Master Plan, Part Deux
> "When used correctly, [partially autonomous driving] is already significantly safer than a person driving by themselves"If you're an American, you're twice as likely to die with a steering wheel in your hands as you are to die at the hands of a murderer. Human-driven vehicle deaths cause grave second-order suffering for families and friends - and hurt the economy.A shift to technologies safer than human-driven cars would dramatically reduce human suffering and should be welcomed.I do wonder, though, how this would reshape our cities - if we're not careful. Besides direct costs for the car, fuel, and maintenance, the main disincentive to driving is how damn boring it is. What happens when we turn fully-autonomous vehicles into luxury entertainment centers? I suspect that, if we're not smart about this shift, we could see wild sprawl on a scale that would dwarf the mid-20th century sprawl we saw in Los Angeles and elsewhere.On the whole, though, it's a beautiful thing.