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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday July 26 2017, @02:44AM   Printer-friendly
from the maybe-they-can-be-tech-support-for-the-cars dept.

India is resisting the push towards driverless cars in order to protect jobs, its transport minister has said.

Nitin Gadkari said the government would "not allow any technology that takes away jobs".

He said India needed to recruit about 22,000 more commercial drivers and would be opening 100 training facilities to address the need.

India's road system and sometimes chaotic traffic makes it a difficult place to develop the technology.

The Hindustan Times reports Mr Gadkari as saying: "We won't allow driverless cars in India. I am very clear on this.

"In a country where you have unemployment, you can't have a technology that ends up taking people's jobs."

Wonder what Mr. Gadkari's position is on the technology that has outsourced jobs in America and Europe to India?


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by MadTinfoilHatter on Wednesday July 26 2017, @03:13AM (6 children)

    by MadTinfoilHatter (4635) on Wednesday July 26 2017, @03:13AM (#544443)

    Nitin Gadkari said the government would "not allow any technology that takes away jobs".

    Almost all technology exists for the purpose of making our lives easier, i.e. to reduce our workload, i.e. enabling fewer people to do the same amount of work, i.e. taking away jobs. Thinking that you actually solve problems by banning technology is so shortsighted and lacking in understanding the issues that I fail to see how one could become such a luddite short of a lobotomy.

    So why stop at banning driverless cars? Ban all cars. Trucks have taken away a huge amount of jobs, previously handled by camel caravans or some shit. And why stop there? Ban the wheel, while you're at it - it will create more work after all. Let's roll all of society back to the stone age! Iron tools are the work of the devil, because they take away jobs that would require much more manpower when using stone tools! Let's bring India into the 21st century! All hail the genius of Nitin Gadkari!

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  • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday July 26 2017, @04:21AM

    by RamiK (1813) on Wednesday July 26 2017, @04:21AM (#544460)

    Under normal conditions, you'd be right to say that not adopting new technology that improves productivity and quality-of-life in order to encourage employment is the same as the broken window fallacy. However, the automobile market is already managed using planned obsoleteness, regulated fuel-prices and the forced supply of car parts. So, depending on the circumstances, preventing self-driving cars might be beneficial for India \ most Indians at least until the technology becomes prolific enough to cover the lost wages.

    It's sorta like picking up a new smartphone nowadays: Even if it has a few more bells and whistles, it's still a waste of money for 99.999% of the population.

    --
    compiling...
  • (Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Wednesday July 26 2017, @05:16AM (2 children)

    by Fluffeh (954) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 26 2017, @05:16AM (#544485) Journal

    Nitin Gadkari said the government would "not allow any technology that takes away jobs".

    I do very much wonder how he would feel if western countries adopted the exact same concept - but applied it to things such as off-shoring - which certainly costs jobs in those countries... I suspect that Mr Gadkari might have a rather vocal opinion on the matter actually.

    Hi Pot, this is Kettle... I think you know what I'm calling to say right?

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Wednesday July 26 2017, @06:39AM

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Wednesday July 26 2017, @06:39AM (#544515) Journal

      Hi Pot, this is Kettle... I think you know what I'm calling to say right?

      Something racist, obviously. ;-)

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @04:18PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @04:18PM (#544704)

      Will Nitin Gadkari ban robocallers to provide full employment for Indian scammers?

  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday July 26 2017, @07:35AM

    by kaszz (4211) on Wednesday July 26 2017, @07:35AM (#544529) Journal

    Thinking that you actually solve problems by banning technology is so shortsighted and lacking in understanding the issues that I fail to see how one could become such a luddite short of a lobotomy.

    There's a reason why some countries thrived early on and other didn't..
    Culture and virtues, DO play a part.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @08:53AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @08:53AM (#544549)

    to reduce our workload, i.e. enabling fewer people to do the same amount of work, i.e. taking away jobs. Thinking that you actually solve problems by banning technology is so shortsighted and lacking in understanding the issues that I fail to see how one could become such a luddite short of a lobotomy.

    I'd be more enthusiastic about such stuff if the workload and job reductions are clearly leading towards people having fewer and fewer working days a week for the same wealth/week (ala the Jetsons).

    However that doesn't seem the case to me.