this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026
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This is an idea that should be shelved for a good 20-30 years, honestly.
We'd need global collaboration to come up with a universal standard applied to all cars (regardless of price). If it can't be a standard, then it's a bullshit idea. Competing standards and companies simply means abandoned tech everywhere and everything, thinking their tech is best, nothing works together, issues across the board, and high cost to customers.
We should just build walkable cities. It doesn’t even require any new knowledge, we can start right now and there are even many places in the US, the shittest of us all, where there’s honestly nothing really stopping us.
Self-driving cars are dumb because they are a tonne of work to ultimately solve zero problems when we could do basically nothing special and improve everyone’s lives within our lifetimes.
Cities can be walkable and have self driving cars. We sure can have less cars, but it sure sounds better than letting everyone drive. Also, some people can't walk & need assistance moving.
Sure, but we’re acting like self-driving cars will save us and not like they’re a neat little extra thing. Yes, some people donneed assistance moving, but there are entire para-taxi services that could receive better funding. In Ottawa, for example, the public transit service has a whole program called “ParaTranspo” with soecialized buses and everything. People who have trouble moving, in our society, are very not going to be able to afford self-driving cars and even if they did many will not be able to get themselves into them without assistance anyway. Also, in well-built neighbourhoods, people with disabilities can get around on their own on scooters and such, even in the winter; I see this in my own neighbourhood all the time and they are so mich more free than if they were tied to a car.
Self-driving cars aren’t much more than cheap propaganda that people slurp up so they can keep pretending that cars are a viable form of personal transport outside of edge cases. As someone with a sportscar who mostly just takes public transit and walks I can assure you, cars are largely stupid and we’re kinda dumb for wanting them.
People should just drive the car.
Are you aware of just how bad people are at that?
Waymo robotaxis are already better drivers than humans, by a lot.
Let's see Waymo in not ideal climates. I do not understand this obsession with robot taxis. Waymo is still losing money and would have been a better business if they just hired cab drivers.
Sure in select cities and conditions. Let's see them drive on a snow covered road.
As bad as people are, something like a Tesla is much worse
https://electrek.co/2026/01/29/teslas-own-robotaxi-data-confirms-crash-rate-3x-worse-than-humans-even-with-monitor/
And something like a Waymo costs $250,000+ which is... Hard to swallow
https://sfist.com/2025/04/25/you-might-soon-be-able-to-buy-and-own-your-own-self-driving-waymo-car/
There's a reason I specified Waymo. Tesla isn't self driving, it's lane assist with a fraudulent name.