Stupid question about a "point" particle: The minimal size (diameter?) for anything would then be a Planck length, right?

Unless you are a corporation or belong to the 1%

Maybe he is ass talking (I leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine how).

However, there was such an experiment done in the 1970's and the result was much as he described: Rosenhan Experiment

How may 16 year olds like a fine glass of Bordeaux? Few. How many 40 year olds? Probably many more. I'm not saying that they will like eBooks as they grow older people's tastes change as they mature and if you don't know for sure how they will change, your statement may not be valid.

I would be happy to see the ceiling even set at 50 fold (lowest earner in the company).

Having said that, one worry I have is that one possible outcome is that the CEO outsources, say, the low paid cleaning staff and can therefore raise his/her salary. Next step, replace all assembly line workers with robots (yes, I know, already happening, but this might accelerate the process).

How would you prevent this?

In Germany, starting in 2015, almost all wood stoves will have to have a particulate filter installed.
http://www.kamin-russfilter.de/gesetzliche-grenzwerte-fuer-feinstaub-durch-kamine-kaminoefen-kacheloefen.php

You may hate your mom when you reach 70 or so, chickenpox is a lifelong latent infection that can reactivate in older individuals, causing shingles and postherpetic neuralgia, or PHN.

I agree that early adopters might be the older folks who just want to get around but kids with no money adopting a very expensive technology? This will be more expensive than insurance until it is firmly established.

I would guess more likely the younger crowd living in big cities like New York where many people don't even get their licenses until they're 25-30. They might have a fleet of cars like Car2Go or so. You use the car as a replacement for a taxi and don't have to worry about the headache of finding parking.

Essentially what my uncle did. Job security until the robot repairmen appear. But then it may be too late for us organics anyway...

And of course, his...

I dunno, if a saber-toothed tiger was chasing you, you probably cared a great deal about your arrival time at the nearest climbable tree or such.

The presence of a Y chromosome is highly correlated with a tendency to violence. According to:

Why Are Men So Violent? Men perpetrate about 90 percent of the world's homicides

While it is a proven biomarker, it is totally useless, as I predict all other biomarkers that they might find would be.

300K depends where you're driving. In San Francisco or New York (I've lived in both), that's impressive, if 200K of that are backroads in Nevada, it isn't. Said by a human driver who has > 300K since his last and only accident (not my fault, some idiot turned directly in front of me), driving in numerous countries on both sides of the road.

By the way, a computerized car isn't magic, I'll bet it also couldn't have stopped in time though I will admit it might have minimized the damage by braking sooner at least.

Having said all that, I would welcome automatic cars.

I always called them Charbucks - I guess we have the same opinion about their coffee roasting skills.

In the US, there are about 30,000 people killed each year in motor vehicle accidents (10% of those motorcycles). This has been steadily decreasing, implying that cars are already getting safer every year, in spite of the fact that people are driving more and more (about 3 trillion miles last year in the US).

About 11,000 people are killed each year by firearms. This has been increasing since 1999.

While I agree that self-limiting guns are currently fantasy and do not address the root cause of the problem, assuming trends continue (a big assumption, I know), gun related homicides will overtake car accidents soon anyway, even without automated cars (yes, I am ignoring motorcycle accidents in this analysis). If your automated cars (which will cost trillions) do come and *only* reduce "accidents" (I agree, many preventable) by three-fold, guns will then kill more people than cars.

So for me, it is justified to ask, where do I invest money now to increase safety? As has been pointed out already, basic gun technology has changed little in the last 50 years, at least in regard to reducing homicides. I don't know what the solution is, but I suspect that for a smaller investment than for automated cars that you could design something into guns to reduce homicide rates. Since one gun is often used to commit multiple homicides, maybe just a remote deactivation mechanism or a tracking system might help.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year
http://trafficsafety.org/safety/sharing/motorcycle/motor-facts/motor-injuries-fatalities http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbse&sid=31