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Comment by redial | Hacker News Reader

> Wait, is that article simply ignoring that self-driving car are now commercially available in Phoenix? That’s probably a bigger revolution than the steam engine, and someone’s take on this is “That’s it?

Are you being ironic? The steam engine literally reshaped the world. I think you express exactly what the author is talking about: Acting as if just by announcing it, it has already succeeded.

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But imagine someone sitting there in 1804 Wales, looking at the first steam train, saying "slow down buddy you haven't actually changed anything yet". It seems like there's a sense in which this is short-sighted.

Of course is short sighted, but those are not the only two options. You can think the idea will change the world without drinking the cool-aid that it already has.

The cars work. It’s not a stretch to understand what will happen as Waymo scales operation -- and it’s not ironic that not just replacing the vast majority of working class job, but making transport virtually free will have a bigger impact that the steam engine had. There is a lot that happens in history with understanding, threats and promisses.

As much as I want it to happen, and as much as I agree with you that in the near future is going to happen, I think you are missing the context. You seem to be forgetting we already have cars. Not only that, we already have planes, bullet trains, spaceships, etc. We even have the bicycle; transport has been "free" for a long time. The only thing equivalent to the steam engine in impact would be teleportation. That is the jump from the horse to a train, or from a train to an airplane. Self driving cars are cool, they are not steam-engine-in-the-1800s cool.

Steam engine made operational cost of transport an order of magnitude cheaper (while capital expenditure was two orders of magnitude higher) by using coal instead of oats (and locomotive instead of a horse-driven cart).

Self-driving cars will lower the operational cost of transport by another order of magnitude, but barely raise capital expenditure, actually probably concentrating it dramatically (as Waymo will probably build cars that cost double and can drive ten to a hundred times further).

Self driving car is essentially tele-transportation in your sleep.

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