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RamblingCTO parent
Kinda offtopic, but I think this is so dystopian as it's only the beginning. Technocracy at its best. Have a bad starter and don't wanna stop the car? The numbers and rules don't care, no room for benevolence.
olivermuty
My kids asthma wants your commercial car in a service bay, not idling outside a restaurant. I am all for not making a technocratic dystopia but this reasoning seems wrong lol
RamblingCTO OP
I understand! But still, I feel like mechanising these things is an issue, especially with the authoritarian people rising (especially in the US) all over the world. I'm annoyed at idling cars (especially taxis here in Germany) as well, but I feel like the pollution is very minor. Still illegal though.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number-plate_recogni... I agree with the "slippery slope" theme. I would wish for more rules being enforced more. But not if the price is a technocratic law enforcement machine.

whycome
That’s the problem. Major polluters have convinced people it’s the small scale production to attack rather than the giant industrial polluters. We also allow incredibly inefficient engines that produce lots of pollution.

How about a pollution credit trading program then? If my efficient car produces way less pollution than your gas-guzzling truck, I should get the room to idle until I reach our agreed max.

A technological snitch program is a weird and messed up outcome when we ignore the base problems.

But, cool technical achievement. I’m scared that a similar parking snitch program is all too easy as well. Car parked 3.5 hours in a 3hr max neighbourhood? Get them fined and get a sweet bounty! Thanks I hate it.

whstl
> Major polluters have convinced people it’s the small scale production to attack rather than the giant industrial polluters

It's both. A car idling outside your window is still gonna be an issue even if the planet somehow solve the big stuff.

dale_huevo
Maybe the commercial driver has asthma too and needs to run the AC.
ksynwa
Your kid's asthms would appreciate more if there were fewer cars on roads and logistics leaned more on robust public transportation rather than putting the onus on individual household to own and operate multi-tonne vehicles.
toomuchtodo
New York City has already implemented a congestion surcharge in Manhattan to destroy demand for using personal vehicles, and has a robust public transit system. The only step left would be mandating EVs, and outlawing combustion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehic...

theptip
Right now we are in the “laws are seldom actually enforced” regime.

It seems pretty clear that laws will be enforced more in future, the obvious response is to go prune the laws to get rid of the ones that we actually aren’t OK with being enforced.

bluescrn
Laws will be enforced if it's safe and profitable to do so, especially if the process can be fully automated.

Meanwhile, industrial-scale shoplifting, hard drugs, sex crimes, riots. No automated enforcement possible there, let alone profitable automated enforcement.

theptip
I feel things like shoplifting should actually be automatable, it’s a question of ROI currently.

One idea I play with is “police 2.0” where you can dispatch a small fast drone to a crime scene, and follow the perp from a safe distance. A lot of crimes could be solved this way (eg car chases, illegal dirt bike gangs, petty robbery etc).

I really don’t want pervasive surveillance, but perhaps there is a middle ground where response times are fast enough that you can be purely reactive to a 911 call/app.

Feels quite slippery-slope though. I think we should expect increased debate on the social contract as these new systems become more capable and the “enforcement gap” becomes larger.

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