First they came for the taxi drivers, and I said nothing
Then they came for the Uber drivers, and I said nothing
Then the lights went out, and I was speechless
Listen, I am nothing if not a cutting edge kind of guy. Think George Jetson, only with a beard and a sardonic smile.
So naturally, upon arriving in San Francisco to visit my son I was hot to trot to experience the very latest in cutting edge mobility.
I refer, of course, to the robo-taxi. Or more specifically, Waymo’s all electric, no human hands on the wheel, save the small talk pal, laser-and-sensor-enhanced, driverless Jag.
I mean, I’m the odd guy who actually prefers self-checkout at Walmart. Because I think face-to-face contact with other carbon-based life forms is highly overrated.
Know what I mean?
OK, I’ll admit that Waymo was more expensive than Uber. But nobody said The Future was gonna be cheap.
Plus, there’s nobody to tip.
Was it worth it? Listen, when we selected Christmas music on our complementary iHeart Radio, the little robo-car icon on the blue screen in front of us sprouted antlers! How cool was that?
Plus, it didn’t hit a single thing during our three rides through the heart of the Big City…not even when it was raining. Hell, I’m not sure even I coulda pulled that off.
(Although it did have an annoying habit of stopping each and every time a pedestrian stepped in front of us. Which seems sort of unpatriotic in this here autoAmerican nation.)
Did I like it? Hell yeah. I was humming the theme from The Jetsons during all three rides.
Because I finally felt like I had arrived at The Future.
Oh brave new world that has such devices in it.
Although I did wonder if, ten years from now, these robo-taxis would be picking up nothing but robo-passengers, cutting out the middle man (us carbon-based types) altogether.
But nobody said The Future was gonna come without certain sacrifices.
Alas, on our third day in Frisco, The Future collapsed like a house of cards. A massive power blackout knocked out traffic lights all over town.
And the Waymos, apparently not knowing what to do, just stopped in their tracks.
All over the city entombed passengers screamed for rescue as their oxygen slowly ran out (disclaimer: I made this last part up for dramatic effect.)
Apparently some Uber drivers had been cryogenically frozen. So they thawed em out and sent them back into the game. “Damned glad to see you carbon-based types again,” says I.
Goodbye George Jetson. Hello carbon-based driver guy.
Where you been all my life?
FreeGNV 