no no no, you are misreading causality here. The error of 5 seconds a month is between the One True Clock (the one with the pendulum) and all those silly cessium and gps dohickies.
I'm curious what you consider "training", and how this would be different than a vocation-specific university degree? Which typically also includes supervised real-world teaching experience?
Hey, I hear you. And I'm sad. Because I'd like to say that the right way is to:
build infrastructure that promotes safe driving, and
train drivers to show respect for other people on the road
However, those are both non-starters in the US. So your answer, which comes down to "at least self-driving is better than those damn people" might be the one that actually works.
I've spend some time driving in both the US and the UK and while infrastructure in the US could be improved I don't think that's the main issue.
What's different is driver training and attitude. Passing a driving test in the US is too easy to encourage new drivers to learn to drive. And an average American driver shows less respect to pedestrians, cyclists and other drivers, aggressive driving is relatively common. Bad drivers can be encountered in the UK of course but on average British drive better.
Huge SUV and pickup trucks are also part of the problem - they are more dangerous for everyone except people in such vehicle.
San Francisco has done a ton of that recently. They've added protected bike lanes and even experimented with a center bike lane on Valencia Street which must have cost a shit ton of money. I give them credit for trying (and a lot of my tax dollars). There are a lot of no right on red situations and a lot of flights that are specific to bicycles and not cars. The city is trying and it has the will and the money to do it. We just have to hope that it doesn't all disappear into corruption and political nonsense.
Yes, this is really it for me. Self-driving isn’t the best solution, but the real solution requires lots of politics and lots of time to build. Tech is the one thing we are pretty good at in this country, and feels like the one thing that makes it possible to have change quickly and without endless politicking.
I currently live in a place where, when walking on the street, I routinely almost get hit by vehicles while crossing crosswalks with the cross light on.
However, I used to live in a place where every local driver did an 'after you' that included pedestrians, regardless of road rules, and generally drove the speed limit (and usually less).
Increasing money supply vs taxation is kinda just misdirection. It's politically disadvantageous to increase the tax % versus just siphoning purchasing power out of cash holders pockets silently and through the back door of increasing money supply.
Not sure why it matters what I feel about ICE, besides an attempt to categorize me or my affiliations. However, in general I believe the US has a large amount of very silly self inflicted wounds, a terrible immigration policy has lead to a situation where people only/primarily get in illegally, and then those people have to make compromising choices based on their legality. Attempting to reset the playing field is noble, but fixing the path to legality would have been nobler. A big chunk of it is a waste of money in an attempt to chase the holy grail in America... "Jobs".
> Tax dollars don't fund the government. The government funds the government. That's what "Fiat currency" means.
There was $4.9 trillion in revenue and $6.8 trillion in outlays in 2024 [1]. 95% of that revenue was from taxes. In spite of the high deficit, it remains a true statement that the federal government is funded by taxes as they account for the majority of funding.
The money would be spent regardless of what is collected through taxes. It's not as though taxpayer money goes into a gigantic bag in the treasury, and then those same dollars get pulled out to fund public spending until the bag is empty.
> I don’t think it’s any more true or insightful in the modern era
hmm, based on what evidence?
Or, if you prefer, based on what appeal to authority? Did you actually quote that authority properly or did you just wing it? Can you properly quote many authorities?
If you don't have good answers to those, then perhaps you have just proved the your opponents point?
Maybe there is a reason people need more compute in their key fob than what our parents/grandparents needed to pilot their ship to the moon?
“Our sires’ age was worse than our grandsires’. We, their sons, are more worthless than they; so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt.”
Horace, Book III of Odes, circa 20 BCE
“Youth were never more sawcie, yea never more savagely saucie . . . the ancient are scorned, the honourable are contemned, the magistrate is not dreaded.”
The Wise-Man’s Forecast against the Evill Time, Thomas Barnes
1624
The onus of evidence is generally on the one making the initial claim: what evidence do you have that the modern world is actually getting worse?
But if you want evidence that we're improving, I'd point out that 20 years ago, the mainstream US position was that gay people were evil, 60 years ago they thought black people shouldn't be allowed to vote, and 100 years ago they thought women were also inferior and shouldn't be allowed to vote.
We can keep going back to when people thought "slavery" and "the divine right of kings" were solid ideas.
So... if people were so much smarter in the past, why did they believe all these obviously-dumb ideas?
maybe they are concerned by the widespread adoption of the attitude you are taking-- make a very strong accusation, then when it was pointed out that the accusation might be off base, continue to attack.
This constant demonization of everyone who disagrees with you, makes me wonder if 28 Days wasn't more true than we thought, we are all turning into rage zombies.
p-e-w, I'm reacting to much more than your comments. Maybe you aren't totally infected yet, who knows. Maybe you heal.
I am reacting to the pandemic, of which you were demonstrating symptoms.
> “We’ve created something so dangerous that we couldn’t possibly live with the moral burden of knowing that the wrong people (which are never us, of course) might get their hands on it, so with a heavy heart, we decided that we cannot just publish it.”
Or, how about, "If we release this as is, then some people will intentionally mis-use it and create a lot of bad press for us. Then our project will get shut down and we lose our jobs"
Be careful assuming it is a power trip when it might be a fear trip.
I've never been as unimpressed by society as I have been in the last 5 years or so.
> Be careful assuming it is a power trip when
> it might be a fear trip.
>
> I've never been as unimpressed by society as
> I have been in the last 5 years or so.
Is the second sentence connected to the first? Help me understand?
When I see individuals acting out of fear, I try not to blame them. Fear triggers deep instinctual responses. For example, to a first approximation, a particular individual operating in full-on fight-or-flight mode does not have free will. There is a spectrum here. Here's a claim, which seems mostly true: the more we can slow down impulsive actions, the more hope we have for cultural progress.
When I think of cultural failings, I try to criticize areas where culture could realistically do better. I think of areas where we (collectively) have the tools and potential to do better. Areas where thoughtful actions by some people turn into a virtuous snowball. We can't wait for a single hero, though it helps to create conditions so that we have more effective leaders.
One massive culture failing I see -- that could be dramatically improved -- is this: being lulled into shallow contentment (i.e. via entertainment, power seeking, or material possessions) at the expense of (i) building deep and meaningful social connections and (ii) using our advantages to give back to people all over the world.
