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Comment by BLKNSLVR | Hacker News Reader

I'm not really replying to the article, just going tangentially from the "dead internet theory" topic, but I was thinking about when we might see the equivalent for roads: the dead road theory.

In X amount of time a significant majority of road traffic will be bots in the drivers seat (figuratively), and a majority of said traffic won't even have a human on-board. It will be deliveries of goods and food.

I look forward to the various security mechanisms required of this new paradigm (in the way that someone looks forward to the tightening spiral into dystopia).

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> In x amount of time a significant majority of road traffic will be bots in the drivers seat (figuratively), and a majority of said traffic won't even have a human on-board. It will be deliveries of goods and food.

Nah. That's assuming most cars today, with literal, not figurative, humans are delivering goods and food. But they're not: most cars during traffic hours and by very very very far are just delivering groceries-less people from point A to point B. In the morning: delivering human (usually by said human) to work. Delivering human to school. Delivering human back to home. Delivering human back from school.

Not a dystopia for me. I’m a cyclist that’s been hit by 3 cars. I believe we will look back at the time when we allowed emotional and easily distracted meat bags behind the wheels of fast moving multiple ton kinetic weapons for what it is: barbarism.

That is not really a defensible position. Most drivers don't ever hit someone with their car. There is nothing "barbaric" about the system we have with cars. Imperfect, sure. But not barbaric.

>Most drivers don't ever hit someone with their car.

Accidents Georg, who lives in a windowless car ans hits someone over 10,000 times each day, is an outlier and should not have been counted

> Most drivers don't ever hit someone with their car. There is nothing "barbaric" about the system we have with cars. Imperfect, sure. But not barbaric.

Drivers are literally the biggest cause of deaths of young people. We should start applying the same safety standards we do to every other part of life.

You should spend some more time driving in the environments you cycle in. This will make you better at anticipating the situations that lead to you getting hit.

Maybe take a look at how the Netherlands solved this problem. Hint: not with "AI" drivers.

By the way, I don't bike but I walk about everywhere lately. So to hyperbolize as it's the custom on the internets, i live in constant fear not of cars, but of super holier than you eco cyclists running me over. (Yea, I'm not in NL.)

Why specifically be worried about cyclists in this weird and unusual mental state? Do holier than thou cyclists have more momentum or something? (I’ve never met one).

Anyway, a fix that should work fine for both of you is to take a lane from cars and devote it to cyclists. Nobody actually wants to bike where people walk, some places just have bad infrastructure.

> Do holier than thou cyclists have more momentum or something?

They think they're martyrs or something. What am I then if i take a backpack and do my shopping on foot? I'm even more eco because I didn't spend manufacturing resources on a bike, and even more of a martyr because walking is slow.

> to take a lane from cars and devote it to cyclists. Nobody actually wants to bike where people walk

Yep, see my NL reference :)

You might like David Mason's short story "Road Stop":

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61309

I mean maybe someday we'll have the technlogy to work from home too. Clearly we aren't there yet according to the bosses who make us commute. One can dream... one can dream.

Anecdote-only

I actually prefer to work in the office, it's easier for me to have separate physical spaces to represent the separate roles in my life and thus conduct those roles. It's extra effort for me to apply role X where I would normally be applying role Y.

Having said that, some of the most productive developers I work with I barely see in the office. It works for them to not have to go through that whole ... ceremoniality ... required of coming into the office. They would quit on the spot if they were forced to come back into the office even only twice a week, and the company would be so much worse off without them. By not forcing them to come into the office, they come in on their own volition and therefore do not resent it and therefore do not (or are slower to) resent their company of employment.

I really liked working in the office when it had lots of people I directly worked with, and was next to lots of good restaurants and a nice gym. You got to know people well and stuff could get done just by wandering over to someone's desk (as long as you were not too pesky too often).

The Last of the Winnebagos by Connie Willis

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