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Comment by papapra | Hacker News Reader

I think what you are missing is the fact that this time the changes will take place much faster. With farming, the changes were slower and generational.(The children of farmers didn't do farming). And still these changes had colossal impact on societies(and a lot of blood was spilled).

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Humans have a tendency to always think "it's different this time".

Trucking won't disappear overnight.

Exactly, plus there's no way driverless trucks will be allowed onto city streets. Maneuvering trucks in urban and suburban corridors requires the drivers to break the rules of the road constantly.

Automation makes sense for long haul highways, so truck drivers will shift to being last mile drivers.

I disagree that it'll never happen but driverless 18 wheelers are the trolley problem writ large. The momentum from these vehicles is far more than a passenger vehicle so they have that much more capacity to cause damage and death. I think driverless taxis will happen first and then probably smaller delivery vehicles. I'd love for USPS to have automated delivery into standardized neighborhood boxes.

Once there's enough driverless vehicles large trucks can signal smaller vehicles things like "I need to turn right so please leave me room in the left turn lane to my right". Frankly the tow truck industry needs some disrupting. At least here in Houston they are the most dangerous lawless drivers on the road and need to go.

18 wheelers will drive to depot, cargo will be moved over to smaller self driving trucks and other delivery vehicles for the last mile. At least, that's the way it should be, even today without the automation. Huge trucks have no place in an urban environment.

A lot of things are different after the industrial revolution and the information age.

Lots of industries and jobs pretty much disappeared overnight -- it took centuries or millennia for that to happen in the past.

Are you actually denying that change doesn't happen faster and faster? That's what technology is. It's compounding advancement.

It might not disappear overnight but it sure as hell isn't going to take 150 years!

> Humans have a tendency to always think "it's different this time".

Humans also have a tendency to always think "it'll stay the same as is right now".

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