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Comment by ChucklesNorris | Hacker News Reader

I think back to the old Cat Stevens song "I Want To Live In A Wigwam", except now I think maybe one day I'd like to live in a Faraday cage.

Computers, like guns, drugs, and any other invention of man are not inherently evil. All these things can be used for good or evil. Unfortunately, the fly in the ointment is human nature. With the convergence of cheaper but increased computing power and the monetization of personal information, I fear what the future holds. I hope I'm wrong, but it looks to me that humanity is doomed to forever live in a state total surveillance and control. We're seeing it happening already. Just the other day I saw an article that said that Sweden is going to tax people on the miles they drive. The very next day I saw another article saying Los Angeles is planning to do the same thing.

Sigh... I'm glad I'm old.

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Every country already taxes people on the miles they drive, as every country has a fuel tax.

A fuel tax isn't effectively a tax on mileage, nor is it an effective tax for offsetting infrastructure costs. An increase in axle weight causes an exponential increase in damage to infrastructure (the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials uses a "fourth-power" rule). Increased fuel economy also has unintended consequences leading to fuel taxes under-funding the infrastructure repairs.

You essentially have heavy-duty or commercial trucks that don't "pay their weigh" and hyper efficient hybrids and EVs that don't "pay their way" when it comes to infrastructure costs.

So fuel tax isn't equivalent to a tax on "miles driven," it might be better suited to off-setting air pollution (pure conjecture on my part), but if you wanted everyone to be responsible for the damage they cause to public infrastructure, you would need some weird calculus of axle-weight/mile driven tax.

Or we could decide major roads/infrastructure are an economic public good worthy of paying taxes on.

The difference is pay at the pump or pay via what your car's embedded GPS is reporting. GPS also allows them to know when and where you were speeding, and since Sweden went cashless, they can simply deduct the fines from your bank account. Compliance is irrelevant.

If having a GPS device on your person becomes law, then avoiding the tax by riding a bicycle, walking, riding a horse etc is defeated.

Could you link through to the article you read this in, because I live in Sweden, own a car, and have not heard or seen anything about this.

This fear mongering goes on since the days of Henry Ford. Technology has been a boon for many many people. I can't imagine a world with many more people dying or without access to information.

Indeed, since the days of the Gutenberg press. All new tech heralds the end of times.

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