[mmazing]

I totally agree with everything you're saying, there's definitely a long way to go. I am certainly not advocating for going all-in on them any time soon.

I don't see any harm in trying though, or continuing to try and improve them. If we had said that a boom-box sized car phone wasn't useful enough, so why bother trying, where would phones be now?

Besides, you can probably point to any number of people in history that said that humans would never fly, that computers were unwieldy room-sized devices that consumers would never use, that the internet would never be anything more than communication between universities.

It's also just fun to think about the possibilities! :)

[tmcw]

I’m totally fine with folks trying - plenty of companies want to build self-driving cars and investors want to buy into those companies, and all that can just sort itself out and win or lose.

The problem is when folks - and I’m not saying just like this thread, but this is a phenomenon in some governance - when folks say that self-driving cars mean that we should reduce public transit or rail investment now, because those problems will be solved, right around the corner, as soon as the cars work.

If/when self-driving cars happen, sure, that’ll be great! People who are skeptical about the technology aren’t going to stop Tesla or Waymo from forging ahead. But car-centric planning does, currently, reduce public transit investment, and self-driving car hype does reduce the political will to build rail.