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Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

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Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#171

Post by kodablah »

lawguy wrote: post #138
masklinn wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's misplaced, freight is the one area where NA in general and US in particular absolutely blows every other region out the water. Circa 2010 Rail was ~40% of US freight by ton-mile, whereas for the EU it was ~17%, and the US had 10x more tonne-kilometer freight rail than the EU (beyond China and Russia, with India a very distant third) (nb: China carried more tonnes total but shorter distances) Of course…

> Hell one of the reasons passenger trains is shit in the US is that passenger rail does not get priority over freight They do have priority: > (c) Preference over freight transportation. -- Except in an emergency, intercity and commuter rail passenger transportation provided by or for Amtrak has preference over freight transportation in using a rail line, junction, or crossing... http://codes.findlaw.com/us/title-49…

I read "priority" from the GP as "commercial/investment priority".

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#172

Post by aetherson »

txsh wrote: post #157
masklinn wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The data mostly looks like population data then The US has a smaller population than the EU (~300m to ~500m). So does Russia (150m). Australia has a significantly smaller population than the EU (15^H^H25m as golemiprague noted). It's not population data it's mineral commodities. > What would it look like for ton-mile per capita (if that's actually a statistic)? The US would climb to ~15x the tonnes-kilometers per c…

Europe’s population is ~750m.

But the EU is not Europe.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#173

Post by knieveltech »

madeofpalk wrote: post #133
knieveltech wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source: plausible extrapolation based on Uber's storied history of violating labor laws to one extent or another in just about every market they've entered.

Come on, I'm not a fan of Uber and their shady history, but you can't just invent claims out of thin air based on your feelings.

What feelings? Do we seriously need to review Uber's conduct? We over here pretending their corporate culture has shifted to something approximating ethical behavior now?

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#174

Post by knieveltech »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #87
knieveltech wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Stimulate the economy" and "provide prosperity" correlate only very weakly, if at all.

"Stimulate the economy" and "provide prosperity to some billionaires" correlates very well. :-/

Watch in amazement as the hivemind downvotes factual statements.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#175

Post by olyjohn »

TorKlingberg wrote: post #31

I assume these self-driving trucks still have a human driver in them. So, which exact parts are self-driving? Is it like Tesla's autopilot where it does lane following, cruise control and keeping the distance on highways?

It's just adaptive cruise and lane keeping. Just like trucks already have now. The headlines to attract clicks on these are so infuriating...

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#176

Post by [deleted] »

madeofpalk wrote: post #133
knieveltech wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source: plausible extrapolation based on Uber's storied history of violating labor laws to one extent or another in just about every market they've entered.

Come on, I'm not a fan of Uber and their shady history, but you can't just invent claims out of thin air based on your feelings.

[deleted]

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#177

Post by madeofpalk »

knieveltech wrote: post #173
madeofpalk wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, I'm not a fan of Uber and their shady history, but you can't just invent claims out of thin air based on your feelings.

What feelings? Do we seriously need to review Uber's conduct? We over here pretending their corporate culture has shifted to something approximating ethical behavior now?

No, I'm not trying to excuse Uber or say that they're some amazing benevolent company.

All I'm saying that I think, if you're going to make a claim like above it at least comes with a source or something relevant to the claim itself to point at as proof.

But look, if that's too much to ask for on Hacker News then fine.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#178

Post by marcosdumay »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #101
emodendroket wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rarely see justification for the idea that lump of labor is actually fallacious. Historically big die-offs have led to higher wages for survivors.

If those high wage earning survivors are also paying high wages to all the other survivors, then are they actually better off? My gut reaction is no, less people means less work is being done and you lose a lot of economies of scale.

Few people pay wages, many people collect them.

But I don't think history will be useful, because depopulation also causes on increase in agricultural productivity (per person) that is a huge confounding variable.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#179

Post by marcosdumay »

nickpeterson wrote: post #5

I think these companies (autonomous car/truck) understand that they need to transition these processes slowly over time. I feel like it's better to start with something only moderately different and iterate than try to completely reinvent the entire structure of such a large industry. First they do this, then they automate more and more portions, at each step reducing the amount of manual, human supervision. It also…

> I think these companies (autonomous car/truck) understand that they need to transition these processes slowly over time.

They understand pretty well that they need to transition faster than their competition. Given that, they'll do it as slow as their competitors allow, because it's investment and they don't like doing that quickly.

How fast that means is anybody's guess. But they can't just stop and wait.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#180

Post by marcosdumay »

conanbatt wrote: post #143
bob_theslob646 wrote: post #121

What really bothered me at the end of the commerical was the fact that the person could be in home in time for dinner. Unless we have some form of UBI, where is that person going to source the funds to pay for his dinner?

What I find truly interesting of this thinking is that technological advances in the future are cataclysmic, but in the past are necessary. It never becomes something like "lets destroy all the farming machinery, so we create more jobs plowing the land".

Oh, you can rest assured that we have enough cataclysms in history to make the case.

There's that entire "let's destroy all machinery that is taking your jobs" movement that gave a name to the "avoiding new things" attitude. All that in a period when people were choosing between literally dying of huger unemployed or of extenuation at work.

Just because the cataclysm is temporary does not mean it didn't exist.

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