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> Jackie Fielder, a progressive San Francisco supervisor who represents the Mission District, has been among the most vocal critics. She introduced a city resol
by yonran 10mo ago
> Jackie Fielder, a progressive San Francisco supervisor who represents the Mission District, has been among the most vocal critics. She introduced a city resolution after Kit Kat’s death that calls for the state Legislature to let voters decide if driverless cars can operate where they live. (Currently, the state regulates autonomous vehicles in California.)
If this had anything to do with safety, this so-called “Progressive” supervisor Jackie Fielder would be investigating what safety features would be feasible on Waymos: emergency stop switches or stop commands, under car cameras, questioning whether the Waymo detected the cat and then just forgot about it when it walked under the car, etc.
Instead, she is using this to secure territory for obviously less safe Uber and Lyft drivers who are represented by the Teamsters. Such a cynical politician.
- terminalshort 10mo agoProgressives always defend legacy obsolete businesses against competition. They tried to stop Uber and Lyft from replacing cabs and now they do the same with Waymo.
- lysace 10mo agoNon-US perspective: ”Progressive” and ”conservative” labels don’t make much sense to me these days. Perhaps you need another way of thinking about these things.
- terminalshort 10mo agoOf course they don't. Political labels don't cross national boundaries easily. Even right next door in Canada "conservative" means nothing like it does in the US.
- tehjoker 10mo agoYea they do when you have a firm foundation on political theory. However, parties often diverge from their name.
- Workaccount2 10mo agoAnd people often have no idea what the actual principles of an ideology are, they go with whatever their friends/family/bubble says is good.
- tehjoker 10mo agothat’s true, but usually there is some kind of foundational need that is being satisfied by the candidate or policies, or in the case of middle class people, some kind of postmodern spectacle as was innovated in the 1930s
- badc0ffee 10mo agoAnother non-US perspective - you can't tell them how to think about their weird political camps. We saw this play out with Uber. The "progressive" side wants things to be more regulated and frames it in terms of protecting vulnerable people from unchecked corporate power. The "conservative" side does wants less regulation and more competition to keep things from stagnating economically. The same thing is happening with AI, and with self driving cars. It's sort of counterintuitive that on the surface, at least in this case, the "conservative" side is the one welcoming change and the "progressive" side rejects it. You see this federally in the US. The "conservatives" want to tear down all the institutions, but they'll frame it as a return to traditional values like self sufficiency and freedom. The "progressives" want a return to the Biden era, in the name of people depending on these programs.
- lysace 10mo agoMany Canadians here, but I guess that makes sense. To the rest of the world (right or wrong) you are culturally pretty much the same as Americans. Yes. I know. Your political scene is wildly different.
- monero-xmr 10mo ago[flagged]
- terminalshort 10mo agoI guess I'm a bit more generous to them on this point. Ironically, what they are is actually conservatives (in the generic meaning of preserving the status quo, not the American political meaning). What they want is stability and freedom from risk. They have this idea that you should be able to get one job and work it for your entire career, and they often cite the post WWII period as an example of this. Of course technological progress is anathema to this. Progress is chaos. It causes disruption of entire industries, which TBF does disrupt people's lives. So they enact policies to defend existing industries from competition and fence off who is allowed to do what job with useless credentials and certifications. Essentially trying to preserve the status quo forever. They trade long term progress for short term comfort. The practical economic effect of this is, in fact, a handout to incumbents, and there are plenty of grifters on board for this reason, but it isn't the driving force behind it.
- monero-xmr 10mo agoI agree with your take but it’s just another form of handout, which the rest of society pays for
- archagon 10mo agoBegging the question. Regular cars are not "legacy" or "obsolete," and self-driving cars do not yet have a proven track record.
- circuit10 10mo agoWhen a plane crashes no one says “let’s let people decide if planes should be allowed to fly over their houses”, we say “let’s figure out exactly what went wrong and how to make sure it never happens again” and that’s probably why aviation is one of the safest modes of transportation
- iancmceachern 10mo agoWe do actually. There are planes that are certified to fly over populated areas, and those that are not.
- tehjoker 10mo agoThat's true but there's also a separate element here which is there is an obvious need for aviation and not an obvious need for autonomous vehicles.
- circuit10 10mo agoI think that this approach could feasibly lead to something far safer than human drivers (from what I’ve seen they already are safer), so it would be human drivers that we would question the need for at that point
- xnx 10mo ago> not an obvious need for autonomous vehicles We've grown numb to it, but 40,000 US traffic fatalities is an obvious need.
- queenkjuul 10mo agoAgreed, we shouldn't let people drive cars
- chequoredDaemon 10mo agoAbsolutely true and worth repeating. A lot.
- thrance 10mo ago