Could someone please provide a car analogy to help explain this discussion?

Do they even have a 4th amendment there?

I did not even think of avoiding anything. I simply disagree with the static modeling of economics. No adjustments, no adaptation, never-before-seen circumstances (I also disagree with that, the industrial revolution is a great analog worthy of your study).

It does seem like you want to avoid the obvious -- if things really are dire as you predict, the 1% would have no wealth, as there would be virtually no functioning economy and thus all their holdings would be worthless. What is a stock portfolio or any other asset worth if there is no economy? What do the 1% own that has any value in a dead economy?

I guess I just don't care what they do with their own money, what they do with their legal earnings, and I don't care what they do with their lives. I don't want anyone arbitrarily deciding you or I have "too much." If you want some of my earnings, produce something I want and you can earn it -- I will hand it to you in exchange. Create a smart business and I will invest in you and provide growth for you and your associates. Mutually beneficial, no force involved.

Imagine the positive world coming where the average -- no, every -- person has access to ultra-affordable necessities and a happy standard of living. That is possible with greater efficiency leaps through technical advances. That is a brighter future, my friend. It requires work, adaptation involves effort. But it is positive.

Automation will create more wealthy people, who cares? Freedom includes the potential to serve millions or billions and earn money from the ones your serve, voluntarily. Great. We can't let that deter us from the overall improvement of the world that's possible.

Improved GPS and other refined sensors, plus inter-vehicle convoying communications, all will outperform a human who is limited to visual data in a super narrow spectrum.

All my mods points are gone too soon. +1

Exactly right, and there will not be a sudden 3.5 million man unemployment surge. This will develop slowly over time.

Prediction: I think it is Australia that already has the truck-train rigs, some ungodly number of trailers connected to one super truck -- this AI will build virtual truck trains working in unison, miles long like a real train (especially the cross continent runs) and laws will follow that provide stiff penalties for dumb car drivers who get in the mix. The "AI convoy system" will be far safer, as the cars will be excluded.

Think of the drop off in work for the morticians & detectives, fewer dead hookers at truck stops. But then think of the new jobs in designing hookerbots for the automated trucks...

"Hey sailing unit...um, driving unit..."

Fuel-free trucks is not the topic. Automation of truck driving is. Your fuel station will adapt; you'll probably need to add staff to go out and pump fuel into the automated trucks, maybe add some services once the specifics of these systems are known (cleaning sensors?) and should be able to offer key advantages by doing so. You may become the preferred station in the area for that reason. And you're going to be creating some jobs, so it just gets better and better.

Shatter resistant glass would hurt the window repair industry, so that should be stopped in its development tracks too. Think of the multigenerational family glass businesses who depend on broken window vandalism, they planned their lives around broken glass. We could break some windows while we're at it, just to boost their industry.

With respect, I have never understood this static economic argument. It feels like more venting at the wealthy without a basis in rational economics. That is your right, it would just be nice to have such as that labelled as, "I just hate people who have saved a lot more than I have; I want to vent."

Those evil rich bastards are going to keep getting richer off of what? If there is no one capable of sustaining a free market, from where do the 1% make their ever-flowing profits? Or how do they even keep their wealth intact without a free market? Selling each other 1% brand soap?

This is more static analysis (unless it is just venting, again, you're perfectly free to do that). What is more likely is that people will continue to adapt to automation, as they do and have done during any such period of economic change. Some may begin focusing on equity - owning a stake in their economy, some may begin to more highly value useful education to escape the automated drone work, maybe there will be a resurgence in careers that are not automation friendly, or a thousand million other adaptations. But people will not sit around and starve, and the 1% will not thrive on some mythical market limited to catering to each other while the 99% are displaced, unemployed and homeless.

Each farm tractor sold replaced dozens or even hundreds of jobs-- good, blue collar, back breaking jobs. It drove down expenses and made food so affordable that starvation reached historical lows. All those unemployed field workers, all that ultra-cheap food... but where is the resulting collapse of free market? A bunch of farm tractor 1%ers did not rule over a dead market. It just makes no sense.

For the 4000 dead and their thousands of friends and families, the answer is pretty obvious. If your economic model is only viable through killing off random citizens by accident to maintain inefficient employment, then it does not deserve to survive.

Static analysis of economics is as useful as static analysis of weather. It's not that one day we will wake up to 3.5 million newly unemployed truckers. It is that we will gradually have a reduction in their numbers as autonomous systems ease into the market -- and the displaced drivers will begin working elsewhere within the industry or otherwise. They are demonstrably willing to work, and willing to work long hours on their own recognizance, so right there are key qualities that make them highly employable in another blue collar position if they so choose.

Some would argue that the Yugo was a single serve car experience. So there's that.

Current live webcam stream shows Romans still alive, thriving.

You missed my point, possibly because I did not elaborate, so that's on me. Here's my logic.

The current FB demographics for the high use crowd -- the engagement curve that shows the people who spend the time on the site -- shows that under 25's aren't FB active like the over-25 crowd. This may make sense anecdotally; ask a teen or college student and they'll tell you they only us FB when required by the situation (logins, access to contact one of those FB-only businesses mentioned in the OP, etc). They do not spend actual free time looking at FB as a social platform of preference.

Therefore, as the current FB crowd ages over the coming decade, the idea put forth in the OP comment about the state of the Internet outside FB being akin to a ghetto is not true. 10 years from now the current 24-and-unders will be 34-and-unders. They will be active and vital, economically powerful, and importantly, still not on FB.

FB will continue to average up on their demographics until it is the walled garden of the older crowd, supplying news and feeds to that greying group -- while the drivers of trends, the under 35's at that point, will still be the non-FB crowd.

All this assumes FB can't find a way to become relevant to the younger generations, it is possible but difficult. But they can grow ever more massive on the money and spending power of the 35 to 100 year olds though, who by then are too entrenched to switch out of the FB ecosystem.

Which creates a new topic -- the development of next generation AI for the purpose of automated migration of all those middle aged people's digital lives from FB to the replacement social network -- VRBook or whatever.

Or maybe that is why FB is in the VR space, to create a VR-powered FB2.0 for the youngest members of society to have their own too-cool-for-grownups social network like FB was originally. It would give them a place away from parents ( a current reason given for the falling away of the kids from FB) and it would stay youth-only since grandma is not going to put on an Oculus rig to interact with great grandson or to post her latest recipe on his VR 'wall' and "like' his new VR pet (a Raptordoodle hydbrid dino dog).

No.

The usage of people under 25 is on the downslope, so this will become a walled elder garden. The grey beards will be on the inside, keeping the younsters off the FB lawn.

Cloud based commercial/pro video edit + collaboration is already being done at the top end of the market where the demands are greatest: http://www.forscene.com/