I’ve been going back through some old blog postings here as part of the migration effort from Harvard’s server.
Here are some things that I got wrong…
- https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2003/04/17/the-death-of-the-media-lab/ (the Media Lab has boomed along with tech in general, though Joi Ito also can take credit)
- https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2003/04/15/you-can-get-a-lot-more-with-a-kind-word-and-a-gun/ (our Iraq “victory”)
- https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2003/04/24/outlining-and-the-presidential-campaign/ (idea: U.S. politics would become more rational and issue/policy-based)
- https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2003/06/04/the-chinese-car/ (embarassing! a prediction that cars made in China would be dramatically cheaper, as little as $3,000 in 2003 dollars, about $4,200 today)
Regarding cheap Chines cars, if you take away all the extra “convince technologies” that come with a car as well as the extra over blown safety features such as collusion detection, rear view camera, etc, you can build a new car at under $10,000 which is not too far off from your prediction of $4,200. Yes it will be a small 4 passenger car but it is doable if all that you want is get from point-A to point-B.
How is a rear-view camera over blown? I use it every day.
Really sad that your blog is no longer hosted on the Harvard domain. The diversity of thought that you added to the Harvard domain was extraordinary.
@ScarletNumbers,
> How is a rear-view camera over blown? I use it every day.
Look at it this way. If your rear-view mirror or headlights are broken, you cannot driver your car day or night for days or weeks on-and-on without getting it fixed sooner than later, but you can drive your car for years on-and-on without having to fix your rear-view camera if it breaks. Thus, it is a convince technologies not a necessity.
I think part of the reason we have cheap Chinese air conditioners but not cars is regulatory capture. There is a monstrous set of rules governing cars sold in the US, and a totally different set of rules for EU cars. Now add the thicket of rules surrounding sales; like how you still can’t legally buy a Tesla in many states due to dealer-protection laws.
>> U.S. politics would become more rational and issue/policy-based
I guess you forgot the 205 years of history when you made that prediction.
https://www.bloombergquint.com/view/what-minimum-wage-foes-got-wrong-about-seattle
has an addendum to parts of
https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/?s=seattle+wage