The ridesharing systems (like uber pool and lyft line) are meant to alleviate that utilization problem. Zipcar has no experience with the complex logistics automation work for ridesharing that Uber and Lyft are doing, nor do they have a large enough userbase to make that ridesharing system viable and competitive.
Isn't the loss of objectivity just a result of the question having more degrees of freedom than it does constraints, and the subjectivity just comes from picking which constraints to assume? Doesn't a well defined goal turn that question into a positive question?
A simpler example could be, "is it better for me to build a bridge over a highway out of cardboard or out of steel?"
It's superficially normative but becomes a positive question as soon as you define the constraint that a bridge that no one needlessly dies while walking across is better than one that kills people.
At that point all of these questions become scientifically approachable, although some are likely still hopelessly complex, as soon as you assume an axiom like, "it is best to maximize the ratio of well being over conscious suffering."
What that axiom should actually be is likely a nearly unapproachably complex amalgamation of philosophy, but it seems more reasonable to work with something than assume that there is no right answer, especially when we seem to be rapidly approaching the point of needing to have software systems make quick ethical decisions.
Yeah, but the constraints themselves that define the scientific endeavour, or the preference over bridges that don't kill people, are not and cannot be scientific.
Science is necessarily neutral in that regard; it's a tool to achieve some goals that, as you said, require a judgement value. There is some moral knowledge that provides value and motivation, and which is not scientific knowledge.
> Is this not just an underdetermined question?
Not in philosophy, no. The mother of all sciences has ways to deal with the question, which is meaningless from a purely scientific POV, but which nevertheless merits being studied. For example, it could guide you to choose and refine the guiding principles for programming your autonomous car, and to analyze whether your missing something in your "amalgamation of philosophy" that you used as the basis of that technology project.
I can't find a better source, but sci-hub's wikipedia page [1] says that new articles are accessed through educational institution proxies and then stored in libgen for future access.
I've only used Ableton, FL and Reason, so there could be something I'm missing, but doesn't Reaper support vsts? How could the ecosystem for plugins possibly be weak?
VST/3/AU/DX, and it supports scripting your own in JS as well. Unless they're upset about not having LADSPA or Nyquist, I can't imagine what else they'd be referring to that isn't proprietary AVID garbage.
Is it unrealistic that the gigafactory will create a near-monopoly on batteries for self-driving cars?
They're going to own about half of the world's battery production capacity at ~30% reduction in cost per kwh over current production. Plus they're planning three more factories.
Selling core tech to other car companies seems like a lucrative long term move.
> Is it unrealistic that the gigafactory will create a near-monopoly on batteries for self-driving cars?
How would it do that? And why are self-driving cars a separate category when it comes to battery suppliers?
> They're going to own about half of the world's battery production capacity
There should be about 200 GWh of worldwide production capacity by the time GF1 is fully ramped up. That means they'll have about 17% of it, not half. BYD alone will match that. So will Foxconn and Boston Power. Then there's LG Chem, Samsung SDI, SK Innovation, etc.
These names have committed over $20 billion to additional battery factories over the next 2-3 years, many of which have already broken ground. They're also largely ahead of Tesla's position in the battery business already, are better capitalized, and have no intention of dropping out of the market rather than expanding to meet the expected future demand.
It's easy to get roped in by Tesla's press releases and marketing materials, where they do things like compare the GF's expected production rate at the end of 2018 to worldwide production numbers from 2013. The rest of the market isn't standing still.
I'm not at all an expert, but from my limited perspective this looks like a problem that blockchain could potentially help with in the future.
It seems like someone could implement an open source system of smart contracts that automatically pay out healthcare costs and distribute expenses in a transparent and agreed upon way. The organization could have an extremely decreased overhead compared to a physical company because it would need almost no staff or infrastructure, and if everyone can see the source for how money moves as well as the distributed ledger for how spending works it would be highly corruption resistant while still allowing for security of doctor-patient confidentiality due to the encrypted nature of blockchain.
Of course it would by default being extremely susceptible to external abuse, would have a ton of complexities in interfacing with the healthcare system, and wouldn't be viable until/unless blockchain and related tech matures and gains mass market acceptance.
I could be totally wrong about the approach, but I'm really hopeful for the tech world to be able to make a dent in this mess. Hopefully some people with more experience have better ideas.
