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Comment by henrya | Hacker News Reader

This article seems vaguely similar to the Luddite's destroying automated manufacturing equipment because of the belief that it would take their jobs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite). It seems that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of basic economics. Yes truck driver jobs will go away but this does not mean the loss of jobs and income on the aggregate. The economy will change and shift resources to the now more efficient modes of transportation, which will benefit everyone.

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Sometimes there are misunderstandings of economics involved, but just as often that kind of resistance stems from factors that "basic economics" glosses over or abstracts away. There's a lot of economic friction involved in shifts like this, and the pain tends to fall on people who have less power to do anything about it -- it's not trivial for a truck driver to go get a new job in a different industry, and our economic system is not very well set-up to encourage that kind of retraining and shifting, nor to support the basic needs of people who don't have much to contribute to "the economy". (All that's vaguely related to the fact that we've been (in the US) working more and more hours collectively despite higher and higher productivity, so that Keynes's prediction of a 15-hour workweek looks crazy even though his estimation of productivity increases was basically on point...)

Median wages went down right after the luddites lost to manufacturing. Its going to be hard to employ people who have been driving their whole lives and now need to learn a new skill.

Except, well, the Luddites. The benefits of automation are largely diffuse and society-wide, outside of the few directly involved in the new, smaller industry. Those displaced would be at a net loss, save any Kaldor-Hicks type interventions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaldor%E2%80%93Hicks_efficienc...

In addition to ignoring the big picture economics, it makes rather silly claims such as "And with that [the elimination of the need to own cars], the elimination of entire industries built up around the existence of car ownership like: mechanics, car washes, parking..."

I think he's confusing eliminating the need to buy a whole car (dubious in the first place even if/ especially if they're automated) with the elimination of cars in general (???) Or he somehow thinks that part of "self-driving" means also self-fixing, self-washing, and cars that never park... roaming the streets in packs I suppose, ganging up on people when the cops aren't looking and stealing their jobs...

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