Me thinks you need to read up on who the luddites actually were.
10 Likes
As someone on meds that make it both unwise and illegal for me to operate heavy machinery under their influence. I am with you here. Every job, shop and service assumes I have access to a car - an autonomous car could really be liberating for me.
3 Likes
When BB itself is advocating for attacking self driving cars with guns – or at least saying they’re quite sympathetic to doing so – I’d say it’s the authors here.
3 Likes
Ah - so - no more guillotine pics?
3 Likes
Careful! If it can’t fully stop in time, it might do a Dark Trolley calculation that it’ll be cheaper to kill you than cripple you.
1 Like
I drive a lot and I’ve analyzed this, at least in my own experience.
For me it’s a combination of many cues, including the other driver’s hand position on the steering wheel, facial expression as viewed in the mirror, micro-movements within the lane, speed relative to the rest of traffic (one must accelerate to keep pace when changing lanes), condition of the vehicle, the flow of traffic around the vehicle (eg. brakes ahead and an opening beside them) etc, etc.
So combinations of many things adding up to a probability.
It works for predicting the absence of vehicles as well:
Passenger: the exit is right there, why haven’t you moved over yet?
Me: because if I do it now I have to force my way between all these cars, but if I wait another two seconds there will be a nice big gap right… there. [Moves smoothly over with plenty of room for the exit.]
Don’t get me started on the parallels between traffic flow and fluid dynamics. 
3 Likes
Those features will be in a future release.
FTFY, not all of the world is so backward.
2 Likes
FTFY, ownership of cars isn’t necessarily ‘backwards’
2 Likes
That calculation will factor in whether you’ve upgraded to the premium account or not.
Never said it was! 
I was referring to the fact that the entire society and urban infrastructure is so automobile-centric that every job, shop and service assumes car ownership, because it is essentially a necessity due to the lack of urban planning for any other eventuality!
3 Likes
My understanding is that it refers to a general movement, not well knit or organized, that spontaneously rose in protest during the early part of industrial revolution in England, to burn factories and break machines particularly in the textile industry, as a protest to the destruction of the guild system and social order that they displaced. The Luddites are pretty much noted as “machine breakers”. Nobody wanted to claim responsibility for organizing the raids (a capital offence) so the participants claimed to be lead by the mythic Ned Ludd. Unless of course who the Luddites actually were is something completely different. I crave to be enlightened.
2 Likes
Maybe I’m wrong… much of that seems accurate, but it wasn’t just a rebellion against technology, but rather against the attacks on their privilege as members of the guild. Much like today, new technologies replaced and drove down wages, which in the early 19th were still relatively new means of supporting oneself and one’s family. It wasn’t just an anti-technology attack, it was (as Hobswam noted) a “collective bargaining rebellion.”
I’d suggest EP Thompson or Kirkpatrick Sale on the rebellion itself.
6 Likes
i want to say i’ve read that when a textile factory kept guild members to run the looms, the luddites left them alone. it really was much more of a labor rights issue than a resistance to technology.
3 Likes
Needless to say, whilst fair payment may have been the main driver of the movement, the situation would not have been an issue had it not been for the new technology. It’s not like they were raiding cottage industries and breaking up hand looms and spinning wheels. And in much the same way as we advance into the latest technological revolution - of AI and autonomous vehicle control - even as useful and efficient as they will be - it is gonna put a shitload of people out of work. It is little wonder that people object and are resistant to change. These represent solutions to problems that no one is begging to be solved. First they’ll put autonomous driving functions in private vehicles, then they’ll have driverless public transport, they will rezone cities so that there is no onstreet parking, private car ownership will become the province of the super-rich. Oh sure, you’ll be able to call up a small roving people mover which will pick you up, and others along the way, and deliver you to the shopping mall or entertainment complex. You might not even lament the loss of freedom and personal control (like a good little munchkin). In the meantime how does one prepare for becoming unemployable. Study robotics?
And it is shitty dangerous work we shouldn’t have to do. Same for warehouse workers and a lot of other stuff that is already done by robots.
The big question we are going to have to wrestle with is not so much what jobs will there be but what do we do with everyone when robots do all the labor?
7 Likes
The Luddites were a false flag operation carried out by the Deep State to demonize the Workers and push a radical Libertarian agenda; or so some guy on the internet told me.
2 Likes
Early members of John Connor’s Resistance are kind of a bunch of jerks.
2 Likes
Full Stack Software Developer - whatever that is…
3 Likes
Very on brand for Arizona. I’m surprised this guy isn’t running off to dig up Isaac Asimov and shoot his corpse too.
Train them to fix robots of course!
/s
2 Likes
