Autonomous Autos

Composed in response to:

http://worldif.economist.com/article/11/what-if-autonomous-vehicles-rule-the-world-from-horseless-to-driverless

I don't leave the article feeling convinced. As the 'luxury' of self driving cars begins to trickle down, freeing those already with the means to pay from their car insurance payments, a whole lot of low skill, fairly high wage jobs (trucking) will be rolled under the carpet of progress.

What a miracle of economics! 

Cabbing has already begun the descent into joblessness. Uber's civil disobedience has allowed them immense market share at the expense of the established driver-company-municipality triumvirate, and the whole while they trumpet the immense money saving potential of removing their own drivers in addition to the existing cab companies and drivers.

I see the immense fleets of self driving cars replacing most private cars, but I do not see that as liberating, as insurance providers will latch on to those without the means to pay reliably for the subscription-service that will surely arise. Those saddled with exorbitant premiums will be least likely to be able to afford them. 

Perhaps a more admirable solution would be to take a step back to reexamine the 50's era urban planning practices that are linking American cities inextricably from the mantra of more cars all the time. A new city should arise, that has residents healthy and wise enough to want to spend their time to work enjoying the fresh air on the bike, or perhaps riding an electric train. Bikes and trains introduce far less entropy into the system than cars do, with their immense concrete infrastructures. 

The development in the city may have many new apartments, but take a step out into the country and you will see the cul-de-sac trees blooming off into eternity. 

Why does the American dream need to involve consuming America? 

Meandering Mind

Returned to summer home, only two weeks left.

A natural place deeply touched by us.

The moonscape centers the park, yet heat prevents our missions to it.

The craters will slowly fill in a rain, and trickle down into the next pool and then the next pool and then the next pool and then the falls to the creek.

We see the seldom seen, and I remember seeing before and the containment of weeks within this place.

Back and forth from end to end.

What to do is the question of eternity.

What will I make? What will I manage to change? How best to do it?

I think of the future, of the past, of the now. Where do the paths lead?

I don't know yet, maybe I will not know. I hope for inspiration to strike as lightning would.

I enjoy creating, thinking, questioning why?, looking at how we interact with our world, being outdoors.

Are we doomed to fall? Have we blinded ourselves from seeing our true world by technologies siren call? Can industrialization coexist with the world environment?
The only way to make something is to break something else, that's the law.

Change is slow as can be, but the world turns rapidly. The sun may be 93 million miles away, but it keeps on beaming down.

Are our brakes shot? Only time will tell, time and the collective will of 7,8,9 billion people to stop using and buying and start changing.

No one wants to be without their carefully cultivated creature comforts and their bright, self affirming screens.

I remain worried that we are playing god without omniscience, that we are taking more than we can give, that we are digging our hole deeper with the only assurance being the god given right to the earth. What happens when god turns off the oil?