• jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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    3 months ago

    I remain irritated we’re spending so much money on self driving cars instead of buses, trains, and improving our living spaces to support them.

    Like you could spend billions to try to get self driving cars to work, and get part way there. And you’d still have a car-first dystopia.

    Or you could spend billions to deploy buses and make walkable neighborhoods. Well understood, many good side effects.

    • BastingChemina@slrpnk.net
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      3 months ago

      If the tech bros really wants self driving transportation we can give them that:

      maxresdefault-3398351735

      Self driving subway, goes 75km/h in the city center, fully electric, convenient, consistent, safe.

    • AbsentBird@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Trains are way easier to make self driving too, we’ve had autonomous trains since the 60s.

        • AbsentBird@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          They usually only use the horn at crossings. Automated trains are grade separated. The SkyTrain rolls through Vancouver all night and you can hardly hear it.

      • _edge@discuss.tchncs.de
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        3 months ago

        The only reason trains are not self-driving is humans designed the whole system in a too complicated way. Trains had all the ingredients for safe self-driving for decades.

        • turmacar@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          In the US a few decades ago the big rail companies were given the ultimatum to upgrade their safety infrastructure or have a national speed limit of 79 mph imposed on them.

          Guess which they did?

    • dinckel@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Because you can make every kind of excuse, when it comes to privately owner corporations, but you quickly run out of them, when improving public systems.

      We’ve already seen it countless times, how the American government gives money to someone, to complete a project, but completely ignores any binding contracts, so all that money literally just goes into someone’s pocket instead

      • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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        3 months ago

        Corruption is a problem. It doesn’t help that one of two major parties doesn’t believe government can work, and they’ll make every effort to prove it.

        “See, if you don’t give any funding to public transit it doesn’t work. And if you gut the regulatory agencies, then there’s all sorts of corruption. Better privatize it, and I have just the guy to sell it to.”

  • Nima@leminal.space
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    3 months ago

    nobody:

    not a single soul:

    waymo cars at 4am: “ayyyy lmao” “ayyyyyy lmfao”

  • breadsmasher@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    welcomed Waymo’s presence, expecting it to enhance local security and tranquility

    what? how could it do anything for “local security and tranquility”?

    • Alphane Moon@lemmy.worldOP
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      3 months ago

      I didn’t really get this either.

      I did think the final paragraph was notable, a “zeitgeist of our times” if you will:

      The absurdity of the situation prompted tech author and journalist James Vincent to write on X, “current tech trends are resistant to satire precisely because they satirize themselves. a car park of empty cars, honking at one another, nudging back and forth to drop off nobody, is a perfect image of tech serving its own prerogatives rather than humanity’s.”

    • Jrockwar@feddit.uk
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      3 months ago

      Re: security: I imagine many women being more comfortable getting a waymo than an Uber/Taxi. It’s anecdotal and from a different country, but most of my female family/friends have had an uncomfortable interaction in a taxi, like unrequested sexual advances or things like that.

    • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Security, they’re covered in cameras, the footage from which can presumably be obtained by law enforcement.

      Tranquility, they’re presumably electric, so quieter?

    • CookieOfFortune@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      My coworker feels more comfortable cycling around the Waymo’s than human drivers.

      As in, they are already more considerate than humans.

      • Not_mikey@slrpnk.net
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        3 months ago

        I feel more comfortable walking around them, they never blow stop lights /signs, always go the speed limit, never honk (except when parking I guess) and are very patient. If they see a pedestrian they just stop instead of creeping forward making you question whether to walk in front of them and then getting mad when you won’t cross in front of their still moving car like people.

  • superkret@feddit.org
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    3 months ago

    So they’re all meeting at night talking to each other? I wonder what they’re up to.

  • Annoyed_🦀 @monyet.cc
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    3 months ago

    Could be there’s a cat or squirrel across the street and one car honk at it, the others follow?

    • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      They’re probably now programmed to honk if another car is in the way after some of their cars had to wait behind some driver way too long and customers were complaining. So now these cars are in the parking lot and slowly maneuvering to find a spot or to move to the exit, all at the same time because somebody has set up a schedule for the car to start at 4am and copied it to all vehicles. So at 4 am, they all want to go at the same time and block each other. Because now they are programmed to honk if they are blocked, they start honking at each other and you get what’s in the article and video.

      source: just seen too many unintended consequences of software engineering decisions

        • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Yup. And the issue here is that the cars back into and out of the parking spots, and are also programmed to stop if they get honked at. So car 1 begins backing into a spot, car 2 honks, car 1 pauses and then begins backing again, car 2 honks again, repeat… And when you have 30 cars in a parking lot, all trying to find a parking spot, there’s a lot of backing up and a lot of honking.

  • Pika@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    as if drivers aren’t honking at each other all night anyway. I live in the boonies, that was the biggest environment jerker for me that you have zero downtime in the cities, always beeping always noisy

    • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Eh, depends upon the neighborhood. If I heard people honking endlessly from my condo I’d be going out the door looking for the person that needed a foot up their ass.

      Not all city streets are very busy. There is some level of always noise (I got planes and helicopters and sirens to mention a few) but it’s not cars aggressively honking at each other 24/7…nobody can sleep through that.