12 Comments
User's avatar
Sebastian's avatar

While not the point of the piece, I do have to note how hilariously common it is for right-wing tech guru innovations to fundamentally break down to "What if train but worse".

Luke Savage's avatar

Haha yes! That is very much a thing. And pairs nicely with that things where ride share app hacks will accidentally reinvent some rudimentary public transit concept like…a bus

Guest's avatar

Except that self-driving truck is not like a train at all, no more than a regular truck is.

And also, it would be better than a train in every way.

Luke Savage's avatar

If it needs a dedicated lane on the highway, which would also mean the mass construction of new infrastructure, and a small team of staff who do oversight, what's the functional difference here?

Guest's avatar
May 1Edited

If even that’s true - it would be like the difference between BRT and light rail or subway: very different forms of transit. So many differences.

Luke Savage's avatar

Well okay, but in that case we're talking about a somewhat pedestrian innovation within the context of something that already exists not a promethean Copernican moment that's going to Change Everything. No?

Guest's avatar
May 1Edited

Self-driving is a huge innovation. Retrofitting highways for self-driving is not innovation but it would be huge, and I’d say progressive minded people should want to emphasize the need for government built infrastructure because it makes the point that private companies’ innovations are not enough. Imagine if the Ford had created cars but government had never built the highway system or public roads, how useful would cars be? Today people want companies to deliver us a brave new world with their innovations without government projects and that won’t work.

Luke Savage's avatar

Right, except all these companies also want the government to pay for and build all of the infrastructure they will then profit from. Look at what’s happening with data centers.

And no one is saying self driving isn’t an innovation. What I am saying is that it really isn’t the kind of innovation the hype is telling us it is.

Sera's avatar

I’m not a loyalist in any sense, but eight years is a long time in politics. Eight years ago Julian Assange was in prison, and Jimmy Dore showed Carlson’s why that was wrong.

The point is he willing to change and I don’t believe he tells lies.

“I have spent much time talking to Tucker both in front of a camera and away from one, and never once has he lied to me or misled me.”-Glenn Greenwald

Frank Winstan's avatar

In my world, Glenn Greenwald is not exactly the go-to guy for a character reference.