[pavlov]

In energy policy, Trump wants to make coal more affordable compared to renewables. Applying similar logic, he should work to enact legislation to prohibit automated vehicles or make them very expensive so they can't be deployed widely.

In 2020, Trump can point to this piece of legislation and tell voters: "Silicon Valley billionaires tried to put a million truckers and taxi drivers out of work, but I prevented that!"

I wonder how that would sit with Peter Thiel.

Anyone who expects the upcoming all-Republican government to be innovation-friendly may be in for a rude awakening. I have a feeling that many "job protection" solutions from Congress will be similar in spirit to the state laws that prevent Tesla from selling cars directly. In other words, there will be more legislation that's friendly to established business but hostile to SV's cherished "disruption". (Republican voters said loud and clear that they haven't liked being disrupted.)

EDIT: I expanded this comment into a post on Medium: https://medium.com/@pauli/disruption-in-america-please-hold-...

[ssharp]

I find Trump repugnant and don't think he's remotely fit to lead the U.S. but what has he said that makes you think he's going to be against private-sector-driven innovation?

Sectors that require, or are helped substantially by, the government to innovate will almost certainly suffer but what makes you think he would interfere with private enterprise?

Trump doesn't like business regulation and seems to want to make it easier for businesses to operate. Obviously that has negative consequences some some things but would also mean he wouldn't interfere.

Where he does want to make changes is in regards to trade and outsourcing jobs and manufacturing to foreign countries.

As far as Republican leadership in the House and Senate, there is no doubt that they'll play favorites with lobbyists but Trump's main appeal was that he WASN'T like that. If he is like that, we'll have a Democratic Congress in two years and a new president in four.

[celticninja]

He wants it to be easier for certain businesses to operate, so he wants to cut environmental protection to cut the costs of companies that pollute, this means they can produce more (pollute more) and employ more people.

He could well be anti automated driving vehicles, it is widely accepted that one of the first casualties of the introduction of automated vehicles will belong distance lorry drivers. There are approx 3.5 million drivers employed in the US right now, even if we see only 25% of jobs going in the next 10 years that is an extra 850,000 unemployed people. And not only are they unemployed but their skill set is no longer required, so they are either long term unemployed or they need to retrain. I imagine many will be older people and they will not be in a position to retrain significantly, so they become competition for low paid manual work, further depressing wages in this sector. So even if you do get a job the wage is likely to be much lower than that of a truck driver.

These could be protected (for a while) if they introduced anti-automation policies and laws. This sort of short term thinking is right up the republican street.

[ssharp]

It's just speculation that he'd be anti-automated vehicles. I agree with you in regards to environmental protection but you can't extrapolate that into thinking Trump will be against everything you're in favor of.

Until Trump proves otherwise, I'll continue to think he's not going to act like current Republican leadership, because he didn't act like that during the primary or general election and his platform doesn't line-up with someone who would be against self-driving vehicles.

[pavlov]

We just don't know yet. His public talks have been to a white blue-collar audience, so if you take the things he's said there to represent his platform, then it's pretty clear that he's not in favor of replacing drivers with automation.

But what is he saying in private to people like Peter Thiel? We have no idea... And amusingly, Hillary was heavily criticized by Trump proponents for stating the obvious about public vs. private stances. Every bit of Hillary's private talks was dug up, but we know essentially nothing about Trump's real intentions. (Maybe Wikileaks could get on the case? Hah.)

[ssharp]

He's largely talked about tax breaks and trade reform to encourage more companies to bring things back to the U.S. that are currently done overseas. I don't recall him ever talking about eliminating technology that replaces human labor. I think it's way too big of a leap to speculate on that until he shows signs of moving in that direction.

There's a lot to dislike about him and I don't think it's fair to speculate on positions of his he's given no evidence to merit speculation on.

[shanusmagnus]

This interpretation is stunning to me. The Trump base is not savvy Republican mucky-mucks -- it's _exactly_ the people who would be directly and immediately impacted (for the worse) by these technologies. It's a very clear path from "Tesla, Google, and Uber created automated trucking technology that eliminated 2.3 million jobs" to "Donald Trump did nothing to stop the destruction of 2.3 million jobs."

One might make subtler arguments about how this (and much) technology indirectly benefits all of civilization in myriad ways, even in the face of causal fallout like that mentioned above, but we have not one scrap of evidence that subtle arguments will either be employed or considered.

[celticninja]

I just meant that he could take that stance and it would be in line with his statements pre election. Personally I don't see it happening because the biggest drivers in automated driving are currently Google and Tesla, both are US companies. If the leading lights in this sector were Volkswagen and Beijing Automotive Group then he could certainly fall the other side of the argument.

[scld]

As far as what he has said, he wants to (to paraphrase) "bring back manufacturing jobs" and "make stuff in america again". The only way that happens is if the current way becomes prohibitively expensive or the "old" way becomes absurdly cheap. Either alone is probably not enough, barring some massive depression and wage reduction.

[closeparen]

Globalization is a form of private sector innovation (also an effect of innovation in transportation and communication) and he was elected to shut it down. So yes, absolutely.

[snsr]

> If he is like that, we'll have a Democratic Congress in two years and a new president in four.

Gerrymandered districts have made that nearly impossible.

[talmand]

I keep hearing that, and yet Congress and the Presidency changes hands constantly. I would think gerrymandering has a greater impact on local and state level elections.

[ssharp]

Gerrymandering has a clear effect on the House. Some of the districts that were redrawn in my home state (Ohio) are completely absurd and if you look at their shapes, their only purpose is to maximize Republican's chances at winning districts.

Still, as Trump showed, you can flip the needle to the other side.

The Senate can't be Gerrymandered but a lot of people argue it's not fair for California and New York to have the same level of Senate representation as North and South Dakota.

[talmand]

I would say the effect is not that strong since, as I said, it changes hands quite often. Besides, it's not like Democrats don't use the practice to their advantage whenever they gain control of a state legislature. I would prefer they both stop the nonsense and base it on county lines.

>> The Senate can't be Gerrymandered but a lot of people argue it's not fair for California and New York to have the same level of Senate representation as North and South Dakota.

Only from people that don't understand how Congress works. Making the Senate more fair for large states against small states just turns it into another House of Representatives. Which, of course, favors one party over another which I'm sure is the basis for the argument.

[mikestew]

The Senate can't be Gerrymandered but a lot of people argue it's not fair for California and New York to have the same level of Senate representation as North and South Dakota.

And thus demonstrating that they didn't pay enough attention in that civics class because "it's stupid and when am I going to need to know this?", where it was clearly explained why it's done this way. Hint: feature, not a bug.

[Spooky23]

Great point. People pay too much attention to the republican rhetoric about reduced regulation, spending, etc.

The reality is that they help out their friends. There's only one way to generate jobs for coal miners.

[snsr]

> The reality is that they help out their friends.

Also known as corruption.

[phkahler]

>> There's only one way to generate jobs for coal miners.

Subsidize electric vehicles?

[lifeisstillgood]

  > Republican voters said loud and clear that they haven't 
  liked being disrupted.

This is a perfect comment.

[raverbashing]

Well Peter Thiel can enjoy the consequences of his actions...