Indeed. This is an example of an issue on which the Libertarians and believers in the Adam Smith's "invisible hand" are being very quiet. Because they have no answer. Regulation and government nudging are the only things that can deal with a pollution problem.

If this were to happen all year round, sure people would buy a second car. But not for the very rare day that this happens.
And there are only a limited number of rental cars available. Of which only half would be useful.

There's no ring of barriers round Paris with computer controlled opening, such as you are imagining. This is enforced by police using eyesight. Even/odd is far easier than petrol/diesel, even if there were agreement that it would be reasonable to ban one or the other based on fuel. The French sense of egalitarianism would be happier with odd/even switched over each day, rather than one kind of car being continually banned every day.

There already is a shared car scheme in Paris, which followed on from the shared bicycles scheme Velib.

https://www.autolib.eu/en/vent...

And the issue here is pollution, not traffic. These shared cars are electric, so not a problem.

"It" being an Australian news source that is being a bit vague. What actually happens in Paris is that it goes by whether the day of the month is odd or even. Monday is 23rd, so only odd digit cars are allowed on the road. If it extends to the 24th, then only even numbered cars will be allowed.

And the ban certainly does apply within the city. Pleading ignorance will still get you a fine.

Not at all. A decade ago, DARPA had a competition for autonomous vehicles to go around a fixed off-road course of 100 miles or so , which the developers could study beforehand. And not a single vehicle even got halfway. Autonomous vehicles on the roads seemed like many decades away right then.

And before that, they'd seemed science fiction, not a decade away.

They've never seemed closer than now. In fact they are actually working right now, as prototypes, successfully mixing with ordinary traffic.

Autonomous vehicles are not in the category of flying cars or hoverboards. They don't have any insurmountable hurdles. Just a continued path of improvement until they are judged superior to human drivers in virtually all safety considerations. At that point those that can afford them and want them will buy them.

I agree with you that ever increasing driver assist is another path that will be followed, eventually meeting up the fully autonomous prototypes.

Just as autopilot started out as assists to maintain a fixed level and/or course, but are now capable of doing a complete journey from takeoff to landing by themselves.

Take out the excuses, and you do see all the problems.

They are absolutely amazing. And part of that amazingness is they have UIs tailored to the size and the I/O available. As general purpose computer's they'd be crap.

I understand your markets religion. I've read some of it's holy scriptures. I'm just not a believer.

At no time did I say anything about central planning committees. I explicitly said regulation. They don't need to be centralised, nor the same for different areas of regulation. And indeed they are not. For taxis for example, every city and area has their own regulations.

And note, your beloved capitalism has it's central planning committees. They are boards of directors of multinational companies. The board of Ford hold far more sway than the taxi regulators of Springfield.

But of course the facts don't sway the religious.

Additionally, you don't introduce a change like this overnight. You start with a nominal sum as a basic income, and then each year you ratchet it up above inflation. You get to the essentials being covered gradually, and each person will reach that point at a different time. So if there are problems they are dealt with over the years as the system unfolds.

As pointed out by the anonymous poster, the concept that everyone is going to give up TV, internet, alcohol, vacations, whatever else in order not to work is a nonsense. And plenty of people enjoy working. So your hypothetical is an impossible.

But it also misses the point that this is about the robots doing the work. Robots get no choice. So the people that are profiting from the robots doing the work are taxed to pay for the basic income.

You're only considering functions and power. The limiting factors on phone OSs are UI, considering the limitations of screen size and input capabilities. And the user attachment time - Phone OSs concentrate on activities that take seconds, desktops on on activities that take minutes to hours.

There's no problem with having the kernel and lower levels general purpose. But trying to make the UI/shell that is a fools errand.

A store where you can find absolutely every app for the platform is far more use than having to search a multitude of competing stores.

It's an is for phones and at a pinch, tablets. There is nothing to be gained in making it general purpose. Jack of all trades = master of none.

It's no more difficult to insure a machine than it is to insure a person. Sure autonomous cars may kill the odd person but so do cars now. When the do the insurance will cover the legal costs. Just like now. It may look right now like th liability moves from the driver to the manufacturer, but that's just a matter of legislation or business model. For sure the cost of that insurance will be passed on. To the car owner in one way or another. There is no hurdle there that need slow the path to autonomous cars by a single day. The hard part is the technical challenges, not how insurance premiums are going through get passed on to car users.

You may not hav noticed, but Laissez Faire Capitalism is a busted flush. It may have been fashionable, coming out of the 1980s, but since 2008, ever fear people are buying into it. If it was actually the one true way, the right wouldn't need a fake news channel to lie to them 24 hours a day.

The answer to that is easy. A Basic Income policy. A standard amount paid to every one. Enough to cover the essentials. Then work is something you do to pay for the extras, not to survive.