There are a lot of people on this site who understand that. There are also some who don't, and I question what they are doing here.

I feel bad for drivers who've started on one of these "self-driving" cars and never learned how to (for example) keep a steady lane, or the correct way to reverse (turning your body around). I feel even worse for having to share the road with them.

Many cars on the lot today seem designed to baby the driver to disconnect from the road and get in some quick FaceTime on the freeway. That's the "luxury" automakers are pushing today.

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For the 3 days a year that I need navigation, I don't have a problem sticking my phone on my windshield. Well-worth the privacy and security for the other 362 days.

I hadn't considered security updates, but I hope disabling all the remote features on the in-vehicle display and calling the manufacturer to disable the SIM has reduced the attack surface.

I would hope any critical safety/security updates have a recall notice sent out to alert me to visit the dealer. But I know that's probably not the case.

And fuck, even fish have better healthcare than I do.

Whatever the company loses in MSRP discounts they'll claw back through monthly fees. Tesla buyers in 2026... the company sure knows its target market. I do hope the company stays afloat, and all those customers stay there, instead of contaminating the rest of the market with their burning desire for another monthly fee.

More likely is they take the brake pedal away entirely and give it to the computer. Which you in turn subscribe to, for amazing features like "accelerating" and "braking".

An automated system wouldn't have the same situational awareness. Some parts of the plane might be smashed up, doors inaccessible, things outside a door (fire) preventing it from being used, etc.

You can also pay 50 cents for every brake manoeuvre. Coin slot included.

A friend was a flight attendant on the recent suicide-by-aircraft-engine-injestion incident. People don't listen; they take videos, they grab their rollerboards and everything else, they do stupid things (and apparently some flight attendants freeze up and forget to open their door). Just to throw it out there, the real reason you should not take a bag with you is it will greatly increase the risk of injury as you evacuate. Someone at the bottom of the slide is supposed to help you stop-- if you take them out with your baggage that is much less likely to happen. If it is important, have it on your body at least for taxi, takeoff, and landing.

Safety briefings really need to change. They need to be compact, concise, and focused on the high risk events. They don't need to be comedy, they can't be advertisements, and they need to have a system to make it permanent memory for people that do fly a lot, kind of like education.

>"How many cars have you driven, that had elegant, well-crafted user interfaces in their software? Maybe Tesla?"

Tesla blows it by having no dashboard, few physical controls, and having the horrible "tablet on a stick" look. They admittedly have good software/interface, but then ruined it with the physical implementation. Had they stayed with the original model S concept- a nicely INTEGRATED center panel and with a real dashboard display and good physical controls, I would have considered them. As such, I went with something with a wonderful dashboard and controls (and much nicer looking exterior and interior), but lesser sophisticated software/UI. And I am glad I did.

>"So that's it for GM. BMW already went that way, VW, and Toyota is starting to sniff out the subscription markets too."

Nissan already does it. They all do it, at least on some services. And if there are any that don't, they will soon. Once you spend a TON on a new vehicle with fancy features, you are stuck. Especially with the driver assist stuff that actually does rely on continued map and other updates. I will grant those services probably should be paid services. However, you are a captive audience at that point, and it shouldn't cost owners several hundred dollars a year for something that really only costs the company a few dollars.

1) There can be no competition in that space. So there is zero market pressure to keep pricing reasonable.
2) Most consumers aren't going to know or shop those costs at vehicle purchase time, since they will be "free" for X years.
3) The pricing could and does change at any time. So even if you thought it might be $200/yr, that means nothing when 3 years later and it is then $400/yr.
4) You don't even have assurance the services will even be available X years into the future. At some point support is lost, regardless, and some of those fancy features will stop working.

And a final note about pricing. Once my Ariya ProPilot 2 included subscription runs out, I probably won't renew, which will revert me to ProPilot 1 functionality. Why? Because I only drive about 2,000 miles a year. The company charges the same rate to everyone, which means it has far, far, far less value for owners like me (because it costs far, far, far more per mile or per trip or per use). I image most of the companies do this flat-rate thing, and it will only seem "fair" to, at most, those driving/using the features the "average" amount or more.

Yes there is a command structure but the command structure goes up to and includes democratically elected civilians. Our army is managed and overseen by civilians democratically elected to prevent exactly what you're describing. There is a complex series of committees and oversight that most Americans are blissfully unaware of. Senator Warren will be happy to talk your ear off about it because she serves on all of those committees.

Also remember if you are given an unlawful order you have a duty to disobey that order. That is not fascism. Fascism is a duty to a single individual. The US military has no such duty. Your duty is to the US Constitution and the United States and its democracy.

Now one more election with the fascists winning and yeah the army will be fascist because the civilian infrastructure that controls and oversees it will be fascist. But that's because the entire country is fascist.

We have a shitload of systems designed to prevent fascism and they are gradually being broken down. They have not completely broken down but the fascists have been working on this since newt Gingrich came up with the contract with America. So we are pretty far along in the process. It's a classic chesterton's fence where we kept tearing down a fence without knowing why it was put there

Sort of a modern re-phrasing of "He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee"

A Godwin thread, how fun! I'll play.

I thought I'd take a look at wiki to refresh my terms, which sayeth, "Fascism is characterized by support for a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.[3][4]"

Good enough atm. So, on to the Gedankenspiel...

support for a dictatorial leader: I got gigged in basic for not saluting the general's *empty* car. You can bet I supported dear leader's conveyances and anyone decorated with pretty bits of metal on their collar tabs for the next four. Dictatorial? No. They have limits. Authoritarian, yes.
centralized autocracy: Centralized, yes. Autocracy, no.
militarism: Well...
forcible suppression of opposition: Hmmm. Does fragging count?
belief in a natural social hierarchy: Hierarchy, yes. Natural? For some, yes, for most, it takes months or years to gain steps up the ladder.
subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race: For most I'd say nation for sure. Some might secretly have racial overtones, but nothing like most homogenous nations where the race *is* the nation.
and strong regimentation of society: Yes. Two or more battalions are actually called a "regiment".
and the economy: See Pres. Eisenhower and MIC.

And, ofc, the caveat: "What constitutes a precise definition of fascism has been a longrunning and complex debate among scholars." So, yeah, there's lots of ways to slice and dice.