07.07.13
Self-driving car Kool-Aid
Nick Bilton, the New York Times tech journalist who gave the country Cody Wilson and the 3D-manufactured plastic gun fills up space today with the future urban paradise created by the self-driving car. It’s something only one of the privileged shoeshine boys of American tech plutocracy could write.
Self-driving cars will always be for the topmost in US society. As inequality continues to surge, unless they’re giving them away, they’ll never make a dent in southern California in what’s left of my lifetime. Indeed it’s laughable to posit that southern California’s great servant underclass would ever benefit from self-driving cars.
Do they even know about Google’s many vanity projects?
As scientists and car companies forge ahead — many expect self-driving cars to become commonplace in the next decade — researchers, city planners and engineers are contemplating how city spaces could change if our cars start doing the driving for us. There are risks, of course: People might be more open to a longer daily commute, leading to even more urban sprawl.
That city of the future could have narrower streets because parking spots would no longer be necessary. And the air would be cleaner because people would drive less. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 30 percent of driving in business districts is spent in a hunt for a parking spot, and the agency estimates that almost one billion miles of driving is wasted that way every year.
“What automation is going to allow is repurposing, both of spaces in cities, and of the car itself,??? said Ryan Calo, an assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Law, who specializes in robotics and drones.
Harvard University researchers note that as much as one-third of the land in some cities is devoted to parking spots. Some city planners expect that the cost of homes will fall as more space will become available in cities. If parking on city streets is reduced and other vehicles on roadways become smaller, homes and offices will take up that space. Today’s big-box stores and shopping malls require immense areas for parking, but without those needs, they could move further into cities.
“People might be more open to a longer daily commute, leading to even more urban sprawl.”
It’s worth repeating, enough to make you fall from the chair in laughter if you’ve ever spent time in Los Angeles County and the Inland Empire.
Who, exactly, is on our soCal roads who doesn’t already do an excessive commute in a region that defines urban sprawl in the continental United States?
And Google and expensive self-driving cars for the upper class and their servants will fix it. Sure. Google will fix everything, just as it does now, only better.
Here’s what might fix it.
Mass unemployment, underemployment and inequality climbing inexorably higher. Potentially, there could be less cars on the roads because people won’t be able to afford to drive.
That will alleviate congestion and make inner-city parking easier for the haves.
One professor of “the Internet and society” at Stanford, Bryant Walker Smith, imagines his driver-less car becoming an extension of his home.
This next bit, on the other hand, is perfectly great. Escape from WhiteManistan can definitely see the overlords and minders this way in a decade or so:
“I could sleep in my driverless car, or have an exercise bike in the back of the car to work out on the way to work,??? he said. “My time spent in my car will essentially be very different.???
Your Personal Fitness Gym car, streaming smoothly along amidst the the hundreds of thousands of late models and junkers that must be kept going by the slave labor class.
Here’s a thought question.
What’s the future potential for class resentment in the servant class to boil over into vandalism and sabotage of self-driving cars? You still have to rub elbows, or bumpers, on those big freeways and cities, wizards of tomorrow.
Oh, the future’s brimming with promise
And the promise is heading our way
So keep your eyes on that shining horizon
Make way for tomorrow today!Daring new devices will help us to succeed
Better tools for living will meet our every need
Incredible inventions through new technology
Extending life’s dimensions for all humanity!
Chuck said,
July 11, 2013 at 11:49 am
I used to think that the folks who commuted from Stockton to San Jose had a long commute–until I met the fellow who made the drive from Modesto.
I wonder what the average commute distance, as well as hours spent behind the wheel to accomplish the same is for for Google employees.
Remember when telecommuting was supposed to solve all of that?
George Smith said,
July 11, 2013 at 2:18 pm
Yes, yes I do. It obviously went gangbusters in LA County. Modesto to San Jose, now that’s punishing, something to bust your car in the summertime.