[ExI] self driving cars

[Kelly Anderson]

On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 1:45 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>>... On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson
> ...
>>
>>>... each occupant's time was more valuable than the fuel ...
>
> It is now, ja.  May not be in the future.  I can imagine proles' time
> becoming very plentiful and cheap in comparison to energy costs.

Possible, but improbable in my book. I believe that solar photovoltaic
panels are going to make energy quite inexpensive (unless the
conspiracy theorists are right).

>>...True. And in some cases, you'll want to ride alone...
>
> I think in most cases you would want to ride alone.  Read on.

Probably, but meeting people is often a nice thing to be able to do. I
enjoy riding on airplanes ONLY for this reason. The rest of flying I
could do without.

>>> I guess you meant drawing as-needed from a 'pool' of cars.
>
>>...I meant that too, but separately...
>
> Ja and that was good thinking.  You can have pool cars, call-up, on-demand,
> with seats like what you see on a speedboat:  vinyl ov closed-cell foam, so
> the interiors of the cars can be hosed down (by robot) for cleaning.   You
> know some drunken prole is going to barf in there, and she is going to be
> copulating with her sweetheart.  We need to be able to wash the insides of
> these cars regularly, probably daily.

Yes, definitely. Like hotel rooms. Perhaps between each use... LOL.

>>>... Mass transit is an equally poor name:  Are we hauling the masses as
> figurative terminology for what spike calls proles...
>
> I didn't make up the name, credit the brilliant George Orwell.

He was smart.

>>...I assume you are familiar with the coffee house argument for why England
> became an industrial superpower...
>
> Don't know it.  Why?

Some economists have postulated that the coffee houses that became
popular around the beginning of the industrial revolution actually
increased the productivity of the English in two important ways.
First, it gave them something aside from hard liquor to safely drink,
and second that it provided a place for people to meet strangers and
exchange ideas. Kind of an Internet of the day... a communication hub
with serendipity. We hardly get any chance for serendipitous
communications these days, with airplane travel being the one
exception.

>>... What if car pools became that kind of social force? Design self driving
> cars with a round table around which people sit...-Kelly
>
> Hmmm, possibly for some purposes but remember that cars in the US can only
> be 8 ft wide.  I had in mind single ape-haulers which are very close to the
> ground (enabled by resurfacing of current roads) and with a low roof.
> Reasoning: most fuel is burned pushing air out of the way.  In that regard,
> air resistance is proportional to frontal area, whereas length is almost
> free, and even that is an understatement: a longer vehicle can have a lower
> drag coefficient if it is designed right.  So imagine ape haulers that are
> long, low and narrow.  Of course these will not fly if human operated: the
> wheelbase makes them unpleasant handlers.  But the software wouldn't care
> about that.

True enough, but for car pools designed to promote serendipitous
communication, you would want to be sitting face to face. Engineering
has to take ergonomics, not just aerodynamics into account.

> One other thing that may be consistently underestimated: the value of one
> prole one car, for both privacy and security purposes.  Mister Lincoln has a
> roomy center console at my right hand: the bad guy doesn't know what caliber
> persuasion I keep in there, and the local constabulary never ask either.
> The bad guy doesn't need to know; let him speculate and bet his damn life on
> a correct guess.  One of the biggest problems with mass transit is that it
> affords fewer opportunities to have instant access to our good friends Mr.
> Smith and Mr. Wesson.  Think that over carefully, it is important now and
> may become more so in the future.

You can still carry concealed weapons. If we were car pooling with
strangers, I would want one. In fact, if I traveled on mass transit
much, I'd probably get something. There's a certain hitchhiker I'd
kinda like to shoot... LOL.

-Kelly