[ExI] self driving cars

[Kelly Anderson]

On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 11:30 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson
>
>>...Perhaps you can pay to go faster if you want to. Autonomous vehicles
> should be better at getting out of the way of people that want to go
> faster... there are legitimate reasons to hurry sometimes...-Kelly
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Ja, but this is exactly what I am finding so frustrating Kelly.

I'm not parsing what is frustrating to you.

> Currently
> we are being held back by the fact that small light and slow vehicles are
> not safe, because they share the road with the current fast and heavies.  We
> have no practical way of separating the traffic, but that puts us right back
> to where we are now: even small light vehicles aren't particularly fuel
> efficient.

If we can get people who drive slow to stay to the right and people
who drive fast go to the left, then the problem is solved. So, here is
my suggestion. Any autonomous vehicle can report to the authorities
any human driving too slow in the fast lane. This person is then taken
to the public square and caned. The problem is solved in a week or
two. Slow drivers will stay in the slow lane or face the consequences.

> If we can delay a real energy crisis long enough, we can deal with it.  We
> can build a new sustainable energy infrastructure, redo the way we have
> always thought of food production and distribution into a much more
> efficient system, rethink transportation, do all the things we need to do,
> and do it all in time, but we need to somehow get past certain bottlenecks.

What bottlenecks are you concerned about Spike? Do you think peak oil
is coming so soon that we won't have time to develop alternatives? I
believe that CNG can fill that gap, should it occur.

> A classic example is that nearly all ape haulers on the road today can haul
> four times as many apes as they are ever called upon to haul (note how
> deserted is the carpool lane most of the time) at twice the highest local
> speed limit.  It doesn't need to do all that, but it really costs in weight
> and fuel economy to have the capability.

Apes like beefy safe-ish cars, so this isn't an engineering problem,
but rather a psychological and perhaps a safety problem.

> If we can make it safe to drive small, light and slow vehicles, people will.

The only answer to that my friend is autonomous drivers.

> And if those cars are self-driven, the occupants scarcely care about the
> wimpy acceleration, nor that human-guided cars are constantly cutting in
> front.  Those two factors would make you crazy when you are behind the
> wheel.  But if you are in the back seat sleeping, or getting stoned,

So, in this ideal future world of yours drugs are legalized too? I like it.

> or
> playing video games, or on the toilet reading the local news on your iPad or
> copulating with your sweetheart, you don't really care or even notice what
> the others cars are doing.

Certainly if you are copulating with your sweetheart, there is no need
to go fast. However, you might need something bigger than a Geo
Metro... LOL  :-)

-Kelly