Tag Archives: about-the-fact

The Road From 98% Autonomous Cars to 100% Autonomous Cars Will Take About Five Years

by ViolettSparks Posted on December 22, 2016

Mother Jones

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Uber decided to put a few of its self-driving cars on the road in San Francisco without bothering to tell anyone, so yesterday the California DMV revoked the registration of its cars. During the week they were tootling around the city, however, people reported that Uber’s cars were running red lights and making right turns incorrectly. Atrios comments:

People always say “oh, well, if it works 98% of the time and then every now and then the cars needs the driver to step in then that’s good enough.” No, that isn’t good enough. There isn’t time for me to switch from taking a nap or texting my pals to taking over when a bike lane appears suddenly, unless I’m paying 100% attention. And no one is going to pay 100% attention in a “self-driving car” because what’s the point.

Who says that? I’ve never heard anything remotely like this from anyone with more than a Twitter egg understanding of autonomous vehicles. The goal is, and always has been, a car that’s 100 percent self-driving. Personally, I envision something the size of a tiny room with a couple of La-Z-Boy recliners suitable for reading, twittering, watching Buffy reruns, or taking a nap.

We’re not there yet, of course, and no one claims otherwise. But the fact that we’re not there yet doesn’t mean we’ll never get there. Griping about the fact that current iterations of autonomous vehicles aren’t perfect doesn’t seem very productive.

Personally, I’m hoping to live long enough to ride in a fully autonomous car and prove Atrios wrong. I think it’s gonna be a close call.

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The Road From 98% Autonomous Cars to 100% Autonomous Cars Will Take About Five Years

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Donald Trump Is Doing Pretty Well Considering That He Isn’t Advertising At All

by FlorencSherer Posted on August 12, 2016

Mother Jones

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There’s been a lot of talk lately about the fact that Donald Trump has so far spent $0 on TV advertising. Here is Jeet Heer:

Hillary Clinton has entered the field with $13 million in Olympics ad spending, but her competitor is nowhere to be seen. Astonishingly, Donald Trump’s campaign is spending zero dollars on Olympics advertising. And it’s not just in Olympics ads that Clinton is winning by default. To date, the Trump campaign has been unwilling to spend one thin penny on television advertising.

….In recent weeks, he’s upped his fundraising game, bringing in more than $91 million. So Trump has the money, he’s just not choosing to spend it. This is further evidence that Trump’s not running a real campaign, but something closer to a scampaign.

Maybe. But does it occur to anyone that this might be a danger sign for Hillary? She’s about 6-7 points ahead of Trump at the moment, which sounds great until you think about the fact that she’s spent $90 million on ads to Trump’s zero. Perhaps the Trump campaign is gambling that ads this far ahead of Election Day don’t have much effect, so he might as well wait until September and then unleash a gigantic blitz. They might even be right. In any case, once he does start advertising, surely that will cut Hillary’s lead.

How much will it cut her lead? That’s a good question, isn’t it?

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Donald Trump Is Doing Pretty Well Considering That He Isn’t Advertising At All

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Today Brings Yet More Obamacare Non-Failure

by Christoper38P Posted on June 21, 2016

Mother Jones

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I’ve written frequently about the fact that the rapid growth in US health care costs has slowed down in recent years. Here’s the latest version of the slowdown, courtesy of the Urban Institute:

The raw data for this chart comes the national health expenditures forecast issued annually by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. As you can see, their latest forecast for the year 2019 is about $500 billion less than it was in 2010. The cumulative forecast for 2014-19 is now $2.6 trillion less than it was in 2010.

It’s hard to say how much, if any, of this decrease is due to Obamacare. My own guess is that the cost-saving parts of Obamacare haven’t had time to really kick in yet, which means the recent slowdown in health care costs is most likely just an extension of the slowdown that’s been percolating behind our backs for more than three decades.

But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to say about Obamacare here. CMS did forecasts both before and after Obamacare passed, and they predicted that Obamacare would increase spending. Lots of conservatives predicted the same thing. But it didn’t happen. Here’s the chart for private health care spending:

The figures are even more dramatic for Medicare and Medicaid spending. The jury may still be out on Obamacare’s long-term effect on controlling health care costs, but one thing is sure: all the hysteria about Obamacare causing costs to skyrocket was entirely unfounded.

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Today Brings Yet More Obamacare Non-Failure

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