I don't think we should limit to just engineering; you see this stuff in media, politics, finances, statistics, etc. Anything that is not well understood by the public at large is ripe for misuse.
There have been amazing leaps in astrophysics; gravitational wave detection, planet detection around other stars (>4000), first image of a black hole, not to mention all the space probes doing science throughout the solar system. Outside of astrophysics, I think CRISPR has tremendous potential as well.
I don't disagree that too much of our collective intelligence is spent trying to sell advertisements, it's a shame.
Currently, the demand is still strong enough that the wait time on a new TM3 is 4-8 weeks. That may decrease, but right now Tesla can't make them fast enough.
The IIHS rates TM3 it's top tier aware of Top Safety Pick+ which is a higher rating than the Bolt (noted in the article)[0]. This doesn't factor in autopilot although it does evaluate collision avoidance systems, which must rate advanced to superior.
There are 35 thousand deaths per year as a result of car crashes, and over 6 million total crashes[0]. If autonomous cars reduce those deaths to hundreds and overall crashes to thousands, I think you're underestimating the number of people that will sign up for that.
With Peter Thiel and Carl Icahn as both close Trump advisors and Lyft investors[1], I wonder if the damage done on one side will equal the benefit of these lofty climate goals on the other? As a concerned citizen, I applaud their effort, but I think companies like Tesla are doing far more to drive the conversion to electric cars. That being said, we need every company to do their part, so kudos Lyft!
A couple thoughts - what is equally? The US is the historically the largest contributor of greenhouse gases by a wide margin[1]. And last I checked, a vast majority of people support the agreement[2], including half of trump supporters.
> The US is the historically the largest contributor of greenhouse gases by a wide margin
Sure, but guess what: China is right behind us. History means squat. They're a major polluter _right now_. Why are they not held to the same standard we are?
They're not held to the same standard because if they were, they would rightfull refuse to sign on:
China's GDP was 10.87 trillion USD in 2015 vs 17.95 trillion USD for the US. GDP per capita was 7,926 in 2015 vs 55,836 in the US. China is still a poor country.
When China reaches a comparable GDP per capita, then we can expect comparable cuts to be on the table.
Until then expecting sharp cuts from developing countries will not be a viable alternative.
Why are per-capita emissions a more important number than net emissions? With the former, China is behind us (roughly half) whereas with the latter, they're roughly double based on the current Wikipedia numbers.
But as for why they are important, I think that there is some relationship between how people live and per-capita emissions. So if you ignore the population size and only look at net emissions, the people in larger countries would be held to a higher standard than the people in the smaller countries.
China has a a few hundred thousand metric tons before they are close to the historical pollution we have contributed. And last I checked, they are still committed to taking action[1]... if only we could say the same.
Things I've learned in life(mostly the hard way) include that fair is not a thing and does not exist.
