Expressions of Manticoran wealth

cthia wrote:

kzt wrote:The air cars fly themselves.

Unless you disengage the auto pilot. Responsible teenagers wouldn't dare do that.

One suspects it's not trivial to do that if you are not licensed to operate that vehicle.

cthia wrote:

kzt wrote:The air cars fly themselves.

Unless you disengage the auto pilot. Responsible teenagers wouldn't dare do that.

kzt wrote:One suspects it's not trivial to do that if you are not licensed to operate that vehicle.

One would also suspect, that someone in the aircar has to be a licensed driver. I suspect, it's the one behind the wheel.

Here on Earth, companies are beginning to experiment with cars that drive themselves. But that technology does not, should not, can not be expected to replace a licensed driver.

The problem with putting the life of humans totally into the hands of Mr. Sand Man (silicon chip) in that regard is that Murphy flies too. And Murphy has never had nor ever will have a license to do anything but throw monkey wrenches. And I bet dollars to donuts Murphy don't use no stinkin' autopilot.

What happens in situations when disaster strikes -- debris is falling from the sky and terrorists are launching from the ground and the autopilot is damaged? What do you do then, just... die?

I think textev gave us that it isn't easy. Who was whatshisface that disengaged and flew into a mountain?

But it has to remain within the capabilities of someone in the car.

cthia wrote:Here on Earth, companies are beginning to experiment with cars that drive themselves. But that technology does not, should not, can not be expected to replace a licensed driver.

No, Google etc are looking for totally autonomous vehicles. And are making pretty decent progress towards this.

kzt wrote:

cthia wrote:Here on Earth, companies are beginning to experiment with cars that drive themselves. But that technology does not, should not, can not be expected to replace a licensed driver.

No, Google etc are looking for totally autonomous vehicles. And are making pretty decent progress towards this.

And I see the brewing backdrop of the biggest single auto recall in history.


I remember yesteryear when I was a newly hired member of an Engineering firm. We were all sitting around drinking coffee or hot chocolate when I read the specs on a new offering of automobile safety that was slated to save lives. Gas airbags! All the new rave. "They'll really work with a reaction time of a few milliseconds and deploy at an astounding 200 mph!"

"What?!" I nearly jumped out of my seat. "This tech is going to kill people. A lot of people!"

It sparked debate all day at the office.

That same year, people began to die! Many were kids! People are still dying! I came in the office one morning and everyone was waiting by the coffee machine with a newspaper article...

"You called that one perfectly!"

Why, oh why, was I the only one to see that coming?


Sometimes I wonder what the hell inventors were thinking. Or smoking.

You'll survive the impact of the crash outside, but the impact inside will snap your neck!

Totally autonomous cars... totally automatic Déjà vu.

cthia wrote:I remember yesteryear when I was a newly hired member of an Engineering firm. We were all sitting around drinking coffee or hot chocolate when I read the specs on a new offering of automobile safety that was slated to save lives. Gas airbags! All the new rave. "They'll really work with a reaction time of a few milliseconds and deploy at an astounding 200 mph!"

"What?!" I nearly jumped out of my seat. "This tech is going to kill people. A lot of people!"

It turns out that about the same number of little kids get killed every year by their parents accidentally leaving them in their car than were killed by airbags when they rode in the front seats....

I've got vivid memories of Win 98's blue screen "You have performed an illegal act". In the latest tests driverless cars are having problems with other drivers, they can't go a kph over the speed limit but we all do, plus to merge you have to go closer than optimum.
In some ways aircars would be easier to automate. Lots of nothing between you and something.
Ideal cockpit crew, chief pilot, large dog, and copilot. Chief pilot to take over if computer crashes, dog to bite him if he touches the controls otherwise, and copilot to feed the dog.

Back on the original topic one expression of Manty wealth is in the outstanding health system. Everyone gets prolong as a right, there are no preventable diseases and even those who are very old and have abused thier bodies E.g. the Young Patriach are well cared for and maintined.

There are many instances in the books talking about how the Talbot Cluster and Pre alliance Graysons have all sort of medical issues that are unheard of on Manticore.

We don't know if the system is on the EU social model or the US user pays model but given universal prolong there must be some government subsidy of some things.

Silverwall wrote:Back on the original topic one expression of Manty wealth is in the outstanding health system. Everyone gets prolong as a right, there are no preventable diseases and even those who are very old and have abused thier bodies E.g. the Young Patriach are well cared for and maintined.

There are many instances in the books talking about how the Talbot Cluster and Pre alliance Graysons have all sort of medical issues that are unheard of on Manticore.

We don't know if the system is on the EU social model or the US user pays model but given universal prolong there must be some government subsidy of some things.

The prolong process is government financed with taxes on the premises that your taxes will be paying for it for a couple of centuries rather than only one century.

First comment here is that For all the things they can rightly be blamed for, Pierre and St Just do deserve the credit for turning Haven's economy around and teaching the Dolists to value work. That happened prior to St Just encountering the pulser.

Next comment... Given human nature, I doubt that being a dork is an exclusively American phenomenom. In fact dorkery is probably a pretty much universally shared trait just as you can find good people all over.

I do suspect that we are a bit more provencial than Europeans, though. That is the result of having all that salt water between us and most of the world.

Don

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cthia wrote:One would also suspect, that someone in the aircar has to be a licensed driver. I suspect, it's the one behind the wheel.

Here on Earth, companies are beginning to experiment with cars that drive themselves. But that technology does not, should not, can not be expected to replace a licensed driver.

There's a school of thought that says that a mostly self-driving car (one that's expected to rely on human backup in emergencies, but can otherwise handle itself) is probably more dangerous than an entirely human-driven car OR an entirely automated car, because if the car can normally drive itself, you're not going to be paying enough attention to take over fast enough when you need to.