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China just approved flying taxis – no pilot needed

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Re: China just approved flying taxis – no pilot needed

#31

Post by hagbard_c »

_kava wrote: post #11

It is both amazing and sad to see China is literally in the future compared to the US in terms of infrastructure and social development. A trip to one of the major cities in China made it clear to me that they are ahead of the world right now. The amount of tech and the level of integration are unbelievable. In comparasion, the streets of SF, one of the crown jewels of the US technosphere, are just so "normal" I find…

It is also amazing and sad to see positive comments on such technological developments in China where similar developments in e.g. the USA would be lambasted on this very same site: Flying taxi drones? They'll fall out of the sky on the heads of the elderly and Musk should stay away from this. Tech and integration? Big brother getting even bigger and no I don't want Musk to be part of this. Is it just that the neighbour's grass is always greener or is there some deeper reason for the oikophobia that has become so popular, especially in 'progressive' circles?

I also notice you're mentioning SF without mentioning that this city - like so many others - has been driven into the ground by decades of mismanagement by so-called "democrats". California is on a road to nowhere while building high-speed trains to nowhere, the streets in SF only get cleaned up when the leader of the Chinese Communist party comes to visit, the place is a dump and people are leaving it in droves. It wasn't when I was there for the first time in 1979 - people on roller skates, some left-over hippies, disco really made it - but the last time I visited - 2003, for the IETF conference - the signs were already clearly visible and I was warned that the hostel I stayed in in the Tenderloin district was 'not in a safe area' and that I should not walk around the city (which I did anyway, I'm stubborn).

California should kick the "democrats" to the curb for a while, try to repair the damage they did to the place and its reputation and maybe, just maybe the "Golden State" can once again become the place of dreams it once used to be. This is not so much an endorsement of Republicans but simply a statement of fact, a single-party system nearly always leads to decline. To slightly paraphrase MC5: Kick Out The Dems! [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvJGQ_piwI0&t=13

Re: China just approved flying taxis – no pilot needed

#32

Post by whazor »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #24

> These vehicles are expected to redefine how cities tackle traffic congestion and pollution Counterpoint: no they're not. These sorts of very large drones may well become more popular, but they're not gonna become widespread enough to impact traffic congestion. The realistic target is becoming a moderately more popular version of helicopters for the sufficiently affluent.

Imagine the perfect city, with lots of green parks, great restaurants with outdoor seating, shops, do you think it should have noisy drones in it? Or a thousand drones?

Re: China just approved flying taxis – no pilot needed

#33

Post by _kava »

hagbard_c wrote: post #31
_kava wrote: post #11

It is both amazing and sad to see China is literally in the future compared to the US in terms of infrastructure and social development. A trip to one of the major cities in China made it clear to me that they are ahead of the world right now. The amount of tech and the level of integration are unbelievable. In comparasion, the streets of SF, one of the crown jewels of the US technosphere, are just so "normal" I find…

It is also amazing and sad to see positive comments on such technological developments in China where similar developments in e.g. the USA would be lambasted on this very same site: Flying taxi drones? They'll fall out of the sky on the heads of the elderly and Musk should stay away from this . Tech and integration? Big brother getting even bigger and no I don't want Musk to be part of this . Is it just that the neig…

When I made that comparison, I did not mean to bring politics into the conversation, but I assume it is a natural direction people can take it too.

I will just say this: the issues with the US are beyond *partisan* politics. In my opinion, it is a social problem much deeper than what is shown on TVs and discussed in election campaigns. Changing the party in power will not change the situation. Until the US acknowledged these matters, it will continue on the same path it has been.

Re: China just approved flying taxis – no pilot needed

#34

Post by clipsy »

viccis wrote: post #27
JCattheATM wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> social development. How are they ahead in this regard? Tech is one thing, but social credit scores and the level of censorship seem regressive rather than progressive to me.

> Tech is one thing, but social credit scores and the level of censorship seem regressive rather than progressive to me. I can't stress enough how you need to do your own research on this stuff. American propaganda has depicted China as a ruthless peasant state for decades, and it's only in recent years that news like this has opened peoples' eyes to the fact that that all was a cover for the fact that they've passed…

> Compare this to the US, in which things like DUIs on your background can be used to deny you Constitutional rights.

Can you elaborate on what you mean here?

Re: China just approved flying taxis – no pilot needed

#35

Post by corimaith »

vbezhenar wrote: post #23
_kava wrote: post #11

It is both amazing and sad to see China is literally in the future compared to the US in terms of infrastructure and social development. A trip to one of the major cities in China made it clear to me that they are ahead of the world right now. The amount of tech and the level of integration are unbelievable. In comparasion, the streets of SF, one of the crown jewels of the US technosphere, are just so "normal" I find…

Can you tell me more? I visited Shenzhen few months ago and wasn't that astonished. Pretty normal city. Well, I was surprised about few things, like overall lack of traffic jams in the 17-million city, roads seems to be well planned, but I could just be lucky. And that's me coming from Kazakhstan, which is not exactly first-world country. Life seems kind of the same, taxi apps, map with reviews, delivery guys, etc. A…

The problem is the many cities in the West are objectively terrible compared to cities elsewhere in the world, so many people who don't have that global perspective come to China and think "it's so futuristic" or so, when in reality it's something that has been achieved elsewhere decades ago and China is just one in the line of a common trend. Even when others in this thread say cities like Singapore or Hong Kong are "futuristic", Singapore has been like that since the late 90s, that's not futuristic, it's rather the norm since the 2000s. Certainly those from Asia, even Southeast Asia aren't finding those cities paticularly revolutionary, if not a bit shinier.

Some Chinese Cities may try to "integrate" tech more like in Shenzhen with drone delivery, flying taxis here, or qr-code scanning or whatnot, but that's just more of gimmicks for a select few rather than fundamental lifestyle changes. Far as I would say, Tokyo is still likely the most "developed" of cities in terms of quality of life.

Re: China just approved flying taxis – no pilot needed

#36

Post by ginko »

corimaith wrote: post #35
vbezhenar wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you tell me more? I visited Shenzhen few months ago and wasn't that astonished. Pretty normal city. Well, I was surprised about few things, like overall lack of traffic jams in the 17-million city, roads seems to be well planned, but I could just be lucky. And that's me coming from Kazakhstan, which is not exactly first-world country. Life seems kind of the same, taxi apps, map with reviews, delivery guys, etc. A…

The problem is the many cities in the West are objectively terrible compared to cities elsewhere in the world, so many people who don't have that global perspective come to China and think "it's so futuristic" or so, when in reality it's something that has been achieved elsewhere decades ago and China is just one in the line of a common trend. Even when others in this thread say cities like Singapore or Hong Kong are…

>The problem is the many cities in the West are objectively terrible compared to cities elsewhere in the world.

If anything that's more of an American problem rather than a Western one. There's plenty nice cities in Europe.

Re: China just approved flying taxis – no pilot needed

#37

Post by out-of-ideas »

i can certainly say i would not want to hear that daily or (or with any regularity) - yt wCm68PmmSQ8 to listen to it. still not even used to the small airport with newer air traffic routes rumbling residential neighborhoods nightly afterhours. but oh well i guess; more people seems to follow more noise and light pollution (and i dont want to abandon the quietness)

Re: China just approved flying taxis – no pilot needed

#38

Post by metalman »

pryelluw wrote: post #3
not_your_vase wrote: post #2

I definitely don't want to belittle the achievement, but I would imagine that creating safe self-driving helicopters is much easier than creating safe self-driving cars. (At least as long as the skies are just as empty as they are today. Once it's full of things like the roads, that will be a different topic)

Can you expand on how you reason it would be easier?

everything with a mass over 1kg+- in the air, is carrying a "gps" and something that is transmitting its location, and all air traffic world wide is(theoreticaly) assigned a flight path for each trip,witha specific flight level, ie: the planning is 3d, so the density per layer, never gets very high, and there are specific paths taken to change layers, there are never any dogs, or horses, or people trying to deek, there are no signs or maps, and in case of fully automated vtol taxis, navigation will be to mm accuracy, with likely a routine to land fully autonomously on loosing the network, and a backup ballistic recovery parachute, if power is completly lost or another emergency situation occurs. and also likely is that forward speeds will be low enough, that collisions with birds will be a low probability, and rotors will likely be schrouded, keeping the idiots heads attached when determinidly trying for that gota have selfie.

Re: China just approved flying taxis – no pilot needed

#39

Post by seanmcdirmid »

corimaith wrote: post #35
vbezhenar wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you tell me more? I visited Shenzhen few months ago and wasn't that astonished. Pretty normal city. Well, I was surprised about few things, like overall lack of traffic jams in the 17-million city, roads seems to be well planned, but I could just be lucky. And that's me coming from Kazakhstan, which is not exactly first-world country. Life seems kind of the same, taxi apps, map with reviews, delivery guys, etc. A…

The problem is the many cities in the West are objectively terrible compared to cities elsewhere in the world, so many people who don't have that global perspective come to China and think "it's so futuristic" or so, when in reality it's something that has been achieved elsewhere decades ago and China is just one in the line of a common trend. Even when others in this thread say cities like Singapore or Hong Kong are…

Singapore will always be Disneyland with the Death Penalty (early 90s) in my book. But seriously, china built outs its cities much later than the west, and they have a cyberpunk feel. But it feels like a lot of gimmicks, even Japan feels like that (they build things like Tokyo's Skytree, but it isn't very practical, and they just repeat this all over the country). If you live in a city, the basics matter, like...nice public transit, which china has built out very nicely in the last two decades.

Re: China just approved flying taxis – no pilot needed

#40

Post by dinfinity »

corimaith wrote: post #35
vbezhenar wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you tell me more? I visited Shenzhen few months ago and wasn't that astonished. Pretty normal city. Well, I was surprised about few things, like overall lack of traffic jams in the 17-million city, roads seems to be well planned, but I could just be lucky. And that's me coming from Kazakhstan, which is not exactly first-world country. Life seems kind of the same, taxi apps, map with reviews, delivery guys, etc. A…

The problem is the many cities in the West are objectively terrible compared to cities elsewhere in the world, so many people who don't have that global perspective come to China and think "it's so futuristic" or so, when in reality it's something that has been achieved elsewhere decades ago and China is just one in the line of a common trend. Even when others in this thread say cities like Singapore or Hong Kong are…

"The West"?

Do you mean North America? Because cities in Europe and Oceania are wildly different from the cities in North America and definitely not 'objectively terrible compared to cities elsewhere in the world' (which includes cities in Africa, which honestly aren't amazing).

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