Self-Driving Trucks Are Going to Hit Us Like a Human-Driven Truck - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/basic-income/self-driving-trucks-are-going-to-hit-us-like-a-human-driven-truck-b8507d9c5961 <comment><USER2> There may be labor resistance to self-driving trucks, but you know who is in favor of[1] self-driving cars? the American Association of Retired Persons. They are the most powerful lobbying organization in the US because in addition to their $232 million[1] lobbying budget, they can deliver the thing that politicians on state and federal levels care most about: votes. People age 65 and older consistently vote at higher rates than the rest of the population [3]. At least, until their inability to drive a car keeps them from the polls...

[1] [http://www.aarp.org/home-family/personal- technology/info-201...](http://www.aarp.org/home-family/personal- technology/info-2014/google-self-driving-car.html)

[2] [http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/3/22/is-the- aarp-...](http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/3/22/is-the-aarp- the-900poundinvisiblegorillaintheroom.html)

[3] [http://money.usnews.com/money/retirement/articles/2012/03/19...](http://money.usnews.com/money/retirement/articles/2012/03/19/why- older-citizens-are-more-likely-to-vote)

<comment><USER3> The elderly have organized pickups to drive them to the polls, absentee ballots, relatives, etc.

The scariest thing I've seen was a Facebook conversation in which no less than a dozen of my classmates, all finance sector employees, were openly mocking an article about the massive disruption self-driving cars will have, as if it were a Jetson's fantasy rather than a one to two year prospect and ten year inevitability. We're in for a massive bumpy disruption. Smart investors stand to make a fortune right now. But a lot of people are going to lose their shirt in the process.

<comment><USER2> Thats true. I've overstated the case that AARP would view driverless cars as a means to greatly increase the size of its voting bloc rather than just prevent social isolation of its members.

I'd be willing to bet that the combination of the possibility for massive economic value from driverless cars combined with a lack of knowledge around that will lead some people to be irrationally exuberant. Hopefully this does not lead to a bubble.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Simpsons were way ahead of their times:

Maximum Homerdrive (S10.E17). First aired March 28, 1999.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_Homerdrive](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_Homerdrive)

"During the [trucking] trip [from Springfield to Atlanta], Homer falls asleep and wakes up abruptly at the wheel of the truck due to taking a combination of pep pills and sleeping pills that he bought at a general store. He awakes to discover that the truck drove by itself with its Navitron Autodrive system. He informs other truck drivers, who inform him that he cannot let anyone know about the Autodrive system because it would make all truck drivers lose their jobs. However, Homer tells a passing bus about the system which causes an angry mob of truckers to get in a showdown with Homer, and he survives without the autodrive system. Homer and Bart arrive in Atlanta to finish the shipment on time, and then commandeer a train full of napalm to Springfield."

<comment><USER3> The blackboard in a particular episode also contains the correct mass of the Higgs boson. There were several maths PhDs on the writing staff, so there's a lot of intelligent humor that flies over the average viewer's head (and often mine for some of the hidden math jokes.)

<comment><USER5> [http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/10/29/the_simpsons_...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/10/29/the_simpsons_and_fermat_s_last_theorem_wizard_of_evergreen_terrace_has_brilliant.html)

"The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace", 1998.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those like me who looked at that map and thought "no way is truck driver the most common job in so many states!", click the NPR link below the map to get to the source for the map. They explain the truck driver thing there. One big factor is that their source doesn't subdivide truck drivers, but does subdivide most other common jobs, such as teachers (split into primary and secondary school teachers).

Also, the map on the NPR site is interactive, showing changes over the years. For instance, you can see a lot of states where you probably would have guessed farmer is most common were that way 10 to 20 years ago, but now fewer farmers are needed to grow the same or more food, and so the number of farmers declined.

<comment><USER7> In other words: the "most common job" statistic is quite arbitrary due to non- uniform binning of job types.

The question is, is this somehow fixable?

I don't see a way because those categorizations themselves seem arbitrary and you could lump anything somewhat related together while dividing down anything else if you want to show it's "the most common".

<comment><USER8> Presumably if you took the top 100, and manually merged then into the top 25? 50? job "categories", you'd have a more stable grouping and more interesting time-series statistics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> All of this is absolutely true. But what we need for the idea of basic income to take off is a positive rationale for it, as opposed to a negative one of the 'if we don't we're fucked' kind. The reason this matters is that the disruption won't be overnight, so you're looking at more of aobiling-frog scenario where the pace of job loss is slow enough that politicians can blame it on other sources for a while, like whoever is in the White House at the time, furriners taking our jawbs, workers being too lazy to retrain...basically the same bullshit we've heard over most of the last decade as an excuse not to engage with the deeper structural problems in our economy. Politicians excel at this; look at how Japan has been in an economic stall for 20 or so years, with politicians tinkering round the edges and shying away from fundamental change, because opportunist opponents can leverage change to mobilize political power by making empty promises.

The problem is that a basic income to (say) the 150m people in the civilian labor force x the ~$23k poverty line income would be about $3.4 trillion, which is not far off the entire federal government budget. That's (very roughly) $10,000 worth of redistribution for everyone in the country, which is going to be an _incredibly_ tough sell politically, for reasons that I hope are obvious.

People in general are terrible at doing sensible things to stave off a distant-seeming catastrophe, _viz_ the relatively poor progress on lowering/mitigating/managing the effects of climate change (whether or not you believe it's humanity's fault) or any number of other topics.

I do agree with the writer's conclusion and reasoning, I'm just pessimistic about our ability to manage the accelerating pace of disruption.

<comment><USER10> Isn't basic income a bit weird? I am a total noob, but to get money, truck drivers do something. Getting money for not doing anything is like increasing the lower limit on minimum money you can have.

The way to do it is probably paying only to the unemployed. Sounds socialism, because it is. But hating socialism just because USSR did it the wrong way is, in my opinion, stupid.

<comment><USER11> _increasing the lower limit on minimum money you can have_

.. yes? That's the point. Along with increasing the lower limit on the amount of food you can have and the amount of housing you can have, up from "starvation" and "cardboard box".

<comment><USER12> What I'm afraid of is that setting a basic income will increase food and housing prices, because "people can now afford it". And then we're back to square one...

<comment><USER13> What you describe is inflation. But that would require more money in circulation, wouldn't it? Basic income would just be redistribution.

Obviously, economy is vastly more complicated, and there are correlation effects between everything, so I don't know...

<comment><USER14> Inflation does not have to be even across all categories of goods. It is entirely feasible that the cost of food and housing would rise, while the cost of luxury yachts would fall.

Wealth redistribution also does have the effect of increasing the money supply, without minting more money. The poor tend to spend 100% of what they take in, while the wealthy put a large portion of their money in the bank, where its not circulating in the economy.

<comment><USER15> I think your second paragraph has the effect backwards. If you spend $10, then you have $10 less, and someone else has $10 more, no change in money supply. If you put $10 in the bank, the bank loans out $9 of it, so you "have" $10, someone else has $9, and the money supply has grown.

<comment><USER16> The grandparent comment (i.e. by URspider94) is correct. What you write about banks is a common, but incorrect misconception about what banks do.

The truth of the matter is: _Banks do not need deposits to make loans._

Quite the contrary: Banks make loaning decisions independent of the level of their deposits - and it is the loan that causes the deposit, rather than the other way around, because the money loaned by the bank eventually lands in somebody's deposit.

Think about it this way: A bank cannot force anybody to take out a loan. Instead, there is a demand for loans which banks satisfy (subject to checks of creditworthiness and available collateral). Whether person A spends $10 or puts it in a deposit does not change person B's demand for credit,[1] and therefore the amount lent by banks does not change either.

[1] Of course, this is not entirely true. There can be causal links, but their direction is totally uncertain. For example, person A deciding _not_ to spend money could mean that person B's business begins to struggle and person B needs to take out a loan that they otherwise would not have had to take. In that case, saving does increase the level of loans, but in a way that most people would judge to be detrimental to the economy.

Conversely, person A deciding to _spend_ the money could lead to person B's business projecting growth, which encourages person B to invest by taking out a loan. In this case, the loan level increases as well, and in a way that most people would judge to be beneficial.

The economy is complicated.

<comment><USER15> Where do banks get the money that they loan out if not from deposits?

Reserve requirements dictate what percentage of deposits banks have to keep on hand rather than loan out, and its inverse, the money multiplier, determines how much the money supply is expanded by repeated application of the deposit->loan process. This seems to be the standard treatment: I checked Abel-Bernanke's and Mankiw's Macroeconomics textbooks and they both tell basically the same story.

The supply and demand for loanable funds are balanced through a price mechanism: the interest rate. If banks have lots of deposits and can't loan them all out, then they'll lower the interest rate that they charge until they can. If there's more demand for loans than can be covered by deposits, then banks will increase the interest rate that they charge until the two are balanced.

<comment><USER16> The banks emphatically do not get the money they loan out from deposits, because even though your bank makes loans, the money in your deposit is still there and available whenever you want.

Compare this to a private investment arrangement where after you invest (aka lend) your money, your money is gone (in exchange for the promise to get more back later, and/or certain other rights such as ownership in a company).

When banks lend out money, what they do is either give you an account with a positive balance (in this case, the money doesn't have to come from anywhere, because all the bank is doing is changing some rows in their databases) or they make a payment to another bank on your behalf. In the latter case, the money that you actually see as a bank customer again doesn't have to come from anywhere, because it gets created by the involved banks changing some rows in their databases. There is also settlement in reserves occuring behind the scenes, and if a bank's reserve position drops low, what I write elsewhere applies: As long as a bank is solvent, they can always get reserves either from another bank or, in the worst case, from the central bank.

As far as the money multiplier is concerned, there are two ways to look at it. The first is empirical: [https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MULT](https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MULT) How does a _wildly_ varying money multiplier fit in with your story?

Also, there a countries where the reserve requirement is zero. The inverse of zero is not well-defined or infinity, depending on how you look at it. Yet those countries don't have an infinite money supply. How does that fit in with your story?

The second way is from first principles by actually looking at the laws. If you look into reserve requirements, you'll see that banks only have to satisfy them _after the fact_. That is, people in a bank's loan department first make loans, and then people in a _different department_ of the bank go out and ensure that the bank satisfies the reserve requirements. They usually do so by lending and borrowing on the interbank market, but if they cannot borrow there, they can always get the required reserves from the central bank. See e.g. here: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discount_window](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discount_window)

Finally, your last paragraph does show a potential causal pathway from increased savings to a higher demand for credit, via the interest rate. The import question is the relative strength of that pathway compared to others, such as the ones that I have described in my previous comment.

Obviously even economists end up disagreeing on that matter, given their political biases (though beware false prophets paid by wealthy people to spread lies and half-truths). Three final points on that particular matter:

(1) How sensitive to interest rates do you really think loan demand is? If a business sees growth in revenue, they are likely to invest and expand (which often involves taking loans) even in a high interest rate environment. On the other hand, if a business sees decreasing interest rates but also a fall in revenue, will they still take on loans in order to invest in a growth of their business? The answer can be yes occasionally, but it is more likely to be no. This is supported by surveys of business leaders.

This point is important, because in the face of high savings, businesses may see lower interest rates as a second-order effect, but they will also _definitely_ see lower revenue as a first-order effect. When a large-scale shift of customer behavior towards savings happens, then businesses will see the fall in revenue _first_ , long before banks lower their interest rates on loans.

(2) Empirically, some people have predicted for a long time, since the beginning of the financial crisis, that low interest rates would bring growth back via investment. And yet interest rates have been at the zero lower bound for some time with at best mixed results. (Again, the quantitative parts matter: Yes, low interest rates encourage demand for credit, but how strong is that effect compared to others that may go in the opposite direction?)

(3) The range in which interest rates actually vary by that mechanism is limited, because the central bank fixes the short term interest rate based on political considerations. (That's what e.g. the FOMC meetings in the US are all about. It's totally in your face, actually, but still many people refuse to really grok it ;-)) Obviously, the long term interest rate for loans taken by banks (which is some markup above that politically set rate) can vary, but the real story is control by the central bank.

[My comments are getting too long, so I stop here, even though there are more details to be talked about.]

<comment><USER15> > even though your bank makes loans, the money in your deposit is still there > and available whenever you want

This is definitely not true. If everyone asks for their money at once, the money won't be there because most of it has been loaned out. That's a bank run.

> How does a wildly varying money multiplier fit in with your story?

Over three decades, it looks pretty stable to me. The multiplier also varies based on the amount people want to hold in cash (I'm getting this from Krugman's book), because that's how money leaks out of the deposit->loan cycle. That could easily vary a non-trivial amount over 30 years. The most recent period where the multiplier is less than one I will grant is weird. The Fed has started paying interest on reserves, and banks are more wary post- recession, so they've started accumulating a huge amount of excess reserves: [https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/EXCSRESNS](https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/EXCSRESNS).

> there a countries where the reserve requirement is zero

Obviously, the ratio that matters is not the legal minimum reserve requirement, but the actual effective reserve ratio. A bank has to keep a certain amount of reserves to keep their business running. The legal requirement is just to make sure that the amount they keep on hand is prudent. There's also the aforementioned leakage of money out of the deposit->loan cycle via currency held by the public, which can reduce the money multiplier further.

The rest of your post gives some good reasons that the real world doesn't work quite like the mainstream theory. It sounds like you're explaining an endogenous money theory; do you have any suggested references for further reading?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _And with that, the elimination of entire industries built up around the existence of car ownership like: mechanics, car washes, parking, valets, body shops, rental companies, car insurance, car loans, and on and on._

I'm not so sure that's true. If a truck/car breaks down on the road, it doesn't matter if there's a human behind the wheel or a software program. It still needs to get fixed. There will still need to be financing of these vehicles, ostensibly because they might be more expensive because of the software/hardware allowing it to be autonomous in the first place. We haven't really worked through how insuring these things will work, but just because they're autonomous does not mean that all of a sudden the entire automotive insurance industry evaporates.

On the whole, however, I agree with the initial point about how the peripheral economies built around servicing human truck drivers on their routes will take a hit. I'm thinking of all the towns on the way to Watertown from Minneapolis that would probably evaporate if they didn't have the trucks running the daily on the 212.

<comment><USER18> > On the whole, however, I agree with the initial point about how the > peripheral economies built around servicing human truck drivers on their > routes will take a hit. I'm thinking of all the towns on the way to > Watertown from Minneapolis that would probably evaporate if they didn't have > the trucks running the daily on the 212.

Are they going to stop the trucks? Are self driving trucks going to be able to carry more load? Are we going to change highway rules to allow more than 80k pounds total weight for a single tractor/trailer? Are the trucks going to be electric or have vastly improved MPG?

No. So there will still be the same amount of truck traffic as well as the same amount of fuel being sold in nearly the same locations. Perhaps restaurants will take a hit, but fuel and servicing will still be utilized for quite some time.

<comment><USER13> > fuel and servicing will still be utilized

I'd imagine it would be profitable to install larger gas tanks in autonomous trucks. A human driver would need to stop for breaks anyway, so a huge tank doesn't make sense.

With autonomous trucks, there's no reason to stop until you run out of gas. Trucking companies could pretty easily save some money if they have their own private gas stations on the endpoints. Especially since they can make them autonomous as well.

<comment><USER18> > I'd imagine it would be profitable to install larger gas tanks in autonomous > trucks.

To a point. There are still limits on the total weight of the tractor and trailer (and fuel). So, the more you scale fuel, the less load you can carry. There is a tradeoff, and it's _not_ much more beneficial than where we are today.

Considering most trucks take a 300 gallon load out already. That's already 2,600 lbs of fuel or 3% of your total weight limit.

If we choose a low value for the average MPG, let's say 5, then those 300 gallons of fuel will get you 1,500 miles. If we choose a high value of 70 miles per hour average speed, then it will take you 21 hours to deplete your fuel.

So, when I examine this, I don't see a case for much larger fuel tanks than we have today. The economics and realities of trucking are already very well thought out; more so than most people seem to believe.

I've said it before, but short other technological advances and human needs, I think we're at least 20 years away from fully automated trucking.

<comment><USER13> Interesting. How much weight could be saved by not having a driver? You wouldn't need a windshield, chairs, sleeping compartment etc.

<comment><USER18> It's hard to say exactly, but the tractor usually weighs around 25000 lbs. You can probably save around 2000 to 3000 lbs of that.

If you do remove the operator completely you're going to end up creating other jobs anyways, as now you're going to need people to respond to flat tires and other load issues, you're going to need marshalling yard with load masters, you're going to need more humpers at each location.

This also ignores the case where loads are directly delivered to a customer. I work in radio broadcasting and the 53' box freight truck will drive straight to our transmitter site, even the ones up on mountains. There's _no_ driverless trailer that's going to do that and help unload the item. Also, since the transmitter is one of four destined for other customers, there would be no one to supervise us around other loads that we don't own and aren't covered for.

So, you'd need to create secondary hubs that can handle these types of deliveries with smaller trucks, hence, more jobs.

This is what I meant earlier, the logistics are really well nailed down. Owner operators of trailers make a lot of money because they solve a lot of problems all at once, are independent, and usually make a fuel surcharge so the price of gas impacts them far less.

If you remove them, you're going to need a whole bunch of other infrastructure to replace what they do. The system is labor efficient already as computers have already impacted all the secondary parts such as freight bookers many years ago.

Someone elsewhere mentioned companies making their own fuel dumps, which is _highly_ optimistic due to the way the current industry is arranged and the overhead and regulations involved in managing fuel tanks. Right now a dispatcher has software that can track their trucks with GPS, get fuel prices at all US locations from corporate fuel vendors, estimate current fuel volume on the truck and determine the optimal place for the driver to refuel along with the optimal amount for the driver to purchase. The message to the driver is usually communicated automatically through a message system installed in the cab, the driver can use the same system to communicate their actual mileage and fuel volume which gets factored back into everything. With newer trucks, the driver doesn't even need to input this information.

Sorry for the ramble, but this industry is pretty complex already. I'm not sure having fully automated trucks is a near-term reality, nor am I sure that the companies involved are actually aiming for that. There will be a slow shift of _certain_ types of loads into full automation with the last mile being driven the way it currently is with a very gradual shift to full automation as technology advances to meet these secondary demands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> 1\. The heck? Software Dev is the most common job in WA, VA, UT and CO but not California?

2\. I'm coming round to the idea of a non-means-tested basic income. This would mean there are no marginal effects. For instance, in many countries, if you get paid unemployment you lose it when you find employment. This means you might need a very high income to make it worthwhile, because you'll be losing the benefits as well as your free time. If it was simply a non-dependent income/tax break (if you have an income) you wouldn't get this high effective tax rate. You could work or not work, totally up to you. You can take a side job, try new industries, etc.

There would also be less of a circus about controlling that you're sending job applications (adds up to a LOT of apps for jobs people may not actually want), courses about how to write a CV, and staff to send out the money.

3) Other benefits of self-drive:

a) You don't need to drive as fast. These things won't need to sleep, so that's a good few hours a day extra. You can drive slower, saving fuel, and still arrive on a current logistical schedule. Driving slower also means you can have a bunch of trucks really close to each other to save on aerodynamics. You could write software to plan truck trains for this purpose.

b) They're all going to be electrical. I know, they aren't currently. But electric is just taking off now, while ICE has had plenty of development. A lot of complication in modern cars is the ICE. You need to lug a transmission with you. You need to mix the fuel with air. With electric, you have regenerative breaking, engines are smaller, and batteries will only get better. You'll use less energy, which will push the economics towards slow moving land-trains.

<comment><USER20> California is BIG.

California also has this one industry, it's kind of retro, you might not have heard of it. It's mostly based in Los Angeles and they make these things called "movies" and "television".

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Technological change obsoleting jobs is not new and has been going on for hundreds of years: bookbinders, scribes, lamplighters, milkmen, town crier, etc.

As each profession sunsets, these individuals find new ways to contribute to society. Change isn't easy, but these are "people" not "truck drivers" and will adapt.

Basic income is a separate discussion from technological change, unless there is a clear argument why technological progress _now_ is fundamentally different than it always has been.

<comment><USER22> I'm pretty fed up with all the people pushing UBI. There is never not enough work for labor to do, labor is just misallocated. I feel like every third piece I read has some poorly thought out UBI slant thrown in for no reason.

<comment><USER23> I think you're right. I would really like to read the opinions of some respected economists on the issue of automation and basic income. The question we should be asking isn't "how do we make sure these people can still consume", it's "how do we find a way for these people to remain valuable to society". Or something along those lines.

<comment><USER24> I always understood that to be the main power of the idea of UBI. Economically liberated individuals will be able to choose how to be valuable to society instead of 'choosing' to work their asses off in a dull repetitive job that they need to survive. There are so many things that need to be done in the world that aren't because they are not profitable. Maybe we can get stuck into them for a start once we aren't worried about feeding the family and keeping the lights on anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm still very skeptical on self driving vehicules to react correctly in non traditional events happening on the road...

Like, fraying your way in a traffic jam to reach the correct lane, which sometimes involve slow but untraditionnal paths.

Or Waiting half an hour for an accident to be cleaned, then looking at the police officer signs telling you to move on the lane coming in the other direction, because they've secured it for a while, etc.

I'm pretty sure we'll have a lot of autonomous vehicles stuck on the roads in a " wait for a human driver to unlock me" mode at the beginning.

<comment><USER26> I'm sure the electronic equivalent of traffic cones will appear pretty quickly - the cost won't be much more and the existing ones will be easy to retrofit.

I'm sure there will be a lot of interesting consequences and side-effects of this. I'd be very interested to see the result on the natural environment in 100 years time - with great concentration of people in cities there might be need to restore former wetlands and riverine habitats to ensure sufficient retention of water throughout the year. The shutting down of a myriad of small towns would take a lot of people out of the environment leaving more space for plants and wildlife. The possibilities are endless.

<comment><USER27> So you can just put a couple of cones across a highway and stop all traffic for a few hours? Cool! I'll bet you can even camouflage the transmitter so that no one can figure out why all traffic has stopped until they come out with a really sensitive detector and realize that there's something stuck 30 feet up in the tree branches instructing all vehicles to go into emergency stop mode.

<comment><USER28> You can stop opperations at London Heathrow within 15min with one or two phone calls. Yes, it is that easy. People regularly don't do it because (1) what is good for and (2) what ever it is good for, is it worth paying the damage caused for the rest of your life?

\--- In Germany, a live TV-show with 10.000 spectators in the studio (hosted by Heidi Klum) was canceled on Tuesday because of a fake bomb-threat-call. Stuff like that remains the exception.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> "One further important detail to consider is that truck drivers are well-paid. They provide a middle class income of about $40,000 per year. That's a higher income than just about half (46%) of all tax filers, including those of married households."

Or, in other words, they make slightly less than the average tax filer.

<comment><USER30> average != median. They make slightly less than the median tax filer.

<comment><USER31> Median is an average. There are typically three averages in common use; mode, median and (arithmetic) mean. That people generally use "average" as short for "(arithmetic) mean average" is a colloquial shorthand.

<comment><USER32> Mode and median are not averages, just mean is.

Mode: "Like the statistical mean and median, the mode is a way of expressing, in a single number, important information about a random variable or a population. The numerical value of the mode is the same as that of the mean and median in a normal distribution, and it may be very different in highly skewed distributions." [1]

[1] [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_(statistics)](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_\(statistics\))

<comment><USER31> _Mode and median are not averages, just mean is._

No other way to put it; you are simply wrong. I could direct you to reference after reference, citation after citation, but it's clear from your other comments here that you're not willing to accept any reference or citation we make.

<comment><USER32> Why not at least try? I'd like to see something that is from a statistics or math source that does not resort to "colloquial" distortion to justify such use.

And note, I didn't down vote you in spirit of promoting a healthy discussion, you instead have, so who's really unwilling to hear opposing opinions?

<comment><USER31> The best flavour of ice-cream is a matter of opinion.

This is not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> There are many programs which together provide a significant economic baseline. It's not _all_ in the form of direct cash deposits, although much of it is, it's just that the programs are a disparate and tangled mess. That $40k trucker's salary nets out to only about $5k more than the baseline benefits for an unemployed adult citizen. [1] It's barely better than not working, and you have to spend the whole week on the road! Staying home and fixing up the house [2] while taking the subsidies will always be a better bet.

The only difference between what we have today and "Basic Income" is currently we phase the benefits out as you start to work, obviously to disincentivize working. You could think of "Universal Healthcare", for example, a lot like eliminating the phase-out for Medicaid. ACA already eliminated the asset test, now it's just an income test, so maybe that will go next. (mostly depends who's elected in 2016)

[1] [http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/11-15-2012-MarginalTa...](http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/11-15-2012-MarginalTaxRates.pdf)

[2] [http://imgur.com/a/Bnacv](http://imgur.com/a/Bnacv)

<comment><USER34> That's not the only difference.

We have a massive bureaucracy to handle all the various aspects of the distribution of those benefits. Most of which is not necessary in a basic income system.

The cost savings by eliminating that bureaucracy would be substantial.

<comment><USER35> Of course, by "cost savings" you're essentially talking about a whole new lot of jobs lost.

<comment><USER36> It's cool, they'll get a basic income too. ;P

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> New rule: if you want to write about how mechanisation and automation will affect the people, you need to - at absolute minimum - have read the entirety of the Wikipedia article about The Industrial Revolution, and know where the term Luddite comes from.

<comment><USER38> Okay, so what's your actual criticism? You realize the vast majority of textiles are produced by machinery, right? The luddites lost, and sank into irrelevance.

<comment><USER39> If they had had basic income, maybe they would not have become Luddites?

<comment><USER38> Maybe, but I don't know why the original author should be obligate to demostrate knowledge about that in order to talk intelligently about basic income. Remember, I'm responding to:

> _" New rule: if you want to write about how mechanisation and automation > will affect the people, you need to - at absolute minimum - have read the > entirety of the Wikipedia article about The Industrial Revolution, and know > where the term Luddite comes from."_

Luddism is certainly interesting, but it's relatively small in terms of its effects and one can certainly talk about basic income without talking about luddism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Is "Software Developer" really the most common job in several US states? I'm really finding that hard to believe.

<comment><USER41> It is if you do a poll of software developers ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I don't believe truck drivers will become jobless. They'll just become truck operators. Trains are far more easy to automate, but even bullet trains in japan still have "train drivers" to supervise them.

<comment><USER43> Train drivers are a small part of the cost of a train delivery. Truck drivers are a substantial part of the cost.

<comment><USER44> Yup. 3.5 million professional truck drivers at $40k income (+ $3,600 in payroll taxes + ~$12,000 in health insurance premiums + ~$2,000 in 401(k) matches) is _$200b_ in annual costs that potentially go away. A huge portion of the cost of many goods is in transportation, and a large amount of that cost is human capital (as it is in any industry). Auto insurance rates will likely drop, as well.

The supply-side effect of this is that goods will get a lot cheaper, and because robots can drive 24 hours/day, shipping gets faster and easier. Anything that isn't locally produced will become cheaper and more available than it is now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Self driving trucks are going to be a real bomb in the economy, make no mistake. I personally suspect we'll really see some labor unrest as it hits. Millions of people will lose their jobs, and they aren't going to be prepared to find an _entirely_ new career. I'm very much a bull on technology, but this is something we (technologists) need to start talking to policy makers about. Incredible disruption is coming down the pipe, and good policy needs to be designed to cope with it.

Manufacturing automated the jobs away, by the by - it didn't really send them overseas. That's a popular error, but wrong. The US was #1 in manufacturing until last year.

</comment><comment><USER46> Is it just me, or does anyone else think that if 'truck driver' was the most prevalent job in DC (instead of 'lawyer'), we would all be better off?

</comment><comment><USER47> I wonder how a ubiquitous self-driving car "cloud" will affect motorcycles. I don't think I speak only for myself when I say that I don't just ride my motorcycle to get from point a to point b; rather I choose to ride it for the thrill of riding a motorcycle. I don't imagine you can completely remove the human element from transportation without killing the thing that makes motorcycles most enjoyable.

<comment><USER48> I don't think autonomous driving will kill recreational driving. Enthusiasts will still buy motorcycles and drive the open road. I'm not a rider, but have many friends who do and I understand the appeal. Those types are not going to give up that lifestyle. The industry around recreational driving may shrink a little, but will still be there to provide vehicles for those who want them.

<comment><USER49> They will continue to drive recreationally until manually driven vehicles are banned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> The Basic Income ship has already sailed, and it's not coming back any time soon. The main reason for this is the fact that automation is here to stay. Every day new systems are being automated, first replacing low-skilled, low- wage jobs. People in these job don't really have much power, knowledge, will nor money to push the BIG agenda. Often times, they are not even aware that such thing is being proposed. People in better paying jobs are also being slowly replaced, but they rarely see this as threat to their jobs, but more like productivity improvement.

When some tradesmen, or engineer loses a job because of automation, they first try to work on their skills to stay relevant in the field. They usually won't blame automation for being unemployed, but instead they blame their age, lack of specific new skills, outsourcing or the economy. Without a well paying job, they quickly drop from the affluent middle class to a poor low class. In the mean time, their peers don't see what the real reason for this is, and they happily continue working, hoping that it's not going to happen in their case. They have no incentives to support BIG as they already believe that a lot of taxes go to support the lower classes, and put unfair strain on them.

This shift from middle to low class, is already happening. To keep themselves safe, the high middle class, and the 1%'s will support militarization of police, and push even more entertainment options to the masses. People will rarely revolt, as it's easy to imagine that if you're a father and see your kids starving, you will either work even harder trying to support your family, or you'll drink, do drugs and abuse the kids because you may feel that you failed, and you will try to hide this feeling not only from them but from yourself.

<comment><USER51> Those are some very sweeping claims and they'd need some explanation of why this time will be unlike all of recorded history. Labor protection, minimum wage, a 40 hour work week, etc. all happened after long periods of misery for people who would have been just as erroneously dismissed as not really having the "power, knowledge, will nor money to push the BIG agenda".

<comment><USER52> I don't see the OP counting out "misery." Mincome will happen when the rest of the people start eating the rich.

<comment><USER53> If the rich can delay that moment for long enough, they will not only own automated truck drivers, but also automated armies. The poor will be in a strong disadvantage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Eventually someone will be smart enough to figure out how to build an automated package delivery network in a city. Just imagine the economic benefit that will have. Imagine if every company could offer shipping services similar to Amazon Prime but at a fraction of the cost. Automated trucks would significantly aid long haul shipping legs in such a network.

</comment><comment><USER55> Driving's just the fun part of being a trucker. Securing and balancing loads, verifying manifests, preventative maintenance and safety inspections...

Still, plenty of opportunities for job loss.

<comment><USER56> Exactly, truck safety is the most important part of being a driver and it is the biggest risk to the company of course. The problem is safety inspections and securing a load properly apparently are harder to do than drive (from my experience shadowing a safety officer). Perhaps if we have less drivers we could transfer the responsibility of certifying the truck/load as "safe" to a surrogate safety officer better trained for that task than your typical driver who frankly doesn't care and will say things like "it's not my trailer" "I didn't load that pallet" or "running the scales"

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Related: In The Netherlands they are testing linked trucks. A kind of road train: [http://www.nltimes.nl/2015/02/10/self-driving-trucks- tested-...](http://www.nltimes.nl/2015/02/10/self-driving-trucks-tested-dutch- highway/)

<comment><USER58> Not physically linked; they're talking about platooning.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platoon_%28automobile%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platoon_%28automobile%29)

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Some parts of the text look like the author just made a transcript for CPG Grey Video "humans need not apply" ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU))

</comment><comment><USER60> "These horseless carriages are going to ruin the horse carriage economy!"

"These Semis are going to ruin the train economy!"

Eventually, there will be no need of humans to work at all for the basics of life. Oh what a terrible time that will be...

<comment><USER61> Given the stall of real wages for the lower ends of the wealth spectrum, the replacement of human labor by machines seems slated for hunger and riots, since the human jobs aren't actually being replaced.

So yes, I expect it actually will be a rather terrible time.

</comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra Land between large cities increasingly turns to human desert in many places of the world. People find no reason to continue living in small settlements and no ecomonical backing for doing so.

Places where people lived for thousand years now become deserted.

This might be another nail in the coffin after rail (only stops at large cities) and air (flies over entirely).

<comment><USER62> What if it works the other way round? What if automation eliminates most, if not all, jobs, and thus reduces the appeal of living in cities where work is easily found? What if land remains expensive in urban areas, but the economic support for people to afford it isn't there?

What if automated delivery makes it cheaper to deliver to anywhere, so that it becomes easier and more practical to live far apart from others?

<comment> guard-of-terra This might as well happen. I think that decent Basic Income will cause just that: millions of people leaving expensive cities to live cheaply in the country.

This thought is backed by Russian dacha phenomenon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This article claims that truck driver is the most common job in more than half of all states. That's obviously false.

There are as many registered nurses as truck drivers for example. And there are seven million teachers in the US.

"About 2.8 million workers drive trucks around. That's a big number, but it pales in comparison to other occupations. More than 21 million people work in office and administrative support, more than 14 million work in sales and more than 11 million work in food services. Nine million work in transportation or material-moving occupations. Heck, there are nearly 9 million production workers who actually make things."

[http://www.marketwatch.com/story/no-truck-driver-isnt-the- mo...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/no-truck-driver-isnt-the-most-common- job-in-your-state-2015-02-12)

<comment><USER63> I don't know if the claim is correct or not, but you have not demonstrated that it is false.

The occupations you describe (nurses, teachers, office workers) can be expected to correlate with population density in a way that just doesn't seem to be necessary for truck drivers, or at least for many of them. Given that population is very non uniformly distributed amongst the states, it is very plausible to have a high proportion of long distance truck drivers living in low population states, so this claim could be true.

<comment><USER64> Look at some of the states in the map that claim truck driver as the highest - CA, TX, MI, IL; these are not low-population states.

What's happened here is that the statistics are very poorly represented. Jobs like 'teacher' and nurse are broken down to fine-grained distinctions, while seemingly everyone who touches a truck steering wheel is lumped in as a truck driver. Lies, damned lies, and...

<comment><USER63> That's plausible, but the parent analysis doesn't hold; I wasn't addressing the article.

I could have worded it better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> _We can't stop there though, because the incomes received by these 8.2 million people create the jobs of others._

... going further, the income of wage earners is what creates demand for the goods being transported by the trucks. Once nobody can earn an income, there will be no need for trucks.

</comment><comment><USER66> So the concern is the economy slowing down due to the large number of current truck drivers who are going to be out of jobs in the near future. I don't expect there to be a sudden drop.

First comes the autopilot trucks where they still need to be manned. Sure the drivers will likely take a hit in pay, they'll still have a job. Then comes the fully autonomous trucks, removing the drivers although. I see this being a gradual transition, not a cliff like the article mentions.

"Basically, the only real barrier to the immediate adoption of self-driven trucks is purely legal in nature, not technical or economic."

I feel like this is such a huge assumption considering any type of autonomous driving has not been seen use anywhere yet.

<comment><USER67> > I feel like this is such a huge assumption considering any type of > autonomous driving has not been seen use anywhere yet.

It has, Google has openly admitted to have driven more than 100k miles fully autonomously. The technology IS here, it's going to be widespread in 15-20 years.

<comment><USER68> More than that, autonomous driving is being used increasingly in industries like mining: [http://www.smh.com.au/business/mining-and- resources/caterpil...](http://www.smh.com.au/business/mining-and- resources/caterpillar-says-autonomous-trucks-are-not-just-about-cutting- jobs-20140924-10lb25.html)

The technology developed in these situations for fleeting etc. is just as likely to find its way into road going trucks as that from Google.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> This article seems vaguely similar to the Luddite's destroying automated manufacturing equipment because of the belief that it would take their jobs ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite)). It seems that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of basic economics. Yes truck driver jobs will go away but this does not mean the loss of jobs and income on the aggregate. The economy will change and shift resources to the now more efficient modes of transportation, which will benefit everyone.

<comment><USER70> Sometimes there are misunderstandings of economics involved, but just as often that kind of resistance stems from factors that "basic economics" glosses over or abstracts away. There's a lot of economic friction involved in shifts like this, and the pain tends to fall on people who have less power to do anything about it -- it's not trivial for a truck driver to go get a new job in a different industry, and our economic system is not very well set-up to encourage that kind of retraining and shifting, nor to support the basic needs of people who don't have much to contribute to "the economy". (All that's vaguely related to the fact that we've been (in the US) working more and more hours collectively despite higher and higher productivity, so that Keynes's prediction of a 15-hour workweek looks crazy even though his estimation of productivity increases was basically on point...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> _Robot trucks also don't need salaries — salaries that stand to go up because fewer and fewer people want to be truckers._

Doesn't that kind of contradict the beginning ofthe article?

In any case I've been in favor of Unconditional Basic Income for a long time as a result of increased automation and to mitigate demand shocks for local labor. Even anarcho-capitalist libertarians can admit that transitions within the economy can take time that will cause massive contractionsin the money supply of a city/state/country.

</comment><comment><USER72> I don't know how a machine program is going to drive in my city, many times you have to read the other driver face to know if he is going to respect the norms.

I propose the following challange for those cars, try to cross Arc de triomphe in Paris, or any similar place in my city and prove you risk your life reasonably, it is not so far a experience from poker.

<comment><USER73> It's not necessary for the automation to solve the most difficult environments. As long as it can handle the majority of the distance it would be quite useful. For example a small number of operators could get the trucks to a depot near a highway, trucks could drive autonomously non-stop across the country, and then another operator could manually move them from a receiving depot to a local destination.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> It's a shame that the author felt the need to add the basic income proposal onto an excellent article about autonomous vehicles. They are both very big topics and warrant individual analysis.

</comment><comment><USER75> I would not be surprised if the next car I buy is the last car I buy. Personally, I think it will change humanity for the better, we just do not quite grasp how or what yet.

</comment><comment><USER76> What is the state of autonomous driving tech in terms of (semi)hazardous weather conditions? Isn't this still a major barrier? Are roadside RFID chips viable?

<comment><USER77> Differenchal GPS + Good maps is really all you need for navigation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> What happens with sensor interference when there are "54 million self-driving vehicles in 2035" ?

<comment><USER79> I expect a constant review of the sensor performance and adjustment. The truck in question is part of a decade-old testing phase, according to the article. This will provide a lot of information, which can help navigate the issue of sensor interference.

Sensor malfunction was a constant worry when I worked on small robotics projects. I hope that car companies, which have much bigger resources than I can afford on my projects, will spend sufficient effort on making sensor interference and various malfunctions not degrade the operation of an autonomous vehicle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> No, they won't anymore than an autopilot that can take off, fly and land has gotten rid of pilots.

<comment><USER67> You are right, just like AI that writes finance and sports articles would never displace journalists. Oh, hold on, it has. But surely a robotic assembly line would never replace honest and hard working American automotive workers..... just don't look at Detroit for conformation of that theory. At least all of our secretary and typist jobs are still safe..... well, not so much, but still, surely one can always go to a pharmacist school and get a high paying job after that. Right. What, AI is doing that now too, and better than humans ever could? Na....

Change is coming, and there are too many people who wish to hide their head in the sand rather then embrace this change, and figure out how to deal with it. We need a new economic model, because capitalism isn't going to work in a world where everything is created by machines (capital) and consumers have nothing of value to exchange for the goods that capital is producing. I am not arguing for communism, because we all know how well that has worked in the past. We need another solution.

Unless, if AI is going to replace all the labor, why not also replace the consumers with AI :)

<comment><USER81>
      > I am not arguing for communism, because we all know
      > how well that has worked in the past. We need another
      > solution.

Do you have any ideas? Capitalism uses the market to allocate resources. Typically, when someone pitches an alternative it will boil down to some variation of government reallocation. This has many names, but all of them are a breeding ground for corruption and injustice.

Maybe we haven't been looking hard enough.

What if we start with your premise: capitalism is failing some regions. To avoid ending back at government-reallocation, we could add to it a second premise: the purpose of government is to enforce live-and-let-live and do absolutely no more.

Within these rules, can we find something new? It might help to stop seeing government as a God-Object to stick new functionality into, and instead consider whether there should be other objects in play.

So far I've got nothing. But I find myself thinking of business models, rather than social reform.

<comment><USER82> the problem with communism was that it tried almost 100% government management and planning. Private iniative was forbidden, even in the areas in which it would be useful. (source: I grew up in a socialist/communist country)

In that manner, capitalism with guaranteed income is different. You want to be rich, go ahead amd try your chances at trade, entrepreneurship etc. You see a market opportunity - go ahead and kickstart it. On the other hamd, if you lack a capability, or you prefer to do things that nobody will want to pay you for (art, raising children etc), the govrnment will keep you covered.

Obviously there are problems to it, especially today when production costs are expensive. And there are implementation problems as well. But still, one system is the ultimate oppression, another one is ultimate freedom.

Btw. The running joke in communism was: "yeah, our system is perfect, it's just the implememtation that sucks". I believe that communism was impossible to get implemented correctky, whereas capitalism + minimum income can be. Not today, but in a few years when the goods will be even cheaper.

<comment><USER83> The problem with communism was that people were locked-out of the decisions. They had no idea what's going on. The reason for that was not that the leadership imposed it. It worked out that way, because the government made a promise to the common people:

"We will take care of your needs, you just be as productive as you can. You will be happy, we will take care for you".

So the people did. The government gave bread to the masses and the masses didn't care about much else. The ones who cared about more were deemed to be dangerous to the communist society and were killed.

How is the promise made by basic income proponents different that the communist promise?

<comment><USER62> What if it's automation and not people being productive?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> "Apple already has technology that may lend itself to an electric car and expertise managing a vast supply chain. The company has long researched battery technology for use in its iPhones, iPads and Macs. The mapping system it debuted in 2012 can be used for navigation…"

The mapping system Apple debuted in 2012 cannot reliably be used for navigation.

</comment><comment><USER84> Journaist who covered the Freightiner/State of Nevada annuncment last week here. The article's summary of the current state of truck autonomy is quite cogent There's an explainer link below for those looking for more detail, but the point Daimler Trucks execs and engineers emphasized is that they have no plans to pursue Level 4 (no driver needed) autonomy. (Although I don't recall that they were pushed on a timeframe for that commitment.)

So, as is, this is very much a tool to benefit drivers; i.e., cruise control with steering. But the critical point, as the article notes before taking the leap truck drivers are soon to disappear, is that trucking is big business (collectively) and if this technology can be suppoerted by the business case, then it will be adopted as rapidly as pubic policy permits.

However, the author doesn't take into consideration a couple of things:

1: The trucking industry is having a very hard time finding drivers (waaaay tough gig for over-the-road guys). While this may support the notion that trucking companies will rush to adopt autonomus vehicle tech, it takes away some of the punch of his basic income thesis: people don't want to do this job.

Truck drivers come from the same pool as construction laborers and factory workers, and when the economy is good there's a driver shortage because workers prefer jobs that let them go home every night compared to sleeping in a truck for weeks at a time. So in this case, basic income is, at best, a trucking industry subsidy. Otherwise, it's make-work.

2: The trucking industry is very fragmented. We're all familiar with many of the big fleet names we see on trailers every day, and while these mega- carriers haul a large percentage of the freight, they're far outnumbered by the number of companies with five or fewer trucks. And there's a great deal of conflict between the policies sought by well-capitalized larger firms (with money to invest in new tech and often lobby to have it manadated) and the Joe's Trucking Cos who are one breakdown or accident from going out of business. But Joe stays in businees because because he fills a niche the big guys aren't interested in.

And Joe ain't going to buy a robot, not that he'd mind staying in the office while his truck deivers freight without him, but because he can't afford it.

So either the fully driverless truck is going to become so operationally efficient that big trucking companies can move into these niches and fill spot demand, or the technology is going to be so affordabe that the little guy adopts it and then uses his niche expertise to grow is business. Both are wins for the overall economy, with the latter actually staving off a further concentration of capital--which I guess would be a good thing for the basic income crowd. (And as a journlist, I assure you I'm not averse to the concept.)

[http://news.trucker.com/technology/freightliner-s- autonomous...](http://news.trucker.com/technology/freightliner-s-autonomous- truck-explained-drawing-board-road)

<comment><USER50> > But Joe stays in businees because because he fills a niche the big guys > aren't interested in.

But the big guys with their automated trucks will be possibly cheaper, and all these niche jobs jobs could potentially go to them.

Walmart alone has around 6000 trucks. When they start using autonomous trucks, there will be many unemployed truckers competing for these niche jobs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> Great article until the very end... Basic income is not the answer to this. Basic income will lead to terrible social decay caused by apathy and laziness, fueling even more government corruption and ultimately, totalitarianism.

I can't help but think all of this talk and rhetoric in recent years is deliberate propaganda, conditioning left-leaning people.

I have seen a number of websites posted on HN, especially in comments, which are overly rhetoric and nudge the reader towards utopian left ideas. The sites are well developed both in the application and in the information architecture sense. They don't seem to have revenue model and saying that tracking their financing proved difficult, would be an understatement.

Please remember that changing the social framework is a VERY delicate matter. Oftentimes things sound very good on paper, but are not practical at all. Basic income sounds dangerously close to "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". When people believed this can happen, it ended terribly. Not because of the specific people in charge at the time. Socialism/Communism as a model is doomed to fail because of human nature.

When you make social policy, you have to think about the lowest common denominator and currently, it is very low indeed.

<comment><USER20> Anecdotes are not data, but here is my anecdote about Not Having To Work.

A few years ago, I came into enough money that I don't have to work for several years. I have not been spending this time just lying on the beach; instead, I've been spending this time doing a thing I dearly want to do, which doesn't bring in much money. I leverage the skills I gained in the time I spent hanging around the animation industry to draw weird comics.

I have been able to turn this into something that mostly pays my rent over the past four years. I could not have done this if I had to spend the bulk of my time working for someone else.

Sure, some people will sit around and play video games all day. But I think you may be underestimating the number of people who have a thing they'd be spending a lot of time working on if not for that pesky day job. Even the most burnt-out and broken-seeming homeless folks.

<comment><USER83> You are probably in the top %1 of the specimen. People who are naturally gifted are not the problem. The problem are the ones who are not. They don't aspire to achieve like you or me. Read very carefully the last line of my comment. Social policy needs to be made with the lowest common denominator in mind.

You can look at education for cues. You have experimental programs that show tremendous improvement over current ones. But they are done with the top 1% of teachers tutoring the top 1% of kids. When they try to roll it out to a random school, they fail miserably.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> Ever seen the movie "Hoffa"? Recall the scene when he's being transported to prison.

</comment><comment><USER85> The great thing about self-driving suicide bombs is how many lives will be spared.</comment>


Why Are Wheelchairs More Stigmatized Than Glasses? - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/34/adaptation/why-are-wheelchairs-more-stigmatized-than-glasses <comment><USER2> That's easy, because my contacts or glasses place no burden on you whatsoever.

</comment><comment><USER3> ...so what do we do when quadriplegics get butt-hurt over the NEW symbol? what about old, arthritic people? folks with NO legs who apparently aren't even represented? Why are you making fun of Stephen Hawking?

If this is the kind of stuff people get upset over, then they aren't busy enough getting stuff done in their own lives.

</comment><comment><USER4> you don't need to put up signs for people with glasses?</comment>


Facebook Launches Collab App Inspired by TikTok - <AUTHOR> https://baseread.com/facebook-launches-collab-app-inspired-by-tiktok/ <comment><AUTHOR> Facebook 's app-oriented new product experiment team launched the Collab app on Wednesday, a TikTok-style app for making music with friends.</comment>


What happened to getprismatic.com? - <AUTHOR> Used to use their service daily, and it's been offline for weeks, what happened to them? <comment><USER2> [http://thenextweb.com/apps/2015/12/12/as-personalized- news-e...](http://thenextweb.com/apps/2015/12/12/as-personalized-news-evolves- prismatic-is-closing-its-apps/#gref)</comment>


The Elm Architecture - <AUTHOR> https://guide.elm-lang.org/architecture/ <comment><USER2> The bit I love about the Elm Architecture that I really wish existed in other frameworks is the "Command" system, by which the "Update" step can dispatch further changes. Basically, imagine if a Redux reducer could dispatch further actions.

I've tried building Redux apps with bidirectional real-time communication (re: networked video games), and found myself having to pull almost all of the logic up to the action layer, as I often needed to dispatch further side effects based on changes that happened as the result of an action. It made my reducer into nothing more than a dumb setter, and caused me to have to write complex mocked tests for my action layer instead of my reducer layer.

I know there's been some attempts at bringing this to Redux (such as [https://github.com/redux-loop/redux-loop](https://github.com/redux- loop/redux-loop)), but from what I've seen it isn't quite as easy to use.

OTOH, I will say, as an outside observer, it sounds like Elm has run into problems with this approach (see: the removal of WebSockets from this guide, pending a rewrite), so I am curious to know more about what issues arose.

<comment><USER3> >Basically, imagine if a Redux reducer could dispatch further actions.

You can achieve the same by using redux-saga[0], then writing a generator function ("saga") that inspects dispatched actions, and potentially triggers a side effect, dispatches another action, waits for another action to get dispatched in a certain time, etc.

[0] [https://github.com/redux-saga/redux-saga](https://github.com/redux- saga/redux-saga)

<comment><USER4> I really wish the React ecosystem had less dependencies. Things that are included in other libraries are always met with "You can always install X" as if it were a good thing to add more dependencies.

<comment><USER5> Maybe you want to use react with something other than redux, or saga. Now you say: it doesn't matter, if there is any dead/unused code it will be removed during bundling. That's indeed true. But then, shouldn't we simply install _all_ packages that are available on npmjs.com, and never think about dependencies again? Or don't install any and let our editor or bundler install dependencies automatically? If installing dependencies happens automatically as soon as you write an import statement, does it matter anymore whether you write `import Redux from "redux"` or `import Redux from "react/redux"`? Hardly…

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you want to use TEA but with easier interop with JavaScript libraries, you can use ReasonML/OCaml with bucklescript-tea[1] instead

[1]: [https://github.com/OvermindDL1/bucklescript- tea](https://github.com/OvermindDL1/bucklescript-tea)

<comment><USER7> Just pulled an all-nighter deciding what to use instead of Elm. We have a 45kloc codebase in Elm and, despite having some big pros, the closed source development it goes through, along with the 0.19 debacle, just pushed us over the edge. The team is very motivated to ditch elm over something else.

So, Bucklescript seems great (and it's wonderful how OvermindDL1 explains in the open his design decisions. An openness that I've missed in Elm), and IMO superior than Typescript, and comparable with Fable (in that case being mostly a matter of personal taste: F# vs ocaml).

But, as long as we are trying new stuff, I've decided to use Clojurescript with Reagent and re-frame. The tooling around it seems very mature (even more so than Elm, but I may be wrong), with a good community and macros!

For anyone in a similar position, several good options out there, but the best two that I've found, in my opinion, are Bucklescript (ReasonML/Ocaml) and Clojurescript. Cheers!

<comment><USER8> Why lose sleep over this considering that 0.18 still works? (Genuine question, not criticism.)

<comment><USER7> 0.18 works, but compilation takes too long - and apparently that was fixed in 0.19.

We've waited for this fix a long time (over a year), but we can't upgrade because the only (AFAIK) library that connects to Elixir's Phoenix Channels stopped working. In fact the language (0.19) currently has no websocket support.

During this whole year of development, we could not compile the 0.19-dev. It was somewhere closed. We couldn't even see the commits. Pretty sure there's a nice and long post somewhere explaining how "outsiders" would slow down the progress by giving, how dare them, feedback.

We could wait a little bit more, but, even though I was _deeply_ in love with elm, the language that made me not dread frontend development anymore, I am now totally uninterested at it, driven away by 1) lack of transparency and 2) total blocking of genuine and constructive user feedback, which feels like censorship - or simply a closed-source, proprietary software.

The language is good though. Has some minor flaws, but I believe over time they will get fixed. Though it lacks some powerful features that will never be implemented. But ovoverall, we were able to tackle complexity quite nicely. I guess we - me and my team - just got tired of _how_ it is handled.

Oh, and Elm is way too verbose. Pretty sure that 45kloc codebase will be about 15-20kloc in cljs!

<comment><USER9> > 2) total blocking of genuine and constructive user feedback, which feels > like censorship - or simply a closed-source, proprietary software.

For those looking for examples, check out the recent post on /r/elm: [https://www.reddit.com/r/elm/comments/9a0hc6/elm_019_broke_u...](https://www.reddit.com/r/elm/comments/9a0hc6/elm_019_broke_us/)

It was locked and deleted from the front page within hours. There are many many more such posts that have been deleted. The only posts allowed on /r/elm are those praising Elm.

They always invite the users to discuss this in the Elm Discourse which is not constructive because threads about the "forbidden" topics (Native Code) are either locked or completely deleted within hours.

<comment><USER10> > The only posts allowed on /r/elm are those praising Elm.

The Reddit thread you linked shows many posts that are critical of Elm, so this can't be the explanation.

As others have noted, you can see what was deleted using this link:

[https://snew.github.io/r/elm/comments/9a0hc6/elm_019_broke_u...](https://snew.github.io/r/elm/comments/9a0hc6/elm_019_broke_us/)

Removed posts included both praise and criticism. What they have in common is that they broke other rules, e.g. personal attacks.

<comment><USER9> Thanks, I'll let everyone decide for themselves whether the deleted posts were personal attacks or not. Personally I don't see anything wrong with at least half of them.

Why do the moderators invite everyone to discuss on Discourse when you know you'll delete or lock a thread as soon as it's posted?

<comment><USER10> > Thanks, I'll let everyone decide for themselves whether the deleted posts > were personal attacks or not. Personally I don't see anything wrong with at > least half of them.

Okay, but "personally I would have only deleted half of those posts" is a much different claim than "The only posts allowed on /r/elm are those praising Elm," which is what you said above.

You really shouldn't make such serious claims if you don't mean them.

> Why do the moderators invite everyone to discuss on Discourse when you know > you'll delete or lock a thread as soon as it's posted?

I understand that you're trolling me, but just for the record - of course we don't do that.

<comment><USER9> Ok, it's not literally "only" but most. /r/rust is a great example of healthy community. They only delete obvious troll/personal attack comments. You can go there right now and post a post similar to what you deleted on /r/elm and I bet it won't be deleted or locked.

> I understand that you're trolling me, but just for the record - of course we > don't do that.

I'm not trolling. I'll bet $100 that you've at least deleted 3 threads about native code and locked at least 5. Latest example: [https://discourse.elm- lang.org/t/elm-0-19-released-what-has-...](https://discourse.elm- lang.org/t/elm-0-19-released-what-has-changed-regarding-native-event- modules/1670)

Moderator quote:

> Finally, a moderation note: I'm going to lock this thread since discussions > on this topic have the unfortunate tendency to spiral out of control and we > have already debated this past the point of productive return. If you have > things you need to upgrade, we're of course happy to help… let's just do > them in separate threads. :slight_smile:

Please don't suggest users of locked Reddit threads that they're welcome on Discourse. Just say the truth - you don't want any discussions about this anymore. There's no harm in being honest.

<comment><USER10> I see where you're coming from!

To me, those two mod notes are consistent and sincere. Both are saying "this particular topic has been debated to the point where discussions no longer make progress, they just take up people's time and energy. That said, by all means please feel free to start a new thread about something more specific if you'd like to discuss that."

I see this as analogous to React and JSX. When React came out, many people said "putting HTML in JavaScript is Wrong, and React shouldn't do this."

At first, whether React should use JSX was a reasonable thing to debate. In 2018, this has long since been settled. A 2018 thread arguing that React should abandon JSX is going to take up people's time but it's not going to change the outcome of a decision that was settled years ago.

This is how it is with things like Native and typeclasses in Elm. Maybe you disagree, but I think there comes a point where it's reasonable to say "it is not a good use of everyone's time to re-litigate an issue that has been settled for years. You may still disagree with the final decision, but that ship has long since sailed."

I can understand the argument that "people must be free to waste everyone's time, because anything else is tyranny" and I can also understand the argument that "the Internet is full of places to post whatever you please, but _this_ forum is focused on collaboration, sharing, and learning, not wasting time." It seems reasonable to me for a given forum to embrace either one of those moderation philosophies.

This is why I see the two mod notes as consistent and sincere. They are both saying "these broader design decisions have long since been settled, and we're locking the topic because they are a magnet for contentious discussions that don't go anywhere. That said, you are genuinely welcome to start a fresh thread about a more specific topic to your particular situation."

Again, maybe you disagree with this moderation philosophy, but it's simply not true that mods are inviting people to post only to lock whatever the follow up would be. That would be ridiculous.

<comment><USER9> Here's a quote:

> If you'd like to discuss Elm's trade-offs, both pro and con, there are > plenty of people who are willing to talk openly about them in a calm way. > I'd recommend opening a thread on Elm Discourse if you're interested in > that.

Please edit it to say that discussions about cons like native code will not be tolerated and will be locked or deleted without warning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I like the Elm architecture so much we have tried to do something similar in Swift on iOS. It's a shame it's not possible to go all the way in (it's quite hard to find an analogy for the DOM diffing view part), but after a year of work or so it looks like the principled state management + message-based state changes + principled side effect modelling brought us about 70–80 % of the advantages. It feels _so_ good so see the state of the app change using well- defined messages and not by ad-hoc state changes on some entangled forest of singletons. I look forward to experimenting with the architecture further. I can't recommend it enough.

</comment><comment><USER12> So what ties together the model, update, and view? It looks to me like it is this Browser module, is that right? Not knowing Elm or Haskell syntax, I'm guessing that Browser.sandbox is a function you call, passing in the model, update, and view functions.

Assuming that's all correct, how does Browser.sandbox, work exactly? In particular how does it know when to call Update?

At first glance it looks like it might massage the view and detect event listeners such as onClick in the button example, is that correct?

<comment><USER13> Turning Html Msg types into actual Dom nodes means hooking up the event handlers so that they call update with the Msg the event handler is given. Browser.sandbox is building the Dom nodes and has the update function.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, I got that far. How does it know what it should turn into an Update handler though?

<comment><USER14> Browser.sandbox, Browser.application etc. are your app's runtimes. (Or they are the doors to the runtime)

Subscriptions or DOM elements can generate Msgs and every Msg causes an update cycle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In what ways does the Elm architecture differ from MVC?

<comment><USER16> Not the Elm Architecture, but I found this a very good article on how MVC differs from unidirectional approaches: [https://www.futurice.com/blog/reactive-mvc-and-the- virtual-d...](https://www.futurice.com/blog/reactive-mvc-and-the-virtual-dom/)

<comment><USER17> As usual, that article gets MVC wrong.

In MVC, the model-view communication is not "interactive" as defined by the article (source pushes to sink). Instead, the view pulls data from the model. There is only a general #changed notification to let the view know that the model has changed.

So "unidirectional" approaches fix the problems you get when you don't understand MVC. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><USER18> The problems lie in the way change notifications are managed. Any reasonably complex client application will have multiple data sources feeding into a myriad of components, with a very entangled dependency graph. In MVC, you'll start sharing models and notifying changes selectively, with a lot of "action at a distance" from component interactions triggering updates. This is usually hard to visualize and debug (worst case, recursive update loops).

In Flux/redux the unidirectional nature comes from all updates targeting and emanating from a single source (store), and being routed to views accordingly. An interaction from one component will never result in a disconnect where you failed to update the correct model(s) or to notify the right components of a change (hi Backbone.js).

<comment><USER17> > Any reasonably complex client application will

> have multiple data sources feeding into a myriad of components,

Why? Certainly my MVC apps have a single "store" that's the source of truth, and I would say that what you describe is _not_ following the MVC pattern.

<comment><USER18> You're gonna have to provide a bit more context for that. What part of the MVC pattern?

<comment><USER17> Various parts. First, the M->V communication should only notify, the View decides if and when to refresh itself, and the action it takes is _only_ to refresh itself.

"In this metaphor, views deal with everything graphical; they request data from their model, and display the data."[1]

Also, the View should only make a note that it needs to be refreshed (Cocoa for example has the convenient "needsDisplay" boolean property on Views), not actually do the refresh on notification. I see the latter a lot, so you have the model effectively calling refresh on the view, so pushing updates. That ain't MVC, in MVC the View pulls from the model.

"The standard interaction cycle in the Model-View-Controller metaphor, then, is that the user takes some input action and the active controller notifies the model to change itself accordingly. The model carries out the prescribed operations, possibly changing its state, and broadcasts to its dependents (views and controllers) that it has changed, possibly telling them the nature of the change. Views can then inquire of the model about its new state, and update their display if necessary."[1]

Once you're down with pushing updates, you tend to also see "optimizations" that also push the data to the view (very much what the linked article describes). Again, not MVC, View pulls, model doesn't push.

If the view only refreshes itself and pulls from the model when notified, it's hard to get an entangled dependency graph, and downright impossible to get loops.

So if you get loops, you're definitely not doing MVC.

As to the "multiple sources" feeding into a "myriad of components", that also doesn't quite match. In MVC, all sources feed into the model. When the model changes, it sends its change notification, and it doesn't really matter where the original change came from, the action afterward is the same. So if "multiple sources" are causing you problems, that is a strong indicator that you are not doing MVC, and "myriad of components" also indicates that you don't have a strongly developed model.

[1] [https://web.archive.org/web/20100921030808/http://www.itu.dk...](https://web.archive.org/web/20100921030808/http://www.itu.dk/courses/VOP/E2005/VOP2005E/8_mvc_krasner_and_pope.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If anyone wants the Elm architecture in JavaScript there is Raj: [https://jew.ski/raj/](https://jew.ski/raj/)

I spent over a year building the framework and a set of libraries around it so that the architecture feels natural to JavaScript developers.

There's only a few of us building apps with it right now, but the stories for doing most anything are covered and as of 2 months ago the framework hit 1.0. It is a safe foundation to build on as I don't plan to ever change it.

</comment><comment><USER20> Huh, I must say I thought there was more to Elm's architecture (I've seen it mentioned in the recent negative article about Elm).

I've written an SPA[1] recently in a framework that is quite flexible and also ended up using a very similar architecture.

1 - [https://github.com/nim-lang/nimforum](https://github.com/nim- lang/nimforum)

</comment><comment><USER21> This is just model-view-controller except Evan is taking credit for inventing it.

</comment><comment><USER22> Yesterday's submission on Elm with interesting discussion in comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17842400](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17842400)</comment>


Why Minecraft Works (Design Concepts) - <AUTHOR> http://www.hobbygamedev.com/beg/why-minecraft-works-design-concepts/ <comment><USER3> I always find articles about Minecraft interesting. I live off of Minecraft's success at the moment (I created the linked Minecraft wiki and also the Minecraft forum) and I often find myself disagreeing with articles about why the game is so successful.

I think the single biggest reason Minecraft has such success is completely accidental, something Notch never consciously caused: Minecraft is a _creative_ game, a game that you need to be _creative_ to enjoy properly, and what do creative people do? They share their creations.

Minecraft came at the perfect time, it came when indie games were becoming more popular, when Youtube video series about video games ("Let's Plays") were rising in popularity and at a time when the internet had become _very_ social, it's so incredibly easy to share content now. If I want 100 people who don't play Minecraft to see a creation I've made in Minecraft it's very easy for me to do that, 5 years ago it would have been close to impossible to do this because the only real place to share content would be the forum for that game, and everyone on that forum would already know about it, so spread of the game would have been severely limited.

Minecraft is a fantastic game and of course if the game was bad it would never have been popular, but the success is in my opinion entirely an accident and a matter of being in the right place at the right time, nothing Notch could ever have expected or intended.

<comment><USER4> I do think there is kind of a "perfect storm" effect around this game. It isn't so unique that you can't find a game to compare it to. In fact, two of the biggest influences are already present in Notch's previous work:

Procedural landscapes: Infinite Mario Bros.

Multiplayer wilderness survival: Wurm Online

And the voxel terrain concept - the feature which surfaces most visibly - <USER2> already demonstrated in many other games.

In light of this I've charted a path for my own games which doesn't seek to ape the specific concepts or technologies of Minecraft, but instead aims to achieve the same level of intrinsic "I want to share this" and supplements it with a dynamic that adds some explicit rewards for doing so(the social game virality model - not necessarily tied to FB or any "social platform" though). This comes at some risk of sucking out the intrinsic joy, but the potential reward is to have even faster growth than Minecraft - assuming the game is equally good.

<comment><USER5> What I find interesting is the ultimate heratage of MineCraft:

If I recall correctly, Wurm Online directly owes it's existance to RuneScape, a Fantasy MMO with skills instead of classes, and a strong crafting system. RuneScape started originally as a project to recreate Utima Online in java.Ultima Online has a crafting system, player housing, skills instead of classes, and is the second-oldest MMO, and the first that most people would recognise as such.

Ultima Online is closer to a MUSH or MOO, unlike most modern MMORPGS. On the whole they follow a similar style of game as designed in DikuMUD, one of the most popular MUD engines.

As far as I am aware, there are few major competitors to Ulima Online and RuneScape. The DikuMUD model of classes and limited interaction with the world is far similar to develop and market (see World of Warcraft et al). Yet MineCraft's appeal clearly shows there is a huge demand for something else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This isn't really about the post, but after the article about Dwarf Fortress a couple of weeks ago, I decided to give it a try. I find the gameplay fun and there's definitely a lot to master, but the UI and the difficulty of visualizing what's going on are big obstacles. (There's a program called _Stonesense_ that does isometric drawing of the world, but that seems to be it.) The Minecraft graphics are pretty basic, but even such a simple movable 3D view in DF would do wonders for situational awareness.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, UI/graphics are a big learning curve for DF. It's great for people who were into roguelikes before they found it, but even so. Tile-sets make visualization a lot easier (although if you've gotten into the game without one then they might be unbearable), but they're not perfect. The main problem I have with Stonesense is that, whenever I've tried it, the latest version of DF wasn't supported - as I understand it, the memory offsets change with each version, since all of these tools work by looking at what DF has in memory, so with each new release someone has to go in and figure out the changes.

I remember seeing a 3D visualizer for DF a while back. After a quick trip to the Wiki (an invaluable resource), here it is: <http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=63484.0>

<comment><USER6> Nice, that looks exactly like what I wanted. Unfortunately it seems to be Windows-only, so I can't try it for a while.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One of the best things about this type of games is the unexpected results you can get. And I am not talking about Easter eggs or different endgames some mainstream games boast themselves with. I am talking about really unexpected game situations (or even incidents).

As if you are building a giant simulation, where a very complex software system is interacting with unpredictable human players, and nobody, including the creators of the system, knows the limits of the simulation. This is the most interesting part of this type of games. This is why we get full working computers inside Minecraft, all sort of unpredictable scenarios in Dwarf Fortress, and also some really surprising glitches like the virtual epidemic that plagued the servers of WoW in 2005, almost like a real disease:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupted_Blood>

</comment><comment><USER8> I've never played Minecraft before, but that video of fire spreading through that Minecraft structure & surrounding trees is frighteningly realistic.

I recently got training in a volunteer neighborhood emergency response organization (CERT, in case you're interested) and they showed a video of how quickly a fire can spread. It's truly frightening.

I found my heart racing when I watched that Minecraft fire just like when I watched a real fire on video.

<comment><USER9> This one?

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4W82HIzUcc>

<comment><USER8> Ah yes, exactly like that.

The firefighters pointed out that - unlike in the movies - the smoke becomes so thick so quickly that you can't run out of a burning house. You usually have to crawl. They themselves usually crawl if they really must enter a burning unit, so they can somewhat see where they're going. In some cases, even that's not possible. So they'll keep one hand on the wall and slowly make their way in. Frightening. I give firefighters a lot of credit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When I was younger and played games I always thought that it'd be nice to make a game that isn't about killing, instead it should be about building stuff. I also thought that it'd be nice if it'd be as general as possible, so you can build anything you like. But also simple, because simple is beautiful.

Minecraft is all that.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm stuck on the randomized rewards right now, looking for enough iron to help my friend finish his ambitious minecart rail system, and simultaneously for 'enough' diamond.

<comment><USER12> Branch mining is your friend -- start doing that down around level 11 or so and you'll have all the iron, diamond and any other type of ore you'll ever need :)

<comment><USER11> I'm branch mining at the bedrock right now, finding about 1 diamond for every 2 iron. Of course, I'm finding very little iron.

<comment><USER12> Move up a bit. Ore concentration isn't all the high right at the bedrock level. Typically, layers 11-16 is where you want to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This reads like NDF to me. Minecraft was not engineered to be all of these things; it just happened. Notch had a vision of what he wanted to do, tempered by time and skill constraints, and the resulting game is an accidental success, not a carefully constructed pillar of solid game design.

<comment><USER14> What does NDF stand for?

<comment><USER13> Yeah, "Notch Defense Force." It's a meme born of the obsequious fans of MC who refuse to acknowledge any problems with the game or anything MC-related.

MC is great, but it's far from perfect.</comment></comment></comment>