[mindcandy]

“About half of all food deliveries globally are shorter than 2 and a half miles, which basically means that all of our cities are filled with burrito taxis”

There is a future where a city's burrito taxis are replaced with drones rolling on the sidewalk or flying to the rooftops. And, the large majority of the remaining city drivers are replaced by robotaxis with multi-sensor 360 tracking. Where there are nearly zero parked cars. So, the parking spaces have been replaced with bike lanes of bikers and scooters with every robotaxi on the street planning around their motion.

Far less fuel consumption. Far less street crowding. Far fewer accidents.

And, of course everyone hates the idea.

[swatcoder]

What do you think the noise is like in your future city? How many cameras and microphones are constantly streaming everything they see and hear into some corporation's private cloud? How many advertisements do we see on our pleasant bike ride? What's it like when a blizzard or flood drives the environment far outside of training norms? Have the debris-collecting drones already been deployed to clean up e-waste when the built-to-be-abandoned delivery drones lose battery or guidance, or is that a V2 thing? Are the police equipped to track down to track down the hacker that overrode my delivery drone?

We used to have books exploring scenarios like this. They were great books, a lot of time, but the most convincing ones didn't paint your future to be a very pretty, peaceful, or equitable one. You might want to read some, at least to understand why some people might be inclined to "hate this idea".

[saghm]

> How many cameras and microphones are constantly streaming everything they see and hear into some corporation's private cloud?

For what it's worth, the answer for this question for today is already probably fairly high for most large US cities, unfortunately

[CameronBanga]

The Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel is the solution.

[pirates]

Yes in fact I do hate the idea of dozens to hundreds of drones per day flying around my house and neighborhood.

[Sabinus]

There are thousands of vehicles moving around your house and neighbourhood already. The vast majority of them are large enough to kill you, and emit fumes that poison you and the atmosphere.

Cities will have lots of drone deliveries in them in the future. And it'll be more safe and economical than the current situation.

[glitcher]

Pneumatic burrito tubes directly into my home is the future I want.

[kiernanmcgowan]

I’m working on a burrito artillery system. It’s the ideal form factor for high velocity chorizo but the delivery tends to make a mess.

[crooked-v]

Recently there's been a lot of anger in San Francisco about a Waymo (which have an excellent safety record with humans) killing an outdoor cat who that walked under the car and sat in front of a tire, when not long after someone was killed by a person backing into a crosswalk and it was a barely a blip on the radar.

[boh]

The person who killed the bystander has social/legal/financial ramifications. Google had zero.

Anyone ever ask themselves why they have a knee-jerk impulse to support a billion dollar company's attempt at centralizing transportation?I'm sorry but safety and making your life easier isn't Silicon Valley's main concern.

[slillibri]

I hate it because the last thing we need on sidewalks, at least here in Seattle, is more junk making it impossible to walk anywhere.