Comment by positron26
16 hours ago
Anyone who hates driving, being stuck in traffic, anyone who benefits when the cost of transportation is cheaper, anyone who hates insurance, all of society benefits. In some parallel universe self driving and fusion are both crash projects receiving well administered social scale funding. Lots of things are. It is somewhat miraculous that we don't all live in this conclusion, realizing these huge value creation opportunities by investing aggressively in the upstream tech. There is a horse I would very much like to drown for only a few million USD.
None of that is solved by automated driving. You want public trains, BRT bus systems, trams, etc. The ideal universe is you stepping on public trans, not piloting various rube goldberg-esque machines that are far more dangerous and will always contribute to traffic and "one more lane" does not work.
Public transit is great but it is not a catch all solution. Farmers need trucks, people in rural areas need to get places at odd hours. Drunk people need to be ferried to distant places. Automated cars and good transit are not mutually exclusive.
Sure, public transit can be nice. But so is owning my own vehicle that isn't subject to routes, schedules, and minimal luggage constraints. I'd much rather hang out and read a book or play a video game than babysit a vehicle in stop and go traffic for half an hour. Even if traffic is moving at a decent clip I'd still rather do something else.
Cool, in this universe I have a train stop in my front yard?
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