{"id":150768,"date":"2025-12-06T15:54:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T23:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/?p=150768"},"modified":"2025-12-06T15:54:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T23:54:14","slug":"self-driving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/2025\/12\/self-driving\/","title":{"rendered":"Self-driving"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
There has been some lovely writing about self-driving this week, first in the New York Times where Jonathan Slotkin makes the medical case for autonomous vehicles<\/a>. But I was really taken by The Economist’s look at how self-driving cars will transform urban economies<\/a>. It’s behind a paywall. I enjoyed how they thought about the second-order effects of self-driving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n America is home to 1m taxi and bus drivers, as well as over 3m truck drivers\u2014adding up to 3% of the working population. Other potential losers are less obvious. Without car accidents there will, for instance, be less demand for personal-injury lawyers. If people stop buying cars, dealers and used-car salesmen will go.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n It’s fascinating to think a few chess moves down the line, for example, fewer personal-injury lawyers funding politicians might lead to some form of\u00a0Tort Reform<\/a>, an area of society that, like gun control, has centrist changes most Americans would agree with, but has been captured by special intere<\/span>sts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There has been some lovely writing about self-driving this week, first in the New York Times where Jonathan Slotkin makes the medical case for autonomous vehicles. But I was really taken by The Economist’s look at how self-driving cars will transform urban economies. It’s behind a paywall. I enjoyed how they thought about the second-order … Continue reading Self-driving<\/span> \n