“Despite all my rage I’m still just a rat in a cage”

&

“So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell
Blue skies from pain
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you could tell?
Did they get you trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here
We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl
Year after year
Running over the same old ground
What have we found
The same old fears
Wish you were here”

I’ve ridden in a few Waymo’s before, in SF they can be more dependable or easier to get than other ride options. I never felt like I was ever in danger in one.

Within my handful of experiences with them I’ve never had to use the help button or features to request assistance from a tele-operator but it was clear that they weren’t trying to hide the function from the passengers as the feature was explained and clearly labeled.

A friend who uses them often told me of the one time he needed to ask for assistance when their Waymo was stuck behind a doordash scooter with its hazard lights on that was either delivering or picking up and blocking a turn lane in downtown SF. The Waymo didn’t know what to do to get around it, my friend hit the button for assistance, a voice came over the speakers asking how they could help, my friend explained the situation and the tele-operator drove the car to safely navigate the situation. He said it was probably 1.5-2mins of tota inconvenience with 75% of that time was him wondering if he should hit the help button or not.

I understand a lot of AI implementation, such as Amazon Fresh or other business models have been hiding offshored human assistance within their “AI” features, which I do agree with you is deceitful but my experience with Waymo was not that. They did not hide or obfuscate that function and feature of the service but actively informed the passenger of its existence.

Granted, I haven’t ridden in one for almost a year at this point and I only did so in the SF market so things may have changed since or are different elsewhere.

Also, I can’t say that I follow the news intently about Waymo, I know they have run over a couple cats but I hadn’t heard anything about them killing people. Has that happened?

According to lore anyone over 30 who is still a virgin becomes a wizard and that is why there are so few wizards about.

So your competition would be a wizards battle. No offense but I’d buy tickets to that event.

This is an aside that is not really a response to your message.

Most people assume that because something isn’t easy to make explode that it is also isn’t easy to turn it off.

I’ve always assumed this isn’t true, that the two things are asymmetrical.

If it was built by the military or some other professional outfit that makes explody things, and not hobbled together in a cave somewhere, then the people making it actually don’t want it to explode for the vast majority of that things existence. Bombs are designed to only explode under very specific circumstances and there should be many off switches to prevent it from accidentally exploding or to accommodate for people changing their mind after activating it.

Like, you should need codes, special keys, synchronized activation switches and a countdown to make bombs blow up but I always assumed the designers of such things would build in so many failsafes that there would at least be a very prominent off switch that is clearly labeled on the outer shell… heck, there would probably be several depending on the size of the bomb.

Anyway, I always imagined that if I was alone with an ICBM I could disarm it somewhat easily during the countdown. I’ve never really researched whether my assumption is right because I’ve never thought I’d ever actually find myself alone with one during a situation like that. I could be wrong 🤷‍♂️