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by noduerme 1687 days ago
>> If someone wants to do some old school driving in 2040, go have fun on a private racetrack or whatever

This reminds me of how only rich people could afford to fly places in the 1940s; then the upper-middle class could afford airline vacations in the 60s-80s; then by the 2000s, it was available to everyone so everyone had to be treated like scum/cattle, and once again if you wanted to take a nice vacation you had to be rich and buy first class tickets, or rent a jet.

So your ideal vision for 2040 is that everyone is herded everywhere and no one gets to experience even a fleeting sense of freedom on the road, except the extremely rich who can afford cars that aren't road-legal and can only go to racetracks? Or maybe large private land holdings?

Because currently, we still live in a society where the average person can experience a modicum of freedom - mobility, autonomy, and privacy - by getting in their car and driving it without help from a computer or monitoring from the government. I think that's worth preserving. A generation that grows up without ever feeling that freedom will be way too easy to control.

Maybe driving your own car will seem anachronistic like, say, writing in full sentences without emojis. But if you think about what we'd be losing, as a personal experience of having the privilege to take yourself anywhere on your own recognizance, it seems like a massive step backwards to deprive humans of that. And it sounds like imprisonment.

2 comments

I certainly don't buy that your car is freedom trope sold to our parents to buy the latest car back in the sixties. Most cars are dailies and only ever drive between home, work, store ad nauseum. So the rosy tinted idea that cars are freedom just means more traffic, complaining about fuel, complaining about tires, complaining about insurance, and the forgetful fact that humans are driving around a metal and plastic box with several dozen litres of flammable fuel at 100km/h - while listening to shitty breakfast show radio.

No thanks.

I'd rather we do away with the car is freedom trope. Most cars arent even useful, just signals to your nieghbours and friends that you are, in fact, balling. No thanks. Uber had the right idea. Don't own it, go where you want and pay up. Should be cheap when it's automated. Don't like that then take public transport...and if you can - just walk. What happened to just walking?

Right...you can't because our spaces are designed for car travel, not people. Do you see my point?

Cars were my freedom. People live different lives, you know?

Did you drive 100+ miles, one way, for epic parties when you were in high school? I did. That's how rural Arkansas works.

My first tech job required me to go 130 miles one way for months before I could afford my own place and move closer. How would I have done that with your rules?!

Take a bus.

Or a train.

I have the opposite view: driving doesn't feel like freedom to me. It feels like a necessary evil forced upon my by prior generations. Using a self driving car to get around sounds a lot more free to me as I'd be free to do something other than stare at the road and listen to podcasts.