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Waymo Premier

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Re: Waymo Premier

#461

Post by Drupon »

trhway wrote: post #330
freediddy wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They blocked the Golden Gate Bridge which included ambulances, other emergency vehicles and thousands of people trying to get to work. I'm happy that the DA is throwing the book at them, I hope they bankrupt themselves trying to defend themselves and then spend a lot of time in jail.

While politically i'm on the opposite side of those guys, i do think that such severe prosecution is unwarranted and politically motivated (and may be intended to create chilling effect on all future protests no matter the cause) - blocking a road is a well established traditional form of protest which traditionally is expected to end with (if the judge is in a bad mood) something like disorderly conduct citation/fin…

[flagged]

Re: Waymo Premier

#462

Post by borski »

TylerE wrote: post #410
laurencerowe wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving is very safe at city speeds for those inside the big metal box. Less so for the pedestrians and cyclists on the outside.

I know this goes against the HN groupthink, but a lot of those accidents are not the car or the drivers fault. I live in a small college town. We have huge problems with students just walking right off the curb, especially when drunk.

The pedestrian is not the one driving the weapon. It is your fault if you hit a pedestrian, even if they walk right off the curb, even if they’re drunk.

Unless they intentionally jump in front of your car in an attempt to commit suicide, it is always on you to ensure you can stop and respond to an emergency, and a pedestrian is such a thing, imho.

Re: Waymo Premier

#463

Post by runarberg »

spunker540 wrote: post #457
runarberg wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time imagining how driving a car is freedom but hopping on a bus is not. In my mind a car is a liability in ways the bus is not. You have to insure your car, find parking, get a license, you cannot drive drunk, your license plate is tracked, etc. etc. vs. a bus which you can just hop in (as drunk as you want) fall a sleep or whatever and when you arrive the bus just drives away and you don’t have to thi…

now imagine a bus, but its smaller and private only for you. for me that is true freedom! not only can you hop in as drunk as you want, and fall asleep, but you can also control the climate and the music and spread out. and when you arrive the waymo just drives away and you don’t have to think about it ever again in your life

Like I said earlier, this technology does not exist. And even if it did, the infrastructure required for everyone to own and operate such a car would be orders of magnitude more expensive and much much much politically harder choice to approve then to build out public transit and to provide access services.

Re: Waymo Premier

#464

Post by viccis »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #426
culi wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except in this case, damaging cars belonging to Google—a collaborator with ICE— is the point. It's more comparable to people who were damaging Tesla vehicles or the Tyre Extinguishers in the UK than the very common tactic of halting traffic/economic activity to threaten "business as usual"

Property damage is just hooliganism, thugs make an excuse for it no matter if that’s what they feel like doing. The eventual result of America falling into chaos will be countries like China having nice stuff like self driving cars (because they don’t tolerate thugs) while the us doesnt.

The US could avoid this by making sure that the social contract here is still in place. People destroy and protest self driving cars because they aren't liberatory automation; they're just another taxi billing us except that they also put humans driving rideshares out of a job. Does China have a problem with their people being forced to do rideshare gigs to get enough food to eat and competing with self driving cars?

Re: Waymo Premier

#465

Post by viccis »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #452
defrost wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps sometimes a simplistic take like this is true - people destroying just for the sake of destruction and indifferent to the target. However when destruction is targeted toward specific brands or toward infrastructure being used for specific purposes such takes can no longer be true.

Boycotting Waymo? Sure, it sends a message. Bashing in a car so someone else can’t ride it? It just makes the other side look like the good guys and their side look like the bad guys. Is that what they intended? No, obviously not, they just wanted an excuse to do property destruction. This is why protests are hard. You have to somehow keep it peaceful by dissuading hooliganism who are ultimately attracted by the chao…

>Bashing in a car so someone else can’t ride it? It just makes the other side look like the good guys and their side look like the bad guys

Not really. If your definition of "good" and "bad" (always a sign of a simplistic mind btw) is "good for Waymo's bottom line" and "bad for Waymo's bottom line" then sure. But if your community's people are suffering and looking to rideshare gigs for a lifeline, and then a company threatens them, then destroying their assets is easy to justify as "good" from a humanistic perspective, even categorically.

Re: Waymo Premier

#466

Post by morsch »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #397
nsvd2 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It surprises me that any municipality would make that legal, seems dangerous.

The good rule that most of Europe uses is that motorcycles can "lane filter" (i.e. go in between lanes but only for cars that are basically stopped and only at low speed). Going between lanes is suicidal at high speed, but if cars are <5mph and the motorcycle is ~10mph it's actually safer for the motorcycle because it removes the chance of them being rear-ended. (It also makes motorcycles faster than cars which is he…

Officially allowed in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and UK, from what I can tell. Interesting though, I'd have assumed it's permitted nowhere in the EU.

Re: Waymo Premier

#467

Post by [deleted] »

runarberg wrote: post #395
handoflixue wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because technological freedom has, historically, vastly outperformed political choice? I can buy a robotic car, once they're available. I am nowhere near rich enough to afford even one politician, much less enough to get public transit to happen in California. Political choices also take time. You have to get people to vote on a budget, you have to actually build the infrastructure, etc. - even busses require bus sto…

Like I said, dictatorships manage to do this. Claiming that America is different is just another form of American exceptionalism. And no, robotic cars do not exist. A very limited version of robotaxis do, but they are nowhere near ready for public rollout on all public roads for the consumer market.

[deleted]

Re: Waymo Premier

#468

Post by throwworhtthrow »

mathattack wrote: post #448
tudelo wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People will reply to you calling you crazy, but SF/bay is the only place I have ever experienced where many people will literally leave their cars unlocked because a broken window isn't worth the hassle. Yes, locking your parked car is a hazard here... and the reason is obvious.

I couldn’t believe this the first time I heard it. This isn’t new, it goes back to the 90s. Perhaps longer.

In the 70s in SF my father had his car window broken by someone who wanted to steal his parking space. He found his car pushed in front of an adjacent driveway, and ticketed.

His doors were unlocked the whole time...

Re: Waymo Premier

#469

Post by junon »

saberience wrote: post #199
cflewis wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a male perspective. My wife will not ride alone in Uber's because she's had one too many uncomfortable -> possibly dangerous situations. This appears to be true for all of her friends as well.

[flagged]

> hilarious

I worked for Uber about a decade ago. I was aware of the stories as they'd circulate internally. It's fine, until it isn't. Calling it hilarious is a lack of imagination or critical thinking at best.

Re: Waymo Premier

#470

Post by laurencerowe »

borski wrote: post #462
TylerE wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this goes against the HN groupthink, but a lot of those accidents are not the car or the drivers fault. I live in a small college town. We have huge problems with students just walking right off the curb, especially when drunk.

The pedestrian is not the one driving the weapon. It is your fault if you hit a pedestrian, even if they walk right off the curb, even if they’re drunk. Unless they intentionally jump in front of your car in an attempt to commit suicide, it is always on you to ensure you can stop and respond to an emergency, and a pedestrian is such a thing, imho.

I think this is more a design problem with US road infrastructure. City streets are much wider than in other countries which encourages drivers to drive more quickly and allows them to pay less attention. We'd have far fewer pedestrian and cyclist fatalities if we didn't require streets to be so wide.
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