In actuality, it was supposed to be representative of everyone with skin in the game, so to speak. Yes, that would by definition be the wealthy. That's how our founders set up our government, a republic, not a democracy.

The "utopian" future is coming whether we like it or not. The question is whether it will be Star Trek or Blade Runner.

That is extremely short term as robots will also be doing that work within 5-10 years. Personally, the self-driving car bits will be 10 years or less, probably closer to 5 before it starts making large inroads.

And we return to the original statement - no need to buy or maintain a car, nor a place to park it. If you're willing to pay for both, and the extra insurance, that's your choice.

That was my point.

No faith at all, this is a punitive system, and you're automatically out if you violate it. It would rapidly remove those worst elements permanently, and that would allow the rest to enjoy the system. The removed group would be a different problem, I don't address that here.

Sadly, a mere ODB-II scantool isn't going to do it for me. I need something that allows me to actually read the car specific codes and potentially do some coding, certainly reset vendor specific codes. As for high schools, what on earth are they teaching their students these days? If they're gutting those types of things, surely they replaced them with something worthwhile?

I can unequivocally state that dealers absolutely don't know what they're doing. Changing brakes, oil, gaskets, sensors, etc, isn't hard, otherwise your average high school shop kid couldn't work on their cars. The only "hard" part is the tuning and diagnosing electronics which may require an adapter cable for your ODB-II plug on 2000 and later cars and special software. It's all available, although it may cost you.

You do realize that essentially only 2 things combined caused him to fail? The invasion of Russia being delayed by a month alone might have made the difference, but the attack on Pearl Harbor sealed the deal. Without the latter, the US likely would not have entered the war in time to save Britain, which was on the brink of surrendering. Without Britain as a staging area, WWII could have had very different results. You're seeing a similar territory and power grab being made by ISIL today.

Yeah, I looked at them, wasn't overly impressed for the price. When they come down to $250 (price of current lawn mower) and work easily enough for Joe SixPack to plugin, you'll see them take off.

So you got in, now your driverless car quickly and efficiently takes you to the nearest law enforcement officer with a pre-notification of a violent offender needing apprehension.

Or, they use IDs, and those IDs have to be registered, and if you trash a vehicle, your ID (and you) are banned forever. That's most likely going to be a big enough hammer alone, without vandalism and other legal charges, to keep 99.999% of the populace in line.

How do you know I'm not exactly that person? Are there unexpected trips? Sure. Are the majority unexpected? Then you have a scheduling problem and/or are not in control of your life. No one "needs" a car "parked outside, all the time, in case she needs it unexpectedly". That's like saying you need a fully staffed ambulance, police car and fire truck parked outside your house, 24x7, just in case. They won't be used 99% of the time, but geez, what if?

This would be worth it if I hadn't just upgraded to a lesser technology. In 2-3 years I guess I'll be ready for the next upgrade. Guess I'm no longer on the bleeding edge.

Seems like a fair trade-off, I'm leaving for work at 9:48.... the car's there at 9:48. Note I haven't said anything about cost here, nor any of a host of other things, because I leapfrogged a whole plethora of issues and concepts to make it short. Basically, this would be a base level of travel in some sort of electric vehicle powered by renewable (essentially free) power generation. (If we're dreaming, might as well go 110%, and I was responding to a "what if" post)

Yes, there will be more, we're going to see more no matter what future we get to, unless there's a whole lot of turmoil. The question is whether the middle/bottom layers live under bridges or have a reasonable lifestyle. This would be an entire topic on its own.

Back to futuristic dream world mode - the commute would be part of your 4 hour work day, in a 4 day work week.

I have no idea where you live, but I can guarantee you that the majority of trucks in a 300 mile radius drive between 7am-10am and 3pm-6pm here, M-Sa, depending upon which freeways/highways you're on. Yes, they try to avoid the bulk of rush hour by avoiding the 8-9 and 4:30-5:30 time periods, I think, but that could just be that there's so many more cars on the road that the trucks just seem less numerous in comparison. If I want to avoid trucks in this area, I start driving at 4am, or after 8pm. IOW - BS.

Same place some of these statements came from - that futuristic dreamworld.

I think you're still too short sighted. Imagine not needing to buy a car (Uber driverless anyone?) Just call and boom, there's your vehicle. The masses won't need to own vehicles, and only the truly well off will own their own, primarily to have a known nice clean vehicle. That means there's no parking issue in general. For some, that ride in to work would be work time, so commute time essentially disappears. With truly optimized driverless systems, even rush hour becomes less problematic. Trucks could be scheduled to drive in non-rush hours. Add to that automated lawn care and various other services, and you'll also have a lot less traffic.