained more than just bland assertions of banning driverless vehicles, negativity about LCF, etc.

350htrr

Exactly, That's why I also predicted that personal ownership of cars will decline and everyone will share the car like taxis, an APP on your phone will summon the car with the press of 1 button wherever you are... That of course will take longer than 5 years but that would be the end result... IMO

cooker

To me, driving the car is boring, unless it is an interesting or challenging road (which most of the time, especially for work commutes, it isn't). You'd be watching videos or the news, reading, sleeping, watching the scenery, chatting in person or electronically, playing video games, dictating reports, writing a novel, etc. etc. You could even do some resistance training exercises. Driving is mostly a time waster.

mtb_addict

Even in good weather...like sunny but with a lot of glare...that's how the guy in a Tesla was killed.

I don't see autonomous car ruling the road any time soon...not in my life time.
There'll probably be limited use...like for trucks doing same route day after day. Perhaps you have a convoy of autonmous trucks, lead by a single human driver in the lead truck.

tandempower

I have driven as a job before, and it is both interesting and boring. It's boring because you're just sitting there operating a vehicle, but somehow all the little decisions and maneuvers you have to execute give you something to do.

I think it's a lot like video games, where the challenge is just enough to keep you going through the maze and killing time. In fact, someone should compare video game addiction with driving addiction, because they probably have similar psychological effects.

Autonomous vehicles will be good precisely because people will be able to occupy themselves with other things besides driving while in transit. E.g. if they do their TV-watching and internet-surfing while en route, that gives them more time to devote to work, socializing, hobbies, and self-betterment instead of watching TV and web-surfing.

I think it was actually Henry Ford's vision that assembly lines would allow people to get their work done faster so they could devote more time to beneficial forms of leisure. He foresaw the challenge of the industrial age as being how to prevent free time from becoming something negative.
Autonomous vehicles are a 21st example of how technologies can further lessen the amount of time humans need to spend working. Everyone is always afraid that if they become redundant to corporations, the corporations will starve them out of existence, but what is the purpose of the economy and technological progress except to give people more free time to live a better life?

cooker

The difference is in the number of extra lives they give you.

cooker

The truth is that with advances in automation and so on we don't all need to work and we could all live lives of much more leisure if there was a way to distribute the wealth. The main wealth distribution system we have now is paid work, but since all essential work can be performed by a small portion of the population, we have had to invent jobs (as I have said before) like barista and tour guide and pet groomer and financial advisor to keep everybody working. It took a lot of creativity to invent all those rather superfluous jobs, and it will take a lot more to invent the next generation of non-essential jobs if AI and robots put a whole new raft of workers out of business.

350htrr

The difference is, that with autonomous vehicles, they know how the accident happened and with a few key strokes they "fixed" the problem... Nobody can "fix" the human driver, they keep on keeping on doing stupid things over and over, generation after generation...

350htrr

But, the rich want to say rich... Not become the average person that no longer needs to work/type of society... How would they be special...?

jon c. 

That's true only for the working class. 40 years ago, three quarters of the wealth was distributed in that manner. Futurists predicted technology would result in people working less. But that was predicated on the same percentage of the created wealth being distributed through paid work. Instead, that percentage fell to less than 60% so the additional leisure time in large part never materialized.

tandempower

That, or a lot more technologies of self-sufficiency and corporate methods of productivity-distribution could evolve. Car-sharing and ride-sharing are great example of how we now have the technology to allow multiple people to use the same machine conveniently and efficiently, if many people would participate; yet there are simultaneously efforts to thwart the use of technologies in this way because of the threat/fear of revenue declines.

I love Star Trek because they sometimes deal with the issue of money being useless in a society where people are able to produce whatever they need using replicators, etc. I recenlty watched an episode of TNG where Captain Picard or Data has to explain to someone from the past how future humans stop working to accumulate wealth and instead focus on self-betterment.

This could turn into a P&R topic quickly, but maybe we could save it by predicting how long it will take before technologies will be able to fully bloom in terms of their potential for reducing income-dependency and economic waste. Will it be a cold day in hell, or possibly sooner?

cooker

How about you save it by making a five year prediction relevant to living car free or car light?

tandempower

I find it so hard to make predictions now with the ridiculous levels of negative propaganda used to attack the companies that are pursuing innovations. Uber, for example, is currently being smeared for sexism, while UAW is attempting to gain power over Tesla. Both these negative campaigns seem to be attempts for automotive traditionalists to subjugate Uber and Tesla to their market control paradigm, so it is hard to predict that autonomous vehicles and car-sharing will gain ground in 5-years if the public/consumers and governments allow traditionalists to undermine the expansion that would make these options more widespread and thus affordable for a broader public.

Machka 

Then why are you waxing eloquent in a 5-year prediction thread?