The Future • Hacker News Board

Re: The Future

#11

Post by petra » Sun, Oct 04, 2015, 5:07 AM UTC

hugh4 wrote: post #9

petra wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty close. Benedict evans did a more accurate calculation , and got ,for electric self driving cars, 14-19 cents/mile: https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/636684338352951297 One thing he forgot - what about shared transport - say sharing with 3 people could offer ride time relatively close to a car. That gets us to 4.5 cents/mile. That comes about to $50 a month/american-person(avg 13.5K miles/year) ,…

Sharing rides with strangers is precisely the kind of thing that I'd hope to avoid by replacing public transport with self-driving cars. But anyway, yes, it does appear that the economics of the self-driving taxi beat the economics of the bus or the train, especially given that buses and trains generally operate at a large loss and still charge people, on average, a higher fare than what they'd pay for a self-driving…

I can imagine a self-driving taxi , for shared rides, that's designed for privacy , so you don't feel like riding with others, except for a bit of an extended trip.

I wonder why nobody have build such a car yet, but there's good likelihood it will happen in a huge self driving market.

Re: The Future

#12

Post by petra » Sun, Oct 04, 2015, 5:09 AM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #10

Secondly, most companies have now realized that disruption is the way of the world, and thus most have become 'venture builders' that continuously run experiments and attempt to disrupt themselves, thus permanently remaining on top. I'm pretty skeptical of this one, but I am curious to see how that plays out. I suspect there are some inherent, systemic rigidities that develop in large companies, that will prevent thi…

>> "will be actually reach 'the end of technology'

In general ,technologies are building blocks of newer technologies.Maybe we'll run out of problems first ?

Re: The Future

#13

Post by AlexeyMK » Sun, Oct 04, 2015, 5:21 AM UTC

Bouncingsoul1 wrote: post #7

"Many people live throughout their life in campus environments similar to college campuses of the early 21st century. These campuses were seeded from the ruins of cities ravaged by crisis (Detroit), the transition of festivals to sustained existence (Burning Man), and around the headquarters of major companies. These mini Utopias on earth are small, high density villages with everything a person wants. A high density…

There's a little bit of a "best parts of living in a village" vibe to this. We try to provide something like a traveling version of a campus-like community via hackerparadise.org.

From living in and helping facilitate this "campus environment" for the past year: it's kind of nice. I can't say how well it works yet long-term, but I very much appreciate being in a community where I know who my neighbors are, what they're up to, where I actually care about how they're doing. More than just the benefit of being surrounded by like-minded, intellectual/creative people, there's this shroud of anonymity that living in a city comes with. It's refreshingly pleasant to live and work in a community where the shroud is lifted.

Campus' recent shutdown was a step backwards. I don't know if the author is right; the biggest open question to me is financial sustainability (IE, are enough people willing to pay a premium for communal living to fuel growth & innovation)?

Re: The Future

#14

Post by mdorazio » Sun, Oct 04, 2015, 5:33 AM UTC

petra wrote: post #6

hugh4 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's make some generous assumptions -- a taxi costs $20K, lasts 300,000 miles, gets 50 miles to the gallon and fuel costs $2.00 a gallon. (Or equivalent, electrically, I'm easy.) Then fuel is four cents a mile and depreciation is seven cents a mile for a total cost of eleven cents a mile. In the future, running an ultra-efficient electric car we can imagine the fuel price could be lower and the range before replacem…

This is pretty close. Benedict evans did a more accurate calculation , and got ,for electric self driving cars, 14-19 cents/mile: https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/636684338352951297 One thing he forgot - what about shared transport - say sharing with 3 people could offer ride time relatively close to a car. That gets us to 4.5 cents/mile. That comes about to $50 a month/american-person(avg 13.5K miles/year) ,…

I did my own calculations last week and came to about 2x his numbers (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-cheap-can-uber-self-drivi...). He makes a few faulty assumptions (ex. maintenance costs and depreciation are tied to miles, not years) and in my opinion underestimates costs significantly in areas like insurance, and over-estimates billable miles that will be driven per day. Still amazingly cheap, though, especially if carpooling and/or using public transit part of the time. For comparison, CalTrain runs between 17 and 25 cents per mile if you take it more than one zone.

Re: The Future

#15

Post by aaron695 » Sun, Oct 04, 2015, 5:46 AM UTC

> Greater empathy by proliferation of virtual reality.

For a vr world where you can live someone's life that's not crap we will have to have hit the singularity, which conflicts with a lot of the other ideas.

> Gestures that previously were arcane are now the way to invoke computer programs

This is a strange one. Why would you gesture for a check and not just push a button to just pay it. Is it a themed restaurant?

> China, India, and the United States are the three world powers.

Not sure why these three are picked. China I get.

>A good segment (30%) of the world barely works.

There's no reason the think the rest of the world will support them. Besides which currently most people can live this in the first world. Rural property is cheap and so is simple food. But most of the population wants more than just food and a house. Like high end medical care and GoT.

> More and more infrastructure follows a pay-per-use model.

People don't like making a stack of small losses. We prefer to pay big then use the products at our leisure. I can't see this changing.

There's some interesting thoughts here's. Misses the mark in bits as well though. Burning man that never ends, not sure what to think about that. But I can see it happening.

Re: The Future

#16

Post by Taek » Sun, Oct 04, 2015, 5:50 AM UTC

petra wrote: post #12

mindcrime wrote: post #10

Secondly, most companies have now realized that disruption is the way of the world, and thus most have become 'venture builders' that continuously run experiments and attempt to disrupt themselves, thus permanently remaining on top. I'm pretty skeptical of this one, but I am curious to see how that plays out. I suspect there are some inherent, systemic rigidities that develop in large companies, that will prevent thi…

>> "will be actually reach 'the end of technology' In general ,technologies are building blocks of newer technologies.Maybe we'll run out of problems first ?

At some point you run into the laws of physics. Right now it looks like we can stretch things quite a bit further, but there's only so much free energy in the world and only so many ways to shape it. It's completely conceivable that we'd run out of new technology before we run out of problems.

Re: The Future

#17

Post by ciconia » Sun, Oct 04, 2015, 5:54 AM UTC

What about nature, ecology, biodiversity? What about third world societies? Natural disasters, immigration, gentrification, violence, crime? I imagine the author as living in a big city, working in tech, living the connected life, but seriously, this kind of "future" is to me rather narrow-minded.

Re: The Future

#18

Post by camillomiller » Sun, Oct 04, 2015, 6:17 AM UTC

ciconia wrote: post #17

What about nature, ecology, biodiversity? What about third world societies? Natural disasters, immigration, gentrification, violence, crime? I imagine the author as living in a big city, working in tech, living the connected life, but seriously, this kind of "future" is to me rather narrow-minded.

I agree. Also very US centric, what about the future outside the US in other Western countries?

Re: The Future

#19

Post by chipsy » Sun, Oct 04, 2015, 7:52 AM UTC

This is a "spiky version of the present" future - all the prominent things seen by one individual, extrapolated linearly. As such it has a discontinuous shape.

The main element I would critique is in the culture. Culture in 2015 will feel old and dated by 2030 - our memes, our artisan craft breweries and hip indie games. Something else will overtake them. Culture has the soft power to change people's perception of reality even as the substance of that reality remains more stagnant. And culture isn't directly associated to a new tech so much as it is the proliferation of that tech.

For example: "Drone" today equates to big war machines dropping bombs. "Drone" tomorrow could mean the kid across the street with a new toy and the ensuing shenanigans inflicted on stodgy 50-year-olds who think you're going to blow everything up.

Re: The Future

#20

Post by volaski » Sun, Oct 04, 2015, 7:56 AM UTC

aaron695 wrote: post #15

> Greater empathy by proliferation of virtual reality. For a vr world where you can live someone's life that's not crap we will have to have hit the singularity, which conflicts with a lot of the other ideas. > Gestures that previously were arcane are now the way to invoke computer programs This is a strange one. Why would you gesture for a check and not just push a button to just pay it. Is it a themed restaurant? >…

>> More and more infrastructure follows a pay-per-use model. >People don't like making a stack of small losses. We prefer to pay big then use the products at our leisure. I can't see this changing. You're assuming that it will be humans who will be making the switching decisions for themselves. If humans employ agents that algorithmically negotiate with different infrastructure providers, then I think it's possible.