Europe IV: The Final Hour

[Neon Ignition]

Electric, driverless is a dead end

[QualityChimp]

Electric, driverless is a dead end

It was for this guy:
Tesla driver killed while using autopilot was watching Harry Potter

[Neon Ignition]

Exactly, I think there was another case earlier this year which was similar and it let to a fuss over who was to blame. They're going to need to iron out the laws when it comes to driverless conditions which currently seems to be leaning to:

-Must have a qualified driver behind the wheel
-Driver must not engage in any other distractions
-Driver must watch for all hazards, prepared to take action suddenly in case of incident

Might as well be driving. But that's the price too, if they became truly driverless then literally everyone could have one and the number of cars on the road would increase tenfold beyond the infrastructures capacity (bearing in mind they aren't actually carbon neutral). Electric will be the future, especially once you can charge the car in a small amount of time and get 400 miles+ out of it (because I don't think being able to charge at home will remain a thing). Driverless will just become like cruise control and people will still be mostly controlling their own cars.

The real answer...





4 years late dammit!

[Zaki]

It was for this guy:
Tesla driver killed while using autopilot was watching Harry Potter

Someone should send a submarine over to recover that Tesla.

Cleanup crew: I don't think that's going to work Elon.....

Elon: Paedos! (storms off)

[Dogg Thang]

Might as well be driving.

Yep, exactly. I think driverless vehicles are absolutely the future. Really, all they have to do is kill significantly less people than human drivers do, and human drivers kill a fairly impressive amount of people.

But it feels like they have a very long way to go and I think the transition itself will be prohibitive because I feel like one of the biggest struggles for driverless vehicles is dealing with human drivers on the road. A unified system would seem to make sense but that requires everyone to change overnight and to overhaul the road system, pedestrian systems and bikes and everything all at once... which sounds like herding cats. So I don't think it's going to be easy at all and we're nowhere near close to that switch.

[Brad]

If you're the last human driver on the road you'll be able to drive like a total dick and all the AI cars will just back off to let you do whatever you want to do as their robocop "protect human life" algorithm takes priority. It'll be awesome!

[Neon Ignition]

Yep, they'd need to mandate that the humans in the car cannot control the car at all for it to properly work. I know I'd always drive when the options available and I'd imagine the number who would do the same would be quite high. To be honest I'd always imagined that it wasn't going to take until you started to see industries formally adopt it like haulers who would no longer require long distance drivers Logan style.


https://www.theguardian.com/politics...087e8308e5f7f9

Johnson says lots more change to come promising we've not seen anything yet after his attempt to rig in No Deal

[Asura]

Yep, exactly. I think driverless vehicles are absolutely the future. Really, all they have to do is kill significantly less people than human drivers do, and human drivers kill a fairly impressive amount of people.

But it feels like they have a very long way to go and I think the transition itself will be prohibitive because I feel like one of the biggest struggles for driverless vehicles is dealing with human drivers on the road. A unified system would seem to make sense but that requires everyone to change overnight and to overhaul the road system, pedestrian systems and bikes and everything all at once... which sounds like herding cats. So I don't think it's going to be easy at all and we're nowhere near close to that switch.

Yeah; the way it has to work is individual cities will probably modernise their central road networks with driverless systems, then gradually increase the cordon outwards until they reach the edge of cities, and offer park-and-ride schemes for visitors. Once they've done that, eventually close cities will connect their networks and we'll be pretty much there.

That being said, primarily replacing intercity driving with electric is a long way off.

[gIzzE]

Sinn Fein are a political entity. The IRA were paramilitary. Encouraging dialogue to reach a resolution is not ‘sympathising’ with terrorists. He was a huge driver in the Good Friday Agreement and establishing the groundwork for it. His meetings are documented and public. The Tories had actual behind closed doors meetings with actual terrorists, not just the political wings. I’m sure they had their reasons: to end bloodshed, primarily. One of the Tory councillors down your way was an actual IRA soldier tasked with procuring weapons, back in the day. It’s not a case of demonising the Tories. It’s just saying that things are more complicated than the allegations claim.

And?
It doesn't matter what his supporters reasons for him doing it were, at the time he was on the MI5 watchlist and there was lots of talk about just how close he was to those killing his fellow countrymen.
It is how is perceived by the majority of people.
He was a poor choice of party leader as he has a very dodgy past as far as many are concerned.

In the modern era, Johnson’s attitude towards the Saudis is ‘if we don’t sell them weapons, others will. So we might as well. Get out the red carpet.’ Their role in the atrocities in Yemen is deplorable. It seems that terror and atrocities are fair game if you’re selling weapons,.

Atrocious.
Agreed.
And?

......but if you’re a bloke trying to sue for peace in an Empire territory dispute, by actually talking rather than going in all-guns-blazing, you’re a traitorous bastard.

The language he uses is careful. It’s the language of a diplomat. Calling one set of belligerents ‘a bunch of kernts’ will polarise things further, and make things worse. Far better to chose words more carefully.

His language is not careful as far as many are concerned, most want a leader, their leader to back them before others.
On too many occasions he has failed to this. He got away with not really saying anything while on the back benches, but that started to be his downfall.

When has he personally been found to be anti-Semitic? He’s been a total arsehole for failing to deal with it in his own party, but man who has stood by the Jewish community on many occasions to be called ‘anti-Semitic’ is fallacious.

The wreath, the mural and the total inability to deal with the anti semitism within his party.
Someone I went to school with who is a Labour councillor spouts constant ****e about how 'the Jews' are responsible for all the evils in this world. The guy is off his head. I posted the links to videos he had sent us to show why so many in Labour hate the Jews, going back to Hilter was not to blame and not all wrong type ****.
So sorry if I don't share your view of him, but neither do many in the country, and that is what matters.

Labour aren’t far left. It’s democratic socialism. Not communism. It’s basic economic knowledge. What exactly are their policies?

Raise the corporation tax to a level way below many other countries and below the level under Thatcher? Not far left.

Bring utilities and infrastructure under public ownership? This is happening in many capitalist economies throughout the world.

Nationalise the railways? See above. In fact, foreign governments own parts of our railways. This is insanity, not far left dogma.

Nationalised broadband? Japan and South Korea - those famously far left countries - have this.

Properly fund public services as part of an investment-based economy. That’s not far left. The IMF have stated that austerity was a poor way to stimulate economic growth. Investment through borrowing, when the cost of borrowing is at a low, is sound strategy. Getting money flowing through the economy through job creation, the subsequent extra taxation and consumer spending, is what can rejuvenate an economy. Slashing and burning hasn’t worked. So many experts admit this now.

What exactly is far left about any of this? The political debate has shifted so far to the right that anything seen as the norm on the rest of the world, or historically in this country, is now seen as Marxist. It’s drivel. Lazy phrases like ‘magic money trees’ prey on economic naivety. Quantitative easing, anyone? The illusion that a country’s economy can be run on the same parameters as a household economy is simplistic lunacy. Yet these are the myths and the terms of reference repeated ad verbatim by the press and politicians opposed to them.

They want to bring utilities and railways etc. into public ownership and will pay 'book value' for it.
For a start that is illegal.
Governments can't just take over companies and pay what they want for them, that is the sort of thing that starts civil wars, and it would be tearing up the rules that 'most' of the planet agree to.
It was a soundbite, it was a lie.


Corporation tax could increase slightly, but not back to 28%.
When we reduced it we saw revenue increase, and considerably, why? Because large corporations moved parts of their operations back to the UK as they might as well pay tax here.
Now, some argue that if it had been 21% we might have seen as many move back and obviously more revenue, that I think is a fair comment, however, back to 28% and we would see capital flight and then were is the money for their manifesto?

You're also missing out a move to minimum wage of £21k a year for everyone over 16.
Oh, and move to a 4 day week over the next 10 years.

94% of UK businesses have between 1-9 people employed, that would put so many of them in financial trouble it is untrue.
Combine it with the SME corp tax increase of 3% extra and people wouldn't survive.
Corp tax is often paid based on unrealised profit, this is something many who don't run a business fail to grasp.
It is profit on paper, that you pay tax on and which is lost the following year and the cycle continues.


They then had £1.8trillion worth of borrowing to add to UK plc over the next 5 years.
We currently pay £58billion in interest on roughly the same debt now, increasing the debt to double would not just double the debt, but it would triple it because our credit score would fall off a cliff and we would be paying 50% more roughly to service it.

We, as a country can't afford to pay that back.

This is called racking up the credit cards. It is great while you're doing it, but the reality of when your 0% apr deal and the replayments go from £600 a month to £1800 a month and you only have £1000 a month left over to service the debt soon makes you realise what the reality of that borrowing is.

We have got the net deficit down to 3% now, that has been ****ing tough to do over the last 9 years or so, but we have got there, to go back to where we were in 2010 is not a place I, or many others, want to be.



Their whole economic policy was based on lies, it had London about ready to upsticks, it would have left our country on its knees, which those at the bottom being hit hardest as is always the case.

I agree we need to stimulate the economy, I just don't agree that was the way to do it.

[fishbowlhead]

If you're the last human driver on the road you'll be able to drive like a total dick and all the AI cars will just back off to let you do whatever you want to do as their robocop "protect human life" algorithm takes priority. It'll be awesome!

Will be keeping my battered old Scoob in storage for this very day.

[gunrock]

As much as I respect [MENTION=988]gIzzE[/MENTION]'s opinions from the perspective of someone running his own business, I get fed up with the whole "Labour can't run an economy" stuff.

The problem is people have been conditioned to accept the status quo. The underlying reason for our services been run into the ground by subsequent governments both Labour and Tory, is because of policy (or malevolence!) on the part of the Tories, reluctance of the labour party to raise taxes and short-term thinking on infrastructure policy and projects.
Income tax in the UK is low compared to Scandinavia, France and Germany. In the 70s and 80s the basic rate was significantly higher (33% in 1979) and the facts remain, that you can't have great infrastructure and services if you don't pay for it.

The short-termism is a major problem because governments look for vote winning projects and programmes that will provide results in a single 5 year term or less. This is folly. The railways and London Underground weren't built by the Victorians in a succession of sub-5 year projects.
The fact that Labour party left-leaning politics dont appeal to the working masses is a testament to how good the Tories and Tory-press have been at buying the vote of working class people with tax cuts and right-to-buy. The fact that this has happened and Labour under Blair continued this form of policy making (keeping to Tory spending rules - for a while) and accelerating it with policies like tuition fees, is a disgrace.
It seems you have a choice in UK politics of Tory or Tory-lite. Anything else loses its deposit at the polling booth.

[Neon Ignition]

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/polands-judicial-reforms-put-eu-membership-at-risk-warns-top-court/ar-BBY6uhw?li=AAnZ9Ug&ocid=iehp

The Supreme Court in Poland has issued a warning over plans there to change judiciary rules so that Judges can be removed if they take part in activities that are of a political nature. The Supreme Court has warned that if the changes take place then Poland may be forced to leave the EU.

[vanpeebles]

More countries will follow us out, we are the start.

[gIzzE]

Gunrock, I agree with pretty much everything you said.

If it were me I would raise the starting rate of tax to the minimum wage level, then from £17k-25k 22%, 25-30k 25%, 30-35k 28%, 35-45k, 30%, 45-55k, 35%, 55-80k 40%, 80-120k 45%, 120-250k 50%, £250+ 55%.

Someone on minimum wage should not be paying tax. That to me is far better than raising the minimum wage and then taxing them. It puts less pressure on businesses and it means those that will probably never earn more than minimum wage for whatever reason or who are starting out on their work career will get the opportunity to work and not get ignored by employers.

The tax take would be better, but I think people would be happier with that system, pay slightly less when you earn up to £30k but if you earn £35k you are paying a smidge more, and as you earn more you are paying slightly more than now.


I agree austerity has been terrible for the UK people over the last decade, but the reality is we had no choice. We were in serious debt, our credit rating was through the floor, and we had to prove we were going to get our deficit down to get an interest rate that was not going to get us into more debt. We were in a pretty **** and scary place financially.

There should have been a cull within the NHS, get rid of the layers of management, cancel the contracts where outsources worker take the complete and utter piss on pricing, and that money could have been put back into education and policing as well as increasing our NHS staff who are the real workers, not managers, by roughly 25%.
The issue was the contracts, it is extremely difficult to get out of the contracts without the unions taking you to court and wiping out any savings and some.

This is why we need a party who dares say, we will tax those who are not at the bottom more, and we will shake up the services you care about, but the country will be better for it.
People might moan a bit, but I think most would say "You know what? I can live with that."



I don't think Labour can't run the economy, the issue with Corybn and McDonnell is they seemed more into taking over businesses and taking businesses, which is what those two have always dreamt about.
You have to remember, these two have dreamt about a state run country for the last 40 years, it is what they have wanted all that time, it is what they have talked about and dreamed of, and this was the one opportunity they had to get it in place, and they had the chance to do it with approval of the UK's population as "well, it was in our manifesto."
John McDonnell has been pretty open about his Marxist dream, he does genuinely believe the country would be better for it.

Of course taxing businesses is no bad thing, but they were then talking about turnover tax, which to me shows they really don't understand just how tight it is for many businesses in the UK.
They conflate the massive corporates who move profits around the globe to avoid paying tax to the UK, with small businesses who are struggling to get through each year, and it is that lack of understanding that scares so many.
The problem is when they say "We are going after the businesses" everyone who is employed thinks of the Amazons of this world, the reality however is, 99% of business in the UK are SMEs, which is 1-49 employees, of those, 96% are micro, which is 1-9 employees.
The reality of their proposals this time round could have been absolutely catastrophic for the country.

[gIzzE]

This article sums up perfectly how so many people feel at the moment.....

https://unherd.com/2019/12/does-labour-understand-why-it-lost/