If you’ve delivered a bunch and thats been seen then its much easier to advocate for higher pay and call them out when you don’t get it.

explain yourself

There were actually lots of people doing exactly this. Perhaps "largely" is the key word here but there were plenty of people dying of covid and refusing ventilators because they believed it was a conspiracy theory.

You said

> "Congress" usually refers to the House of Representatives.

Which is incorrect and what I was responding to. Reading comprehension doesn't seem to be your strong suit either eh?

Wasn't it JFK who said "We choose to Not do these things bc they're kinda hard actually"? /s

FTFY

They tackled him. Beat him. And executed him in the street.

Fuck you for victim blaming. You’re wrong an uninformed at best. Complicit at worst

I’ve seen this trend a number of times on HN that feels strawman-y. Taking the worst possible example of the status quo but also yada-yadaing or outright ignoring the massive risks of the tech du jour.

The comment I’m replying to hand waves over “legal issues” and totally ignores the fact that this hypothetical (and idealized) version of AI fundamentally destroys core aspects of community problem solving and centralizes the existing knowledge into a black box subscription all for the benefit of a clunky UX and underlying product that has yet to be proven effective enough to justify all the negative externalities.

Be more creative than AI.

No longer interacting with your peers but an LLM instead? The knowledge centralized via telemetry and spying on every user’s every interaction and only available thru a enshitified subscription to a model that’s been trained on this stolen data?

Should we port npm “back” to node js?

Also no one has said that no one is allowed to drive ever again anywhere. I'm trying to be generous but the victim complex is crazy.

There’s plenty of examples of guerrilla urbanism that I think align closely to the hacker ethos. Even more these problems are very solvable and can net huge gains in metrics without having to “dream for a century”.

> waaaaay more rail routes

It’s actually much simpler, Amtrak just needs right of way along with some other straight forward regulations to help balance freight and transit on America’s railroads.

Amtrak has also been doing great at incremental expansion and brining back (or increasing!) ridership just in the 5 years since the pandemic in a number of areas like Chicago to Milwaukee, and in the PNW.

The defeatist attitude isn’t what I expect from HN. You already found the best piece of actionable advice which is to look for incremental ways you can adjust your life to be different. My wife and I hardly drive anymore. Most of our trips: her work, groceries, restaurants, most leisure activities, etc are now by bike. We live in the suburbs too, a full 10 miles (20-30min drive and across an interstate) from the city’s downtown.

Cars are only perceived as necessary in America bc it is assumed that they are. There are many small and safe ways to shed the car dependence and they’ve all been huge positives to my life. We’re happier, healthier, building more community, spending less money on gas and maintenance. It’s nice.

There’s plenty of evidence that traffic is almost exclusively induced demand and that as you build other facilities and expand existing ones that more people use them. “Just one more lane bro”, etc.

America tends to be car-centric because that’s the only perceived option.

I tend to expect better from HN commenters. I don't have an interest in having a discussion with such a callous and dismissive comment. I hope your day gets better.

Tire pollution is worse than tailpipe emissions and the full effects aren't known. You're dismissive of other people's and the environment's health and you're wrong.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/03/car-tyre...

Yes it can!! Why can't a train take you to the beach?

https://www.amtrak.com/top-beach-destinations-by-train

> It can't take me camping away from civilization.

How many vehicle miles do you travel every year? How many of those are to go camping?

> It can't haul lumber from a hardware store so I can build a treehouse.

Have you tried? Like really tried? https://philsturgeon.com/carry-shit-olympics/

> but let's not pretend there is a perfect Venn diagram of overlap between what their use cases are.

I never said anything of the sort and I'm not pretending that at all. You're creating a strawman. The comment I was responding to said this:

> I'd love to get in my car and go to sleep for a couple of hours or read a book whilst it drives me somewhere. Imagine if it could even pull over and charge up without any kind of intervention too. You could get in your car, and get a full nights sleep whilst it drive you somewhere 500 miles away.

That's a train. Most instances of "somewhere" can be accessed by train. Or by a train to do the long miles and then other modes of transit once you're closer.

My overall stance is that there's a lot more overlap between why folks want a super expensive self-driving car and more robust public transit and better support for multi-modal transit. I've not pretended anything like you've claimed.

- Cars are dangerous to people not in cars - Cars require your undivided attention (and even that isn't fool-proof) - Cars are inaccessible: age, eyesight, control operation, etc. - There's a lot of traffic (iow there's a lot of cars)

What people are expressing a desire for is more robust public transit and transportation facilities that protect everyone: peds, drivers, cyclists, etc.

The best way to solve all of these problems, totally ignoring self-driving for a moment, is to reduce the total number of vehicle miles traveled. Reduce the number of car trips. Reduce the length of car trips. If there are less cars, there is less danger from cars. If there are less cars, there is less traffic. The only way to have less cars is to provide alternatives: street cars, bike trails, pedestrian facilities, sub-regional buses and trains, inter-regional trains (or buses).

Literally all of these problems get significantly better when there are less drivers on the road. Trains can provide the inter-regional travel that allows you to work, read, hangout, sleep, etc. without the constant danger of having to watch the road the entire time.

Self-driving cars will certainly be useful, but I think people are really missing the point that the root of the problem is cars specifically. They can (and will!) still be available for people that truly want or need them, but harm reduction is the name of the game. Even changing a portion of your trip from car to something else can make a huge difference! It doesn't have to be door-to-door, it could be that you drive to a park-n-ride. Or you stop driving to the local downtown in the spring, summer, and fall.

Most of the people in this comment section want better public transit. It can be made to work even if the goal is to go skiing or mountain biking once you arrive. Cars need to stop being the default and become the exception. It's cheaper, more efficient, safer, and healthier.