18 votes

A slashed tire, a pointed gun, bullies on the road: Why do Waymo self-driving vans get so much hate?

19 comments

  1. [5]
    Gaywallet
    Link
    At first I was going to brush this off as people getting mad at how these self driving cars actually drive, because it can at times be annoying. However, after reading the article, it's pretty...

    At first I was going to brush this off as people getting mad at how these self driving cars actually drive, because it can at times be annoying. However, after reading the article, it's pretty clear that this is people lashing out at the idea that they might be replaced by robots, or lashing out at a large corporation for being successful when they are not.

    I'm glad that Waymo has some good policies around how to handle this. Many of these altercations could have escalated needlessly.

    9 votes
    1. [5]
      Comment deleted by author
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      1. [2]
        Gaywallet
        Link Parent
        Don't get me wrong, I'm in 100% agreement. People are too stupid and too greedy for capitalism to work, just like we're too stupid and too greedy for communism to work. To be fair, they may be so...

        Don't get me wrong, I'm in 100% agreement. People are too stupid and too greedy for capitalism to work, just like we're too stupid and too greedy for communism to work.

        all we get from folks is a shrug and an "Oh well,"

        To be fair, they may be so jaded by reality that they're just unable to get angry anymore. Or perhaps it just seems like they're okay with it, but on the inside they're fuming. It's hard to tell for sure.

        4 votes
        1. unknown user
          Link Parent
          They are not directly affected yet, that is what it is. That is the stupidity of us, we wait until us ourselves are at direct and immediate danger, whether socially or politically or literally....

          They are not directly affected yet, that is what it is. That is the stupidity of us, we wait until us ourselves are at direct and immediate danger, whether socially or politically or literally. That is what will bring our doom, this numbness.

          Personally, I am all for progress, but that should not mean we will have new minority of technocratic overlords.

          1 vote
      2. [3]
        Comment deleted by author
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        1. [3]
          Comment deleted by author
          Link Parent
          1. [3]
            Comment deleted by author
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            1. [2]
              DonQuixote
              Link Parent
              All very well said. Might I ask, what country are you in? I would assume that ducks is from the U.S. as am I. Here, at least, his comments reflect the frustration many of us have from our...

              All very well said. Might I ask, what country are you in? I would assume that ducks is from the U.S. as am I. Here, at least, his comments reflect the frustration many of us have from our administration, and it calls into question our entire system. I'd love feedback on how your country evolved to a state where the average standard of living sounds much higher than here.

              1 vote
              1. [2]
                Comment deleted by author
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                1. DonQuixote
                  Link Parent
                  Certainly one can Google the history or economy. But sometimes coming from one who has direct experience, the novella can be more telling than wikipedia. :D

                  Certainly one can Google the history or economy. But sometimes coming from one who has direct experience, the novella can be more telling than wikipedia. :D

                  1 vote
  2. [5]
    StellarV
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    I bet there's a lot of news stories circulating around conspiracy circles about self driving cars. There's so many unknowns due to it being a new and revolutionary technology that it makes people...

    I bet there's a lot of news stories circulating around conspiracy circles about self driving cars. There's so many unknowns due to it being a new and revolutionary technology that it makes people nervous.

    4 votes
    1. [4]
      Hypersapien
      Link Parent
      You don't even need conspiracy theories to be angry at them. Autonomous vehicles will put people out of jobs. And that's coming from someone who likes the idea of self-driving vehicles.

      You don't even need conspiracy theories to be angry at them. Autonomous vehicles will put people out of jobs. And that's coming from someone who likes the idea of self-driving vehicles.

      7 votes
      1. [3]
        Greg
        Link Parent
        I feel like real, mainstream, fully automated vehicles are going to be the point that really forces society to confront the automation issue. So far, most advances have reshaped the labour market,...

        I feel like real, mainstream, fully automated vehicles are going to be the point that really forces society to confront the automation issue. So far, most advances have reshaped the labour market, pushing people from one industry to another as growth changes direction. I'm pretty convinced that we're within a decade or so of that market starting to really, substantially shrink as technology surpasses human capability in more and more complex tasks.

        On a micro level, anger and fear about losing jobs makes sense (although throwing rocks at some poor test driver isn't exactly a great way to express that). On a macro level, though, the idea that you'd keep forcing humans to do menial tasks that a computer is better suited for just seems insane to me - it's wasting their potential and providing a worse customer experience. Just give them the damn money and let them spend their time painting, or learning, or dancing, or writing, or whatever else they want to do.

        I sympathise with the people that are scared. Honestly, they probably will be pretty seriously screwed in the short to medium term, because my utopian ideas are very likely wishful thinking. But it still doesn't sit right that the majority of the conversation seems to focus on having a job, rather than having a living.

        5 votes
        1. [2]
          MimicSquid
          Link Parent
          I recently let go of all of my lower-tier bookkeeping staff because they could be replaced with a small shell script (a lot of basic bookkeeping is: "If text string=foo, output vendor=bar and...

          I recently let go of all of my lower-tier bookkeeping staff because they could be replaced with a small shell script (a lot of basic bookkeeping is: "If text string=foo, output vendor=bar and expense=the economy is fucked") that did the job roughly 60x faster. (This is not an exaggeration.) I wanted to keep them on, but it would have been purely paying them to do drudgery poorly.

          1 vote
          1. unknown user
            Link Parent
            This is harsh but is true. I've had lecturers that could've been substituted with wget. Lots of bureaucracy can be replaced by a few scripts. Or even an RNG in some places and no-one would...

            This is harsh but is true. I've had lecturers that could've been substituted with wget. Lots of bureaucracy can be replaced by a few scripts. Or even an RNG in some places and no-one would notice... We should open our eyes to this situation and think on what to do, what's next. Without moralising, because it blurs our vision.

            2 votes
  3. [4]
    sublime_aenima
    Link
    How did this guy even have a gun in the first place?

    “(The suspect) stated that he was the person holding up the gun as the Waymo vehicle passed by and that his intentions were to scare the driver,” said a report from Detective Cameron Jacobs, after police arrested 69-year-old Roy Leonard Haselton on Aug. 8.

    “Haselton said that his wife usually keeps the gun locked up in fear that he might shoot somebody,” Jacobs wrote in the report. “Haselton stated that he despises and hates those cars (Waymo) and said how Uber had killed someone.”

    Haselton's wife told officers he was diagnosed with dementia, according to a police report.

    How did this guy even have a gun in the first place?

    3 votes
    1. StellarV
      Link Parent
      Might've had one for decades before when he was in good health.

      Might've had one for decades before when he was in good health.

      1 vote
    2. Gaywallet
      Link Parent
      He lives in Arizona. They don't take guns away from people in Arizona.

      How did this guy even have a gun in the first place?

      He lives in Arizona. They don't take guns away from people in Arizona.

    3. DonQuixote
      Link Parent
      Just another example of our wonderful administration and how well it works. /s

      Just another example of our wonderful administration and how well it works. /s

  4. Abrown
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    I mod Futurology at reddit and we have a few users who do nothing but post anti-self driving car content. When you look at their post histories, you can see that they mod SDC hate-subs, constantly...

    I mod Futurology at reddit and we have a few users who do nothing but post anti-self driving car content. When you look at their post histories, you can see that they mod SDC hate-subs, constantly spread FUD, or post frequently to /r/UberDrivers. The fear is 100% real.

    3 votes
  5. [4]
    DonQuixote
    Link
    Like others posting here, I see this as the beginning of troubles for the U.S. As we've seen internationally, a fundamental process of democracy, representation of the governed, is breaking down...

    Like others posting here, I see this as the beginning of troubles for the U.S. As we've seen internationally, a fundamental process of democracy, representation of the governed, is breaking down as people across the world are eschewing the traditional voting process in favor of violent action. It may already be too late to correct this shift away from civil democracy.

    I really think that once the internet was let out of Pandora's Box, this situation became inevitable. Since there's no going back, our administration must begin to act in a different manner before the new generation of voters becomes completely disillusioned as the older one seemingly has. I welcome conversation in this forum from those who view their democratic process as relatively successful.

    2 votes
    1. [3]
      unknown user
      Link Parent
      Democratic process is doomed TBH. If you think there is democracy in the US, well, there isn't even the illusion of it. I am sorry of that is a bit offensive, but hundreds of millions of people...

      Democratic process is doomed TBH. If you think there is democracy in the US, well, there isn't even the illusion of it. I am sorry of that is a bit offensive, but hundreds of millions of people can not do democracy. Apart from maybe the most basic stuff, every decision will be the result of a statistical error. Polarization and misinformation is inevitable.

      I think we'll see cities become more numerous and more bigger and more independent. That I think is the only sustainable option.

      1 vote
      1. [2]
        DonQuixote
        Link Parent
        We may go backward for quite awhile before going forward again. Too far and we may never come back. But I think that technology offers tremendous opportunities for scaling up democracy. Again, we...

        We may go backward for quite awhile before going forward again. Too far and we may never come back. But I think that technology offers tremendous opportunities for scaling up democracy. Again, we may not make it that far.

        The idea of a city-state might be more appealing than totalitarianism, but I still think it's a step backward. Who knows? Drastic attrition of the human species seems inevitable in any case.

        1. unknown user
          Link Parent
          I don't think it is a step backwards, really. We all have specific needs. When I made a list of best countries to live your life (social welfare, freedom, happy life), and took an average of the...

          I don't think it is a step backwards, really. We all have specific needs. When I made a list of best countries to live your life (social welfare, freedom, happy life), and took an average of the populations, it amounts to something like 10 million people. That's the population of a large city. That's big enough to be rather independent, but small enough that you can make you voice heard and make it count with not too much hassle. You can talk about things specific to your city. The vastness of many countries, both in size and in population, silences all the subtlety, all the variation. And these numbers lead democracies to a halt and they become like football fandom, like hooligan fights. My utopia is a world where we have leagues of many city-states where the leagues help undertake big projects and ensure peace, and the cities just govern themselves as they needed. Much of the troubles we have today is rooted in the diverging interests of the villagers and the city-dwellers anyways. They are all right on their own, generally, but they can't make their interests count because the all-encompassing entities that are our current large democracies can't cater to all of them at the same time. Many things like the current immigration crisis and unfair distribution of wealth is caused by diverging interests at the state level. If everybody gets their room to play in, and the more violent/toxic cultures die off thanks to globalisation, we can achieve true human nation via the harmony of local governments.

          The "nation" is the biggest evil man ever produced. It's like colonialism, they both have done some good, inarguably, but the sheer amount of harm they brought far outweighs that. We should keep the good that's been done, but get rid off the illness that's large scale tribalism.

          1 vote