Seriously, what does it say about the Chicago friggin' Bears that they went into this season with an undrafted rookie free agent as the first backup to the starting QB who is known for running and scrambling all the time?
Ever since the seat belt, technology has been making cars safer and saving lives. This link to a crash test shows how much safer a 2009 Malibu is compared to a 1959 Bel Air.
The number to watch is fatalities per million vehicle miles traveled. that indicates how safe the roads are when you drive. That had been steadily dropping for throughout the the history of driving cards until about 10 years ago when it seems to have bottomed out. Then in 2020 it jumped back up and remains higher than it was in 2019.
The top two causes of fatal accidents are: speeding and intoxication which are each over 25%. Distracted driving is third with about 9%. 62% of those killed are passengers. There are about 5 million accidents per year and about 2.3 million injuries in those accidents. I agree with EZ that robocars will help and I expect that they will become mandatory. An unfortunate requirement of our inability to train drivers and punish or ban scofflaws.
I use the Invest in Kids tax credit to eliminate Illinois income taxes and I make the donation using appreciated stocks to ultimately save on some federal income taxes. In essence it costs us nothing to give some school $5,000 (we're not rich!). So I'll use the program as long as it is around but really can't defend it on public policy grounds.
I'm old enough to remember a time when both sides saw abortion as a medical decision between a patient and her doctor and was nobody else's god damned business.
EZ - i'm lovin' the dad tweets. since i'm a granddad, i've passed this week's along to my 2 sons, the elder the father of 3, the younger a father of 2. the elder has a 9 y.o., and i think she might be in the 'sweet spot' for a bunch of these tweets.
I chuckled a bit at a couple of the Dad tweets, but the true comedic tour de force of today’s edition was the item about Trump and flypaper; I laughed out loud.
I continue to hope that the members of congress will realize that their public service is best provided by finding centrist compromise. It would be a definite plus if the GOP found a centrist that could win with centrist Dem support. But I found Hakim Jeffries proposal of a coalition to counter right wing extremists pretty rich, since it was the 100% Democratic enablement of the 8 members of the clown caucus that caused the ouster of McCarthy. The GOP needs a mainstream leader that might lose the first traditional vote and then win a vote supported by Dems. But this requires GOP and Dems that actually want to get back to work and believe that they can survive the voter outrage at being reasonable.
What a great song this week! Maybe it could be performed at "Songs". I recently saw a film documenting Brian's life with John Cusak as lead. I was not a huge fan of the band but it was the soundtrack of our youth a lot of the time. I knew he had mental health issues but didn't know the sad back story of his life. Would recommend...
Eric - you pose this question..What the hell is going on with this country when nearly half of the voting public wants this fact-averse fabulist (Trump) in the White House?
Permit me to attempt to provide you with an answer to this question from my conservative perspective. First, I'll offer the following recent column from New York Times writer David Brooks who I believe all will agree has impeccable liberal credentials...
A lot of people are extremely concerned with an estimated 6 million immigrants illegally flowing over our open Southern border since Biden became president after Trump had maintained illegal immigration at a fraction of this with his extremely successful Remain in Mexico policy. No one can even estimate how many sleeper cells of various terrorist organizations may now be established within the US from our open border.
And that's just the biggest issue of concern. Americans are overwhelmingly disapproving of Biden's handling of the economy, and of course the cultural issues such as biological males being allowed in girls locker rooms and bathrooms, and competing against girls in sports. Of course, I know that you and the overwhelming majority of your readers may well disagree with all this, but I'm trying to explain to you why half the country is prepared to vote for Trump even after he gets indicted for alleged criminal activity over and over again.
I'll again register the caveat that I do not like Trump personally, I find many of his personal characteristics despicable and fervently wish the GOP would nominate a different candidate, my favorite being Nikki Haley. But, if the election sadly comes down to a Trump versus Biden rematch, I, like about half the country, will vote for Trump. I don't expect you to agree with that, but that is the reality that exists in our country today that I simply want to help everyone understand since you posed the question.
I am interested in what you find “personal” to Trump and not “political”.
He has been found guilty in a civil trial of groping and sexually attacking a woman.
So he could be termed a sex pervert, is that a personal characteristic that does not carryover in his political role?
He also has been found guilty of business fraud in another civil trial. We await the damages outcome. Does the fact he is dishonest with no integrity color your view of him politically or is this another personal attribute?
Finally he is fighting criminal charges as someone who is in effect a traitor and someone who has misused classified information in a variety of ways. If he is found guilty as a felon and potentially a traitor, do you consider these personal traits or do they leak onto his political agenda? Bluntly, if he is found guilty of these criminal charges can you still see your way to vote for Trump?
If you vote for Trump as President, are you confident that he will step down after his term is over? Given his behavior on January 6th, his lack of integrity and present demeanor, you would have no second thoughts that he would make himself President for Life?
Finally, can I assume his age and his mental stability do not give you pause either?
Hi Peter - I share your disdain for Trump over most all of the things you list and do not attempt to make any defense of them. Having said that, yes, I will still vote for Trump if he is the nominee against Biden as it appears about half the country is prepared to do. My reasoning for that is to restore control of our Southern border and presumably a return of the policies during the Trump Administration which I believe served our country much better than those of President Biden. I feel very confident you will vehemently disagree with me on this, but I am simply trying to provide understanding to those of you on your side as to how I and those of us on my side feel.
I am trying to follow your logic here. You vote for Trump because he will solve the border crisis. But you are not confident of his age and mental stability. You do not care if he is found guilty of treason or is a felon. And you appear confident that he would step down after a second term.
And you refer to “sides”, do you mean people that will vote for Trump no matter what on one side and people who will review other candidates and likely not vote for him as the other side?
For example, would you consider Liz Cheney to be a conservative? Given her platform, I would. Yet wouldn’t she likely be on the “other side” from you because I doubt she would vote for Trump.
Hi Peter - Yes, ONE of the larger of the many reasons I would vote for Trump is that he had proven that he could maintain control of the Southern border, whereas President Biden has pretty much proven that he does not have the political willingness to control the tsunami of illegal immigration flowing across it and into our country. And in response to your specific inquiries, yes, I do feel much more confident on Trump's age and mental capabilities relative to President Biden. And yes, I do feel very confident that Trump would step down upon completion of his term of office, and his conviction on any of the present charges would not change my position.
I don't like nor do I particularly respect Trump personally. But even with all his many flaws, if the election is between Trump and Biden, I will vote for Trump for the policies I anticipate will follow. I don't expect you to agree with my position, but this goes back to providing an answer to Eric's question as to why up to half the country is inclined to vote for Trump.
Hmmmm…still going to vote for him even with his many “flaws”.
Well I got your answer hoping for some logic I could follow. Seems like there isn’t any. I am getting a “cult” vibe here.
By the way, though you find his border policy amazing, a majority of voters found him and his policies lacking in 2020 and kicked him out of office.
Not seeing him adding to his base at the present, let us hope you get to vote for a less “flawed” candidate rather than Trump.
And if Trump became President, he would need a real set of lawmakers in the House to advance his border policies. You would need to change the present Republican Insane Clown Posse with reasonable people. A group that would agree on a speaker and then start to do the job they were elected to do. I am thinking the odds do not look good for that to happen.
Peter - Accusing me of being a cult follower when I explicitly stated that I did not respect or admire Trump seems very illogical, don't you think? My voting preference is predicated entirely upon the policies that I believe would follow from a Trump victory relative to the policies I anticipate from a Biden re-election.
I know you do not agree with me, and I certainly am not trying to convince you or anyone. I am simply trying to answer Eric's question as to why up to half the voters would vote for Trump. That's probably something that makes you, Eric and many others unhappy, but that's the reality of our political landscape.
David Brooks is not considered a liberal. He is the conservative columnist/commentator on PBS’s Brooks and Capehart. Brooks just hasn’t been radicalized into the MAGA/American fascist movement. Brooks is an old school country club Republican. I’m not surprised that there are large numbers of people supporting Trump and MAGA. In the 1932 German federal election, the Nazi Party got a higher percentage of votes, at 37.3%, than any other party, proving that electoral success is not necessarily related to reasonableness or even sanity. And we used to openly wonder what was wrong with the German people, and confidently say that it could never happen here. David, I love the way you checked off all the MAGA/American fascist scapegoats except one: you mentioned immigrants, of course, transgender people, and I’m going to credit you with an oblique reference to Muslims in your reference to sleeper cells of “terrorist” immigrants. But you forgot the other group MAGA loves to hate: women who wish to control their own bodies. C’mon, man, you’re gonna lose your MAGA card if you’re not careful! And I get it that Republicans disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy, but that’s another position that is disconnected from reality since the American economy is performing better now than it was under Trump. I think David Brooks’ quotation from Marc Hetherington pretty much nailed it: “Republicans see a world changing around them uncomfortably fast, and they want it to slow down, maybe even take a step backward. But if you are a person of color, a woman who values gender equality or an L.G.B.T. person, would you want to go back to 1963? I doubt it.” And I think it’s the changing of the cultural Zeitgeist relating to race and gender that undergirds most of the support for MAGA.
Re: Tom Freaking Skilling. Tom was great! The writer of the bit, Pat Tomasulo, is a great comedian. I saw him at Zanies recently, and he was top notch.
Re self-driving cars, the car world and commentary about it is unrealistic on two fronts (both personified by purist dreamer Elon Musk): (1) pure electric cars, and (2) self-driving technology. The fundamental problems with both have yet to be solved, and it's not clear that they will be solved in the near- or medium-term. Meanwhile, the goals of both are better served by existing technology that either is already widespread or should become more so.
The fundamental problem with pure electric cars is range and "fill-up" time. A pure electric car is inadequate for a long car trip or for the many people without a garage (i.e., apartment dwellers, all those people whose cars line every city street every night). Pure electric car take-up is slowing, not accelerating, contrary to the car companies' irrationally exuberant predictions, indicating that most people who are interested in them -- a relatively small percentage -- have already bought one.
We already have the solution: hybrids. Plug-ins use no gas on a daily commute and are perfect for those with a garage. Non-plug-ins, regular hybrids like the Prius, roughy double typical mileage, and are perfect for those apartment dwellers. They sacrifice little-to-nothing in terms of performance and come free of range anxiety, using a reliable and mature technology. Policy-makers looking to internal combustion engine bans are making a big mistake. They are incentivizing keeping regular old gas cars on the road much longer -- very doable, insofar as they are super reliable nowadays and it costs ever more to buy a new car. The better policy is to tweak gas mileage mandates to essentially require the mass hybridization of new car fleets. Hybrids don't rely on ultra-large batteries requiring scarce natural resources. They won't massively disrupt an industry that employs many thousands. Companies could standardize battery size, shape, and other aspects to move to more uniform production of smaller hybrid-sized batteries which would bring down the overall cost of hybrids and hasten a world where replacing your hybrid battery after 100K or whatever would cost hundreds, not thousands (a hang-up for cost-conscious shoppers of used hybrids).
The fundamental problem with self-driving technology is that it still makes regular mistakes and is routinely flummoxed. Think about your driving. How often do you encounter odd situations? All the time. As a diver, I, for one, will not tolerate auto-driving technology with anything like the glitchiness of the rest of my tech, which fails to do what I want on a regular basis. These things have to work perfectly nearly 100% of the time in all conditions and all places where you might want to drive. My impression is that that remains a very tall order, which is why you haven't heard a whole lot about self-driving cars in a while, and why their investors are nervous. The idea that self-driving cars will, on average, be safer, is cold comfort. It would be particularly galling to have a loved one, say, who is a very careful driver and has never had an accident, be killed by their robot car's mistake. I can say confidently that a self-driving car for *me* would not represent a safety improvement but a downgrade. I think many millions will probably have the same reasonable view, and not want to hand over the wheel.
Meanwhile, once again, amazing technology is at the ready to come close to solving the problem, but it gets little attention because it's not as flashy or pure. I refer to the suite of guardian angel tech that comes standard now on most new cars -- automatic emergency braking, lane-departure warnings, back-up cameras, adaptive cruise, and the like -- as well as low-grade highway self-driving, like GM's SuperCruise and what I imagine will be the next step -- cars able to avoid accidents by intervening at the last moment to command not just brakes but steering and gas as well. Excessive speed interventions are doable, especially for young drivers, as is ignition/breathalyzer interlock, which, assuming reliability, I'd far sooner accept than cars that take over the whole thing.
It seems to have become a national past time for people to say the see the future. At the moment it is self-driving cars and electrifying everything. IMO both of those things are at best a very distant future, but I am, after all, the Skeptic. I remember is 2015 many people were saying that self-driving cars will be in production by 2020, and transit would radically change right away.
Elon Musk seems like he is seeing the future, but I think he just says things on social media that he thinks are funny. Example: building colonies on Mars.
While it is 2023 (not 2020), I visited Phoenix last weekend, and was surprised to see what appeared to me to be Google Maps camera/mapping cars all over the place. It was explained to me that downtown Phoenix and parts of Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, and Chandler, AZ are part of Waymo's large test area for self-driving cars. My friends have themselves used Waymo as a taxi on more than one occasion. (Although they admitted that they were not all that comfortable doing so.) I came away thinking that self-driving cars are not that far off.
Waymo and Cruise have been testing in San Francisco for even longer, and they have started in Santa Monica. I am not an engineer; I am going off of reports I have read. What I have read is that the lidar system gets confused by rain. Also, it cannot reliably see motorcycles or bicycles. Maybe those challenges have been overcome. This is part of why they have test cities. The rain problem makes Arizona a good testing ground.
Ethical/legal/policy challenges are not things that technology can solve.
Should the driverless car algorithms be designed to minimize loss of life or injury?
If the answer is "yes", then what happens when a driverless car with one passennger is on a multi-lane highway behind a truck which suddenly stops or has a large part of its load drop off the back. There is not enough time to stop before hitting it. The road is crowded and there are cars on both sides with multiple passengers. The minimize injury algorithm would have the car choose to hit the road hazard putting risk only to its sole occupant rather than risk hitting more cars.
From a legal perspective, how is liability determined when there is a crash? Also, DUI laws would need to be updated. Typically, they state that it is illegal to operate a vehicle while impaired by alcohol or a controlled substance. If I summon a Waymo with an app on my phone when I am drunk and there is a crash, will the court determine that "was operating the vehicle" because I summoned it with an app? Would it matter if the vehicle provided the option for me to take control?
Should driverless cars have the ability to be controlled remotely by police and fire departments? One case I read about is a driverless car came to a stop because there was a fire truck nearby, but it stopped on top of a fire hose, which interfered with fire fighting. Adding remote control raises multiple questions. A big one is how to ensure the system cannot be hacked by people with bad intent. We continually see very high value targets owned by entities which have all of the resources they could want to secure their systems fall victim of ransomware. There is no doubt that hackers would try to get into self-driving car remote control systems. Are we ready to trust them?
If you google "self-driving cars further away than you think," you get articles saying that from 2013 all the way through 2020, and I think the below very recent article is a good statement about the state of the art today, which, while cheerleading the efforts still ongoing, is basically in the same vein:
True, widespread self-driving seems decades away and may be, as one source in that article put it, "basically impossible." Investments in self-driving companies have plummeted, many have closed, etc. Companies are focusing on more limited applications and enhancing automated driver assistance, along the lines I suggested, which will make the road far safer without having to close the gap between nifty and *usually* impressive performance in limited, mapped playgrounds today and a world where everyone could really rely on these things all the time in any locations and any conditions.
To be fair that prompt to google is expected to give results that say that we are not close. The Atlantic published an article a few days ago stating that we are close. I don't think we are, and the article mainly discusses test environments. It also does point out challenges.
Seriously, what does it say about the Chicago friggin' Bears that they went into this season with an undrafted rookie free agent as the first backup to the starting QB who is known for running and scrambling all the time?
It says that the Bears need new owners.
amen & w/o a doubt.
I believe it clearly reveals their intention to shamelessly tank their way toward the top draft pick again just as they did last year.
Ever since the seat belt, technology has been making cars safer and saving lives. This link to a crash test shows how much safer a 2009 Malibu is compared to a 1959 Bel Air.
https://youtu.be/C_r5UJrxcck?si=zuYFa2NwKPC_K87c
The number to watch is fatalities per million vehicle miles traveled. that indicates how safe the roads are when you drive. That had been steadily dropping for throughout the the history of driving cards until about 10 years ago when it seems to have bottomed out. Then in 2020 it jumped back up and remains higher than it was in 2019.
The top two causes of fatal accidents are: speeding and intoxication which are each over 25%. Distracted driving is third with about 9%. 62% of those killed are passengers. There are about 5 million accidents per year and about 2.3 million injuries in those accidents. I agree with EZ that robocars will help and I expect that they will become mandatory. An unfortunate requirement of our inability to train drivers and punish or ban scofflaws.
I use the Invest in Kids tax credit to eliminate Illinois income taxes and I make the donation using appreciated stocks to ultimately save on some federal income taxes. In essence it costs us nothing to give some school $5,000 (we're not rich!). So I'll use the program as long as it is around but really can't defend it on public policy grounds.
I am old enough to remember a time when both sides saw abortion as a tragedy.
I'm old enough to remember a time when both sides saw abortion as a medical decision between a patient and her doctor and was nobody else's god damned business.
EZ - i'm lovin' the dad tweets. since i'm a granddad, i've passed this week's along to my 2 sons, the elder the father of 3, the younger a father of 2. the elder has a 9 y.o., and i think she might be in the 'sweet spot' for a bunch of these tweets.
I, on the other hand, found none of the Dad Tweets even mildly funny - and I am probably in BobE's cohort.
I chuckled a bit at a couple of the Dad tweets, but the true comedic tour de force of today’s edition was the item about Trump and flypaper; I laughed out loud.
I continue to hope that the members of congress will realize that their public service is best provided by finding centrist compromise. It would be a definite plus if the GOP found a centrist that could win with centrist Dem support. But I found Hakim Jeffries proposal of a coalition to counter right wing extremists pretty rich, since it was the 100% Democratic enablement of the 8 members of the clown caucus that caused the ouster of McCarthy. The GOP needs a mainstream leader that might lose the first traditional vote and then win a vote supported by Dems. But this requires GOP and Dems that actually want to get back to work and believe that they can survive the voter outrage at being reasonable.
What a great song this week! Maybe it could be performed at "Songs". I recently saw a film documenting Brian's life with John Cusak as lead. I was not a huge fan of the band but it was the soundtrack of our youth a lot of the time. I knew he had mental health issues but didn't know the sad back story of his life. Would recommend...
I think the film closed with Brian singing Love and Mercy too
Eric - you pose this question..What the hell is going on with this country when nearly half of the voting public wants this fact-averse fabulist (Trump) in the White House?
Permit me to attempt to provide you with an answer to this question from my conservative perspective. First, I'll offer the following recent column from New York Times writer David Brooks who I believe all will agree has impeccable liberal credentials...
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/02/opinion/trump-meritocracy-educated.html
A lot of people are extremely concerned with an estimated 6 million immigrants illegally flowing over our open Southern border since Biden became president after Trump had maintained illegal immigration at a fraction of this with his extremely successful Remain in Mexico policy. No one can even estimate how many sleeper cells of various terrorist organizations may now be established within the US from our open border.
And that's just the biggest issue of concern. Americans are overwhelmingly disapproving of Biden's handling of the economy, and of course the cultural issues such as biological males being allowed in girls locker rooms and bathrooms, and competing against girls in sports. Of course, I know that you and the overwhelming majority of your readers may well disagree with all this, but I'm trying to explain to you why half the country is prepared to vote for Trump even after he gets indicted for alleged criminal activity over and over again.
I'll again register the caveat that I do not like Trump personally, I find many of his personal characteristics despicable and fervently wish the GOP would nominate a different candidate, my favorite being Nikki Haley. But, if the election sadly comes down to a Trump versus Biden rematch, I, like about half the country, will vote for Trump. I don't expect you to agree with that, but that is the reality that exists in our country today that I simply want to help everyone understand since you posed the question.
I am interested in what you find “personal” to Trump and not “political”.
He has been found guilty in a civil trial of groping and sexually attacking a woman.
So he could be termed a sex pervert, is that a personal characteristic that does not carryover in his political role?
He also has been found guilty of business fraud in another civil trial. We await the damages outcome. Does the fact he is dishonest with no integrity color your view of him politically or is this another personal attribute?
Finally he is fighting criminal charges as someone who is in effect a traitor and someone who has misused classified information in a variety of ways. If he is found guilty as a felon and potentially a traitor, do you consider these personal traits or do they leak onto his political agenda? Bluntly, if he is found guilty of these criminal charges can you still see your way to vote for Trump?
If you vote for Trump as President, are you confident that he will step down after his term is over? Given his behavior on January 6th, his lack of integrity and present demeanor, you would have no second thoughts that he would make himself President for Life?
Finally, can I assume his age and his mental stability do not give you pause either?
Hi Peter - I share your disdain for Trump over most all of the things you list and do not attempt to make any defense of them. Having said that, yes, I will still vote for Trump if he is the nominee against Biden as it appears about half the country is prepared to do. My reasoning for that is to restore control of our Southern border and presumably a return of the policies during the Trump Administration which I believe served our country much better than those of President Biden. I feel very confident you will vehemently disagree with me on this, but I am simply trying to provide understanding to those of you on your side as to how I and those of us on my side feel.
I am trying to follow your logic here. You vote for Trump because he will solve the border crisis. But you are not confident of his age and mental stability. You do not care if he is found guilty of treason or is a felon. And you appear confident that he would step down after a second term.
And you refer to “sides”, do you mean people that will vote for Trump no matter what on one side and people who will review other candidates and likely not vote for him as the other side?
For example, would you consider Liz Cheney to be a conservative? Given her platform, I would. Yet wouldn’t she likely be on the “other side” from you because I doubt she would vote for Trump.
Hi Peter - Yes, ONE of the larger of the many reasons I would vote for Trump is that he had proven that he could maintain control of the Southern border, whereas President Biden has pretty much proven that he does not have the political willingness to control the tsunami of illegal immigration flowing across it and into our country. And in response to your specific inquiries, yes, I do feel much more confident on Trump's age and mental capabilities relative to President Biden. And yes, I do feel very confident that Trump would step down upon completion of his term of office, and his conviction on any of the present charges would not change my position.
I don't like nor do I particularly respect Trump personally. But even with all his many flaws, if the election is between Trump and Biden, I will vote for Trump for the policies I anticipate will follow. I don't expect you to agree with my position, but this goes back to providing an answer to Eric's question as to why up to half the country is inclined to vote for Trump.
Hmmmm…still going to vote for him even with his many “flaws”.
Well I got your answer hoping for some logic I could follow. Seems like there isn’t any. I am getting a “cult” vibe here.
By the way, though you find his border policy amazing, a majority of voters found him and his policies lacking in 2020 and kicked him out of office.
Not seeing him adding to his base at the present, let us hope you get to vote for a less “flawed” candidate rather than Trump.
And if Trump became President, he would need a real set of lawmakers in the House to advance his border policies. You would need to change the present Republican Insane Clown Posse with reasonable people. A group that would agree on a speaker and then start to do the job they were elected to do. I am thinking the odds do not look good for that to happen.
Peter - Accusing me of being a cult follower when I explicitly stated that I did not respect or admire Trump seems very illogical, don't you think? My voting preference is predicated entirely upon the policies that I believe would follow from a Trump victory relative to the policies I anticipate from a Biden re-election.
I know you do not agree with me, and I certainly am not trying to convince you or anyone. I am simply trying to answer Eric's question as to why up to half the voters would vote for Trump. That's probably something that makes you, Eric and many others unhappy, but that's the reality of our political landscape.
David Brooks is not considered a liberal. He is the conservative columnist/commentator on PBS’s Brooks and Capehart. Brooks just hasn’t been radicalized into the MAGA/American fascist movement. Brooks is an old school country club Republican. I’m not surprised that there are large numbers of people supporting Trump and MAGA. In the 1932 German federal election, the Nazi Party got a higher percentage of votes, at 37.3%, than any other party, proving that electoral success is not necessarily related to reasonableness or even sanity. And we used to openly wonder what was wrong with the German people, and confidently say that it could never happen here. David, I love the way you checked off all the MAGA/American fascist scapegoats except one: you mentioned immigrants, of course, transgender people, and I’m going to credit you with an oblique reference to Muslims in your reference to sleeper cells of “terrorist” immigrants. But you forgot the other group MAGA loves to hate: women who wish to control their own bodies. C’mon, man, you’re gonna lose your MAGA card if you’re not careful! And I get it that Republicans disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy, but that’s another position that is disconnected from reality since the American economy is performing better now than it was under Trump. I think David Brooks’ quotation from Marc Hetherington pretty much nailed it: “Republicans see a world changing around them uncomfortably fast, and they want it to slow down, maybe even take a step backward. But if you are a person of color, a woman who values gender equality or an L.G.B.T. person, would you want to go back to 1963? I doubt it.” And I think it’s the changing of the cultural Zeitgeist relating to race and gender that undergirds most of the support for MAGA.
Re: Tom Freaking Skilling. Tom was great! The writer of the bit, Pat Tomasulo, is a great comedian. I saw him at Zanies recently, and he was top notch.
Re self-driving cars, the car world and commentary about it is unrealistic on two fronts (both personified by purist dreamer Elon Musk): (1) pure electric cars, and (2) self-driving technology. The fundamental problems with both have yet to be solved, and it's not clear that they will be solved in the near- or medium-term. Meanwhile, the goals of both are better served by existing technology that either is already widespread or should become more so.
The fundamental problem with pure electric cars is range and "fill-up" time. A pure electric car is inadequate for a long car trip or for the many people without a garage (i.e., apartment dwellers, all those people whose cars line every city street every night). Pure electric car take-up is slowing, not accelerating, contrary to the car companies' irrationally exuberant predictions, indicating that most people who are interested in them -- a relatively small percentage -- have already bought one.
We already have the solution: hybrids. Plug-ins use no gas on a daily commute and are perfect for those with a garage. Non-plug-ins, regular hybrids like the Prius, roughy double typical mileage, and are perfect for those apartment dwellers. They sacrifice little-to-nothing in terms of performance and come free of range anxiety, using a reliable and mature technology. Policy-makers looking to internal combustion engine bans are making a big mistake. They are incentivizing keeping regular old gas cars on the road much longer -- very doable, insofar as they are super reliable nowadays and it costs ever more to buy a new car. The better policy is to tweak gas mileage mandates to essentially require the mass hybridization of new car fleets. Hybrids don't rely on ultra-large batteries requiring scarce natural resources. They won't massively disrupt an industry that employs many thousands. Companies could standardize battery size, shape, and other aspects to move to more uniform production of smaller hybrid-sized batteries which would bring down the overall cost of hybrids and hasten a world where replacing your hybrid battery after 100K or whatever would cost hundreds, not thousands (a hang-up for cost-conscious shoppers of used hybrids).
The fundamental problem with self-driving technology is that it still makes regular mistakes and is routinely flummoxed. Think about your driving. How often do you encounter odd situations? All the time. As a diver, I, for one, will not tolerate auto-driving technology with anything like the glitchiness of the rest of my tech, which fails to do what I want on a regular basis. These things have to work perfectly nearly 100% of the time in all conditions and all places where you might want to drive. My impression is that that remains a very tall order, which is why you haven't heard a whole lot about self-driving cars in a while, and why their investors are nervous. The idea that self-driving cars will, on average, be safer, is cold comfort. It would be particularly galling to have a loved one, say, who is a very careful driver and has never had an accident, be killed by their robot car's mistake. I can say confidently that a self-driving car for *me* would not represent a safety improvement but a downgrade. I think many millions will probably have the same reasonable view, and not want to hand over the wheel.
Meanwhile, once again, amazing technology is at the ready to come close to solving the problem, but it gets little attention because it's not as flashy or pure. I refer to the suite of guardian angel tech that comes standard now on most new cars -- automatic emergency braking, lane-departure warnings, back-up cameras, adaptive cruise, and the like -- as well as low-grade highway self-driving, like GM's SuperCruise and what I imagine will be the next step -- cars able to avoid accidents by intervening at the last moment to command not just brakes but steering and gas as well. Excessive speed interventions are doable, especially for young drivers, as is ignition/breathalyzer interlock, which, assuming reliability, I'd far sooner accept than cars that take over the whole thing.
It seems to have become a national past time for people to say the see the future. At the moment it is self-driving cars and electrifying everything. IMO both of those things are at best a very distant future, but I am, after all, the Skeptic. I remember is 2015 many people were saying that self-driving cars will be in production by 2020, and transit would radically change right away.
Elon Musk seems like he is seeing the future, but I think he just says things on social media that he thinks are funny. Example: building colonies on Mars.
While it is 2023 (not 2020), I visited Phoenix last weekend, and was surprised to see what appeared to me to be Google Maps camera/mapping cars all over the place. It was explained to me that downtown Phoenix and parts of Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, and Chandler, AZ are part of Waymo's large test area for self-driving cars. My friends have themselves used Waymo as a taxi on more than one occasion. (Although they admitted that they were not all that comfortable doing so.) I came away thinking that self-driving cars are not that far off.
Waymo and Cruise have been testing in San Francisco for even longer, and they have started in Santa Monica. I am not an engineer; I am going off of reports I have read. What I have read is that the lidar system gets confused by rain. Also, it cannot reliably see motorcycles or bicycles. Maybe those challenges have been overcome. This is part of why they have test cities. The rain problem makes Arizona a good testing ground.
Ethical/legal/policy challenges are not things that technology can solve.
Should the driverless car algorithms be designed to minimize loss of life or injury?
If the answer is "yes", then what happens when a driverless car with one passennger is on a multi-lane highway behind a truck which suddenly stops or has a large part of its load drop off the back. There is not enough time to stop before hitting it. The road is crowded and there are cars on both sides with multiple passengers. The minimize injury algorithm would have the car choose to hit the road hazard putting risk only to its sole occupant rather than risk hitting more cars.
From a legal perspective, how is liability determined when there is a crash? Also, DUI laws would need to be updated. Typically, they state that it is illegal to operate a vehicle while impaired by alcohol or a controlled substance. If I summon a Waymo with an app on my phone when I am drunk and there is a crash, will the court determine that "was operating the vehicle" because I summoned it with an app? Would it matter if the vehicle provided the option for me to take control?
Should driverless cars have the ability to be controlled remotely by police and fire departments? One case I read about is a driverless car came to a stop because there was a fire truck nearby, but it stopped on top of a fire hose, which interfered with fire fighting. Adding remote control raises multiple questions. A big one is how to ensure the system cannot be hacked by people with bad intent. We continually see very high value targets owned by entities which have all of the resources they could want to secure their systems fall victim of ransomware. There is no doubt that hackers would try to get into self-driving car remote control systems. Are we ready to trust them?
If you google "self-driving cars further away than you think," you get articles saying that from 2013 all the way through 2020, and I think the below very recent article is a good statement about the state of the art today, which, while cheerleading the efforts still ongoing, is basically in the same vein:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/5/23711586/autonomous-vehicle-investment-toyota-nvidia
True, widespread self-driving seems decades away and may be, as one source in that article put it, "basically impossible." Investments in self-driving companies have plummeted, many have closed, etc. Companies are focusing on more limited applications and enhancing automated driver assistance, along the lines I suggested, which will make the road far safer without having to close the gap between nifty and *usually* impressive performance in limited, mapped playgrounds today and a world where everyone could really rely on these things all the time in any locations and any conditions.
To be fair that prompt to google is expected to give results that say that we are not close. The Atlantic published an article a few days ago stating that we are close. I don't think we are, and the article mainly discusses test environments. It also does point out challenges.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/10/robotaxi-services-self-driving-cars-national-rollout/675659/
How exactly does Tom Friedman think we're going to get the hostages back? A sudden burst of humankindness from Hamas?
I see Friedman's point, but it's telling that his response to the question of what Israel should do instead is, "I don't know."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-mourns-and-prepares-for-war-hamas-terrorism-gaza-9dbb21bf?st=9u30poi650b9phm&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink