309.3 km/h, a new self-driving car record.

[Fielder 3,681]

We had a guy down the road from us where we used to live. Off the grid, no electricity nor gas. Heated and cooked with wood. (Which was free in the National Forest a short drive away, the government wanted people to clean away trees instead of paying a crew to do it. So year around free firewood, a pickup truck load at a time).

Windmill for the well water pump. Trees, vines, and plants for vegetables (fruits, peanuts, potatoes, tomatoes). A few cows to milk and free meat (the male calves after they grew up. They only kept one bull. Outhouse instead of a sewer. 10 acres for alfalfa to feed the cows. Chickens. They sold alfalfa hay, tree fruits, grape and berry vines, nuts, milk, eggs).

Kids were healthy athletes at the high school because the diet was superior to supermarket stuff. Lots of peanuts and eggs in their diet. Two boys played wide receiver, could run like the wind.

They had a flywheel on their tractor that ran the wood table saw to split logs, and it powered the storage battery for the 12 volt radio. One of those tall 6 foot high console radios that ran on 12 volt tubes. Everybody else had cable TV, not them. Kids would gather around the radio for entertainment.

They literally had no bills to pay except gas for the tractor, old pickup, and clothes to wear. And 22 cartridges to kill the injured rabbits that got caught in the alfalfa farm machinery. Mercy killing. They did not hunt, only that.

[martin-w 3,238]

9 hours ago, birdguy said:

Not now, and probably not in my lifetime since I don't have that far to go.

 

Never Noel. Nobody will be forced to use automation to replace the mundane tasks we WANT to do. We will be able to make our kids do their own beds, mow the lawn or anything else. Anything other than that would be a Draconian civilisation that had rendered their population mindless drones. This is what I mean when I say we shouldn't get to carried away and push the perceived negative aspects of automation to the extreme.

However there is an exception to the above. There may be some aspects of our lives where automation is compulsory.

For example, 1.35 million people are killed on our roads every year. That is utterly shocking and utterly appalling. So if automation evolves to the point where almost all of those lives can be saved, or a high percentage of those lives, or just more lives saved that without automation, what does it say about us if we insist that we love driving and insist we still drive ourselves? Can we rellay complain if automation saves so many lives and is thus made compulsory? 

Food for thought. 🤔

[martin-w 3,238]

10 hours ago, birdguy said:

But autonomous cars scare me.  I won't ride in one.  In 82 years of driving I've had two minor fender benders.  I don't want this to happen to me:

It’s already happening. Most recently, an Uber self-driving car hit and killed a pedestrian in Arizona, while in May 2017, semi-autonomous software failed in a similarly tragic way when Joshua Brown’s Tesla Model S drove under the trailer of an 18-wheel truck on a highway while in Autopilot mode.

Tesla admits that its system sensors failed to distinguish the white trailer against a bright sky, resulting in the untimely death of the 40-year-old Floridian. But Tesla also says that drivers need to keep their hands on the wheel to stop accidents like this from happening, even when Autopilot is activated. Despite the name, it’s a semi-autonomous system.

 

The technology is advancing fast. 👍

There is a media narrative at play too of course. The way they ignore the morons on the road that cause thousands of deaths but one single automated vehicle that has an issue and the media and those with a negative perception of autonomous vehicles throw their arms in the air and cry "there look see, told you so, death traps". 

Same happened with battery fires, ICE cars catch fire all the time, I mean they carry a tank full of volatile fuel, but as soon as one electric car catches fire the media go into a frenzy. 😀

[Swe_Richard 1,173]

43 minutes ago, martin-w said:

 

For example, 1.35 million people are killed on our roads every year. That is utterly shocking and utterly appalling. So if automation evolves to the point where almost all of those lives can be saved, or a high percentage of those lives, or just more lives saved that without automation, what does it say about us if we insist that we love driving and insist we still drive ourselves? Can we rellay complain if automation saves so many lives and is thus made compulsory? 

Food for thought. 🤔

I would still argue for the freedom to drive myself. Every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Yes. Life is risky, and it always ends in death. That is just the way it is. People die of all sorts of things. Many from the stupid choices they make. We can use your line of reasoning for just about everything. People eat to much and get fat and die from heart disease. Do we want the clearly dystopian state needed to make everyone eat according to the way 'most beneficial for health' as well?

[martin-w 3,238]

30 minutes ago, Swe_Richard said:

I would still argue for the freedom to drive myself. Every day of the week and twice on Sundays

 

And allow literally millions to die needlessly to give you that capability. Is that the ultimate is selfishness? 

 

30 minutes ago, Swe_Richard said:

People eat to much and get fat and die from heart disease. Do we want the clearly dystopian state needed to make everyone eat according to the way 'most beneficial for health' as well?

 

A good point. But the food we eat impacts US, not others, its our individual choice if there are negative consequences.. Nutt case drivers in cars killing other isn't the victims choice, they are innocent victims. When you drive a car and a maniac rams into you its not the victims choice. Its also not the victims choice if a nut job veers off the road and kills children in a crowd.

I would agree in terms of individual choice like food where the negative consequences impact the person making the choice, but not when we threaten the lives of of huge number of the innocent. 

You wouldn't allow a maniac to run around the streets knifing people because its their choice, so why allow incompetent drivers to kill millions of the innocent? 

Freedom of choice is fine when we impact our own lives, but not when we threaten others. 

When we are dealing with something like freedom of choice, its a balance that's important. Total freedom is obviously not viable in society and no freedom of choice isn't viable in a free society either.

Balance is the key. 

 

Edited April 30, 2022 by martin-w

[Swe_Richard 1,173]

1 minute ago, martin-w said:

 

And allow literally millions to die needlessly to give you that capability. Is that the ultimate is selfishness?

...

...

You wouldn't allow a maniac to run around the streets knifing people because its their choice, so why allow incompetent drivers to kill millions of the innocent? 

Freedom of choice is fine when we impact our own lives, but not when we threaten others. 

 

That is not selfishness but common sense. The 'you monster! You want millions to die because of your freedoms'-line of reasoning is irrelevant and neurotic to be honest. I have never caused an accident and will never submit to loosing freedoms in order to gain a false sense of security. My freedom simply does not "threaten others", and people arguing against their own freedoms are really hard to take seriously.

Then your example of the maniac knifing people should lead to the conclusion that knifes should be banned, does it not? I mean, surely, us lowly plebeians can't possibly be allowed by the powers that be to have sharp knives at home lest some maniac in the 0.001% decides to cut the neighbor to ribbons?

We will obviously never reach any kind of agreement in this, so I think it's best to just give it a rest.

Let's just agree to disagree.

[martin-w 3,238]

23 minutes ago, Swe_Richard said:

My freedom simply does not "threaten others"

 

It does if that freedom is to drive a car, along with every other member of the population, which we know results in 1.35 million deaths per year.

 

23 minutes ago, Swe_Richard said:

irrelevant and neurotic to be honest

 

Nope, its fact. 

 

23 minutes ago, Swe_Richard said:

Then your example of the maniac knifing people should lead to the conclusion that knifes should be banned, does it not?

 

No it doesn't, that's out of context. The context is that in society we have to restrict certain personal freedoms if they offer a danger to others. That's always been the case. 

 

23 minutes ago, Swe_Richard said:

surely, us lowly plebeians can't possibly be allowed by the powers that be to have sharp knives at home lest some maniac in the 0.001% decides to cut the neighbor to ribbons?

 

That wasn't what I said at all. I said and I quote "You wouldn't allow a maniac to run around the streets knifing people because its their choice" I said nothing about any potential danger associated with owning knifes in the home. You misrepresented my comments.

The point, is that I agree with you in terms of protecting personal freedoms even those that pose a danger, as long as that danger is to oneself. If your freedom to engage in an activity threatens the lives of others, then obviously that's a whole new ball game that may require restrictions. 

In reality, and in the context of autonomous cars, the way I see technology going is that yes, you will have the capability to drive the car yourself if you so choose, and enjoy such a thing, but much like flight envelope protection in an aircraft, the automation will be able to take over if you are about to do something that will result in your demise or that of an innocent. 

Edited April 30, 2022 by martin-w

[Swe_Richard 1,173]

36 minutes ago, martin-w said:

 

..

Yeah we are, as predicted, getting nowhere. 

[RobPol471 173]

" Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress."  ( MAHATMA GANDHI )

[martin-w 3,238]

I would have thought the following statement was commons sense to be honest. 😁

 

1 hour ago, martin-w said:

The point, is that I agree with you in terms of protecting personal freedoms even those that pose a danger, as long as that danger is to oneself. If your freedom to engage in an activity threatens the lives of others, then obviously that's a whole new ball game that may require restrictions. 

 

 

[dave2013 1,130]

3 hours ago, martin-w said:

And allow literally millions to die needlessly to give you that capability. Is that the ultimate is selfishness? 

And there it is.  Imperfect humans cannot be allowed this or that because it might be dangerous.  Someone might get hurt.  In fact, those pesky humans are the real problem.  They must be controlled, monitored, their freedoms curtailed, all in the name of safety and security, of course.

Many years ago I read a short sci-fi story about these cool new robots that everyone started buying.  They were intelligent, very strong, and dexterous, so they performed all the mundane, tedious chores, took care of the kids, and basically made everyone's lives easier.  It got to the point that nearly 100% of homes had one of these robots.  Now, the robots had some prime directives programmed into their silicon brains.  For example, under no circumstances could they ever harm a human being.  Another directive was that they must protect human beings and prevent them being harmed.

Well, over time the robots learned that humans exposed themselves to dangers every day that could result in them being harmed, so they finally decided that it was too dangerous to allow humans to do anything or go anywhere at all.  The robots locked everyone in their homes and wouldn't let them leave.  They wouldn't let humans engage in any activities that might result in injury, so they weren't allowed to work or play.  Humans became prisoners with very, very dull lives, and they despaired.

Dave

[martin-w 3,238]

1 minute ago, dave2013 said:

And there it is.  Imperfect humans cannot be allowed this or that because it might be dangerous.  Someone might get hurt.  In fact, those pesky humans are the real problem. 

 

That's a gross exaggeration. Society has always put in place measures to ensure its members safety. Its not new. Society would be a pretty diabolical concept if it didn't. Can you imagine, no measures in place to save lives at all? What a horrible thing that would be.

 

Quote

They must be controlled, monitored, their freedoms curtailed, all in the name of safety and security, of course.

 

Even the most primitive societies put measures in place to protect the tribe. As I sad previously, its not about one extreme or the other, its about balance. And 1.35 MILLION people dying every year due to vehicles is a huge loss of life. Its the sort of loss of life we see in a major global conflict. So no, putting measures in place to reduce or even eliminate a massive loss of life due to vehicles is nothing at all like controlling and monitoring people... on the contrary, its common sense.

 

13 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

Well, over time the robots learned that humans exposed themselves to dangers every day that could result in them being harmed, so they finally decided that it was too dangerous to allow humans to do anything or go anywhere at all.  The robots locked everyone in their homes and wouldn't let them leave.  They wouldn't let humans engage in any activities that might result in injury, so they weren't allowed to work or play.  Humans became prisoners with very, very dull lives, and they despaired.

 

Then they should have been better programmed. 😀 Or if fully autonomous, sentient lifeforms, "true AI" then safeguards added to mitigate such issues. After all, Asimov warned us about such things a long time ago and others before.

[birdguy 3,943]

9 hours ago, lzamm said:

They said this about computers too, but all I know is that I ended up making my own travel arrangements, producing formatted reports, preparing camera-ready papers, entering exam results into the database myself and so on. 

That's all fine and good for you Izamm and nice for those who grew up with computers.

But I have found that my learning curve has flattened out.   If I don't already know how to do it I have a very difficult time trying to learn how.  That's especially true with computers and iPhones.

Go back to FS2002 on Flightsim.com and note all the scenery additions I made for it over a decade ago.  Today on P3D all I can do now is copy what someone else has made.

All I know how to do on my iPhone is answer calls and make calls.  I tell my doctors not to text me to remind me of my appointments but to e-mail me instead.  I can still read my e-mail.  Texting has me confused.  I don't know how to answer text messages.

I have a three year old Toyota Prius with a 12 inch touch screen.  I can't change the heater/air conditioner fan speed unless I pull over, park, and bring it up on the screen and change it.  I'm afraid to try and use the touchscreen while I'm driving because I have to take my eyes off the road.  With my diminished situational awareness, attention span, and reflexes I have to make allowances and be extra careful when I drive.  The heads up display on the windshield is a godsend because I don't have to take my eyes ff the road to read the speed.

My 5 year old great granddaughters have simple tablets and are already being trained to use computers.  But they have nothing for octogenarians to simplify the new technology.

I have outlived my usefulness.  It's not a nice feeling.  And I distrust new technology because I'll never learn how to use it.  But I still have to try and cope.

Noel  

 

 

[dmwalker 607]

35 minutes ago, birdguy said:

I have a three year old Toyota Prius with a 12 inch touch screen. 

My four year old Honda Accord has a 719 page driver's manual plus a 127 page navigation manual. I like to compare them with my 964 page B747-400 operations manual.

[Fielder 3,681]

The book Dave2013 read was probably " I Robot" by Isaac Asimov.