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Redefining what a map can be with new information and AI

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Re: Redefining what a map can be with new information and AI

#181

Post by eru »

devmunchies wrote: post #102
doubleunplussed wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A carbon tax. If addressing climate change relies on people changing habits against their selfish interests, then we are doomed. The externality should be internalised with a carbon tax. It's the simple, most obvious solution and it will cause selfish interest and ethical choices to align when it comes to carbon emission.

I prefer a "green credit" to a "carbon tax". A tax will always be passed on to the consumer, even if the govt taxes Ford, it will just make the car more expensive. Using game theory, a question could be "how do we get Ford to make more electric cars, improve efficiency of electric car production, and incentivize them to advertise electric cars?" My take is that businesses drive change, not consumers. On the whole, co…

The whole point of a carbon tax is to be passed on to the consumer. That's a feature, not a bug.

Consumer want cars (and appliances in general) that, all else being equal, are cheaper to own and use.

With a carbon tax, Ford can decide whether they want to offer more efficient ICE or electric cars to reach that goal.

(And consumers can decide whether to use any of these options that Ford offers, or to just drive less.

Or, for some, to just suck up the cost and drive the same as before.)

Re: Redefining what a map can be with new information and AI

#182

Post by eru »

devmunchies wrote: post #150
mcherm wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you propose a "green credit" instead of a "carbon tax", what do you mean? Is it just a different name for the same thing, or would it work differently? If it would work differently, then HOW? I'm assuming that a carbon tax would put a fixed tax per weight of C02 released charged either to the end-user or somewhere higher in the value chain (eg: a gas tax).

it's a subsidy vs a tax.

That sounds pretty bad.

I'd want to put driving-less on similar footing to buying a fancier car.

A carbon tax does that automatically with no extra bureaucracy.

(I'm all for taking the proceeds of a carbon tax and distributing them equally amongst all voters, if you want to make the whole thing revenue neutral for both the government and the 'average' consumer.)

Re: Redefining what a map can be with new information and AI

#183

Post by eru »

da_big_ghey wrote: post #130
devmunchies wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer a "green credit" to a "carbon tax". A tax will always be passed on to the consumer, even if the govt taxes Ford, it will just make the car more expensive. Using game theory, a question could be "how do we get Ford to make more electric cars, improve efficiency of electric car production, and incentivize them to advertise electric cars?" My take is that businesses drive change, not consumers. On the whole, co…

This is not making sense. Credit is necesarily coming from some place, that is in most likely tax revenue, so it is mostly in same as a tax but with more steps and smaller direct impact. Also not correct, some tax can often be absorb by producer. You are making wrong question: goal is for to reduce carbon not producing more electric cars. This is possibly meaning different mode of transport, some things maybe remote,…

> Our needed outcome is createing tax for cost of carbon capture for every ton made of carbon in atomosphere.

That's one outcome, but not the only one. Things like emission taxation make sense, even if there's no remediation financed with the proceeds.

See eg the sulphur dioxide emissions cap and trade program. (https://voxeu.org/article/lessons-climate-policy-us-sulphur-...) I don't think they used the proceeds to fund sulphur dioxide capture.

> This is possibly meaning different mode of transport, some things maybe remote, bicycles, trains, others.

Yes, exactly. Also: just forgoing some trips. Or driving more efficiently etc.

Re: Redefining what a map can be with new information and AI

#184

Post by anchpop »

TheSmiddy wrote: post #106
devmunchies wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer a "green credit" to a "carbon tax". A tax will always be passed on to the consumer, even if the govt taxes Ford, it will just make the car more expensive. Using game theory, a question could be "how do we get Ford to make more electric cars, improve efficiency of electric car production, and incentivize them to advertise electric cars?" My take is that businesses drive change, not consumers. On the whole, co…

When the carbon tax* was introduced in Australia our tax free threshold was increased from $6k to $18k which more than covered the increase in costs caused by the tax. *This has since been repealed, a decision I strongly disagree with.

I believe canada proposed doing it by taking all the money collected through the carbon tax and giving it equally to all Canadian citizens. This would mean everyone gets back the amount that the average person paid, making it so the average person sees no change in their level of taxation. (It also has the effect of turning it into a highly progressive tax)

Re: Redefining what a map can be with new information and AI

#185

Post by eru »

lovemenot wrote: post #151
lovemenot wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is complex and will vary significantly by person. But for anyone the answer is almost certainly non-zero. Even if only marginally. And the trend seems to be increasing. The second part of your comment, seems to assume only one kind of action is possible. Others might say, great let's do both.

I cannot respond to throwawayboise directly because of thread limitations. On its face, this argument is clearly wrong. "Absolutely nothing", is not equivalent to extremely little. Especially when, as in the case of Google Maps, there is a large multiplier. Elections are a different beast. Assuming first-past-the-post system where impact is only at the margin (50.0001%). Whereas direct action on CO2 production is inc…

> On its face, this argument is clearly wrong. "Absolutely nothing", is not equivalent to extremely little. Especially when, as in the case of Google Maps, there is a large multiplier.

It makes sense to look at these things normalised per-capita.

So for Google, making a small change has a big impact per-Googler, but it's still a small change per-capita.

Making a small per-capita change is still a small change overall.

See https://www.withouthotair.com/c19/page_114.shtml

Re: Redefining what a map can be with new information and AI

#186

Post by macintux »

throwawayboise wrote: post #148
oceliker wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I could, I'd usually choose the lowest stress route! Apple Maps sometimes features alternate routes that are "simpler" or with "fewer turns", which I think is a very nice feature. I'd rather not cut through small side streets just to save 1-2 minutes.

Apple Maps once sent me through what turned out to be a private apartment complex in order to avoid a signaled intersection. Not only is this probably illegal, I'm sure the owners would not appreciate it.

Maps makes it pretty easy to report a route like that. I've done so before.

Re: Redefining what a map can be with new information and AI

#187

Post by eru »

crygin wrote: post #110
datavirtue wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the fastest route not the least carbon footprint?

The reason for the enactment of the nationwide 55mph speed limit in 1974 wasn't safety, it was oil prices.

Yes, though like many other American reactions to the oil shock, this was pretty silly.

High petrol prices automatically discourage speeding. (Just as a carbon tax would.)

Of course, the US also had price controls on petrol. And the ensuing long queues and fights at the petrol station.

Their anarcho-capitalist utopian neighbour [1] to the north did not enact price controls for petrol, and subsequently did not see any queues or fights.

[1] Only half joking here: in many respects Canada is more what we'd call neoliberal today than the US. Compare also https://www.alt-m.org/2015/07/29/there-was-no-place-like-can...

Re: Redefining what a map can be with new information and AI

#188

Post by eru »

saalweachter wrote: post #126
drusepth wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like part of the carbon footprint model is based on road inclines and traffic congestion. For example, a super-fast route that's up an extremely-steep incline on the way may technically be faster from point A to B, but would be less carbon efficient than taking a slightly-longer route that is flatter.

Driving a Chevy Volt (with an 18 kWh battery) makes you very aware of the different fuel-costs of different routes -- I very often have a choice of driving "over" or "around" small mountains (~hundreds of feet of elevation change, not ~thousands), and you can easily see the battery drop as you go up, up, up and it doesn't always recover much going down, down, down.

Going up and down mountains should be mostly a wash, apart from these small losses.

What's really eating into your battery in a way you can't recover with regenerative breaking ever is wind resistance.

Routes that make you drive faster for longer cost more energy. (And given the way wind resistance works, for the same average speed, a variable speed is more expensive than a constant one.)

Re: Redefining what a map can be with new information and AI

#189

Post by ajmurmann »

richardw wrote: post #166
oceliker wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I could, I'd usually choose the lowest stress route! Apple Maps sometimes features alternate routes that are "simpler" or with "fewer turns", which I think is a very nice feature. I'd rather not cut through small side streets just to save 1-2 minutes.

I’ve found Waze to do the opposite, which suits me. It’ll often show me new routes when the obvious ones are slow. It seemed to be more aggressive than Google Maps. I thought that was interesting since they’re both Google. Different engine? Different default options? User intuition wrong?

My biggest problem with Waze's routing isn't that it's at times complex, but that it sometimes wants me to do things that feel precarious. I've had occasions where it has me cross a super busy 4-lane street in the dark, at a spot that has no traffic light with everyone going high speeds in a slight curve. No thanks!

Re: Redefining what a map can be with new information and AI

#190

Post by pushrax »

jachee wrote: post #144
prewett wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't intended to be angry. It's more frustration that I used to love Google Maps, but over the years it just gets less and less useful. I can't see street names like I used to, for instance. Now I have to have the overhead of choosing a route, when I used to know that the default is the fastest. Sure, I can turn it off in settings. But at what point does this get to be Windows Explorer, where the first thing I do o…

Hypothetically, given the choice between a 10 minute, higher-environmental-impact route and an 11-minute, lower-impact one: Are you really going to take the literally selfish , worse-for-the-planet route to save one minute? Wouldn't you like to make a small "sacrifice" (the choice is only given when the ETAs are similar) that might help slow the destruction of the only environment we have?

Depends on how much impact is actually reduced by that minute. It's going to be cool to see the comparisons in the app.
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