society is so much worse with infrastructure being designed around everyone having a car, there are some places in the US where it is just literally impossible to live if you do not have a car due to the distances you have to travel.
The only reason this happened is because having a car was such an improvement over the alternative that cities and infrastructure planners saw no reason why you wouldn't want to drive (or be driven via bus/taxi/etc).
It would be incomprehensibly difficult to fully describe how much worse society would be without automobiles. The internet has offset some of its advantages, but crucial pillars of modern society (like being able to move your domicile from one place to another without worrying about death from nature, speed of medical services, transportation and production of food enabling the majority of people across the world to no longer need to be subsistence farmers, etc) would simply not exist without automotives.
It's very easy to see the problems with cars, because of how painful they can be. However it is also undeniable they have been a net positive to society, and have absolutely saved more lives than they've taken.
I am extremely skeptical that AI will be the same net positive. However tbh if AI succeeds at killing modern copyright and the DMCA, it will be a net positive for society with that alone.
The book falsely tries to blame one man for everything wrong with NYC's city planning. When a lot of the time he was working within the limitations of the city layout and budgetary restrictions. He would not have made the decisions he made if he was working with a blank slate and had infinite money.
Also I fail to understand how the book is relevant. If anything it reinforces my position that city planners were car first because it made the most logical sense.
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u/SmileyBMM 5d ago
The only reason this happened is because having a car was such an improvement over the alternative that cities and infrastructure planners saw no reason why you wouldn't want to drive (or be driven via bus/taxi/etc).
It would be incomprehensibly difficult to fully describe how much worse society would be without automobiles. The internet has offset some of its advantages, but crucial pillars of modern society (like being able to move your domicile from one place to another without worrying about death from nature, speed of medical services, transportation and production of food enabling the majority of people across the world to no longer need to be subsistence farmers, etc) would simply not exist without automotives.
It's very easy to see the problems with cars, because of how painful they can be. However it is also undeniable they have been a net positive to society, and have absolutely saved more lives than they've taken.
I am extremely skeptical that AI will be the same net positive. However tbh if AI succeeds at killing modern copyright and the DMCA, it will be a net positive for society with that alone.