BMW shows off 'drifting' self-drive cars • Hacker News Board

Re: BMW shows off 'drifting' self-drive cars

#141

Post by saraid216 » Thu, Jan 09, 2014, 7:41 PM UTC

uniclaude wrote: post #130

dcc1 wrote: post #16

This is bad news (despite being a BMW owner) In future driving will no longer be fun, if you want to drive "non-automated" car or disable "auto-pilot" your insurance company will automatically jack up your premium, since they would consider self driving cars "safer"

This is great news to me. Automated cars open the doors to: - A potentially larger market for private tracks where you'll be enjoying racing, or even pleasure driving. It would be totally possible to have roads that are only here for pleasure driving. I can picture the Izu Skyline or other really beautiful roads that you pay to get a marvelous driving experience. - A much safer world. If every car on public roads wou…

> - Cheaper insurance? I don't really believe this, but it could happen, as there would be a lot less accidents.

I haven't run the numbers myself, but it'd be worth checking to see what insurance numbers look like for private yachts or horses.

Re: BMW shows off 'drifting' self-drive cars

#142

Post by saraid216 » Thu, Jan 09, 2014, 7:50 PM UTC

Crito wrote: post #114

robinhoode wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the cost to society (in lives lost) worth the cost to individual enjoyment?

Life becomes less valuable when you can do less with it. In the extreme case, we could all spend our lives in styrofoam boxes hooked up to feeding tubes, but what sort of life would that be? I would argue, a valueless one. Is a collective devaluing of human life worth saving a few individual lives? Consider if we cut down all trees within a dozen or so meters of roads, and installed guardrails everywhere. We could pr…

> Consider if we cut down all trees within a dozen or so meters of roads, and installed guardrails everywhere.

You realize that we did that and it resulted in more deaths, right?

Re: BMW shows off 'drifting' self-drive cars

#143

Post by Crito » Thu, Jan 09, 2014, 10:13 PM UTC

saraid216 wrote: post #142

Crito wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life becomes less valuable when you can do less with it. In the extreme case, we could all spend our lives in styrofoam boxes hooked up to feeding tubes, but what sort of life would that be? I would argue, a valueless one. Is a collective devaluing of human life worth saving a few individual lives? Consider if we cut down all trees within a dozen or so meters of roads, and installed guardrails everywhere. We could pr…

> Consider if we cut down all trees within a dozen or so meters of roads, and installed guardrails everywhere. You realize that we did that and it resulted in more deaths, right?

Whatever, bad example then. My point stands unless you lack an imagination.

We could string safety nets between all skyscrapers and under all bridges. We could ban convertibles. We could put fences along all rivers and ban backyard swimming pools. We could ban fireplaces.

There are any number of things that we could hypothetically do to prevent accidental or untimely deaths that we do not do because they would degrade the quality of our lives.

Re: BMW shows off 'drifting' self-drive cars

#144

Post by saraid216 » Fri, Jan 10, 2014, 7:16 AM UTC

Crito wrote: post #143

saraid216 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Consider if we cut down all trees within a dozen or so meters of roads, and installed guardrails everywhere. You realize that we did that and it resulted in more deaths, right?

Whatever, bad example then. My point stands unless you lack an imagination. We could string safety nets between all skyscrapers and under all bridges. We could ban convertibles. We could put fences along all rivers and ban backyard swimming pools. We could ban fireplaces. There are any number of things that we could hypothetically do to prevent accidental or untimely deaths that we do not do because they would degrad…

Well, I wasn't trying to debate your point, but if you insist on being huffy,

Skyscrapers generally don't have windows that can be opened or easily broken, and very rarely have balconies. When's the last time you heard of someone going through a skyscraper window? It's a safety net.

We probably couldn't string safety nets under all bridges. However, we have already been fencing them off to prevent jumpers.

I'm not clear on why you are targeting convertibles specifically; I'm unaware of any special danger they pose. However, I would argue that banning cars entirely would raise our quality of life, if combined with other measures.

I'll concede the river one since there are too many possibilities there to argue exhaustively.

I could prevaricate on the swimming pool thing, since my parents own one and our quality of life probably would be better off without it, but not worth it.

I'm not clear on enough building codes to know how much we discourage fireplaces, but most new buildings don't seem to be built with them. We appear to have invented central heating over the last several decades, which is both safer and more effective.

The point being that the reason we don't implement a lot of "safety" measures is not because they "degrade the quality of our lives" but because they don't work. In fact, most of the so-called safety measures you luridly imagine actually should be done because they'd increase the quality of our lives... so really, the question is why we haven't done them, if QoL is such an important factor.