California Dreaming

[SLB_SA]

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/10/what-happens-when-we-all-live-to-100/379338/
"What Happens When We All Live to 100? If life-expectancy trends continue, that future may be near, transforming society in surprising and far-reaching ways."

 

[QinReno]

"If I die before 75 who cares I'll be dead."
Exactly.  If I live to be 105, knowing that I have that extra 8% per year in additional SS benefits will be great.  If I die at 66, I'll never worry about my situation at 95 because I'll be gone.

Actually I looked this up after the first post, and the differences are somewhat more than 8%. You can do the long-term maths.

70:62 ==> 176%
70:66 ==> 129%
https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10147.pdf

 

[SLB_SA]

How do vandwellers who begin to lose their eyesight deal with life on the road? (My vision is fine; thanks for asking.) Would self-driving cars, trucks, vans, RVs, etc. in the future be important to vandwellers?

 

[QinReno]

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/10/what-happens-when-we-all-live-to-100/379338/
"What Happens When We All Live to 100?  If life-expectancy trends continue, that future may be near, transforming society in surprising and far-reaching ways."

Don't worry about that. By then the computers will be doing EVERYTHING. Jobs will be a thing of the past. It will either be total laziness or total anarchy. Eloi versus Morlocks. Except the rich will still have their gated communities on the hill.

 

[max+sophia]

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/10/what-happens-when-we-all-live-to-100/379338/
"What Happens When We All Live to 100?  If life-expectancy trends continue, that future may be near, transforming society in surprising and far-reaching ways."

My father and his father lived to be nearly 100.  That was some time past.  My father retired at 72, then went back to work at his former employer's request, for several more years.  To him, work was his life.  So there's another angle.

 

[QinReno]

How do vandwellers who begin to lose their eyesight deal with life on the road?  (My vision is fine; thanks for asking.)  Would self-driving cars, trucks, vans, RVs, etc. in the future be important to vandwellers?

You think everyone will be able to afford a Tesla with autopilot? Not hardly.

 

[SLB_SA]

You think everyone will be able to afford a Tesla with autopilot? Not hardly.

Will Tesla exist in five years?  Lots of investors are shorting Tesla right now.

 

[QinReno]

Will Tesla exist in five years?  Lots of investors are shorting Tesla right now.

Tesla was just a metaphor, since everyone knows about their autopilot. There are at least 19 companies working on self-driving cars.
https://www.google.com/search?q=companies+developing+self+driving+cars

What you might not fully understand is this is the "cheap" RV living forum. People here will likely not be buying self-driving cars, some are lucky to even have a car, let alone an RV or van, let alone a self-driving car. Half the posts by newcomers are from people who are in deep financial doo-doo. One of the longest threads here is about pooping in buckets, LOL.

OTOH, there are some 8-million RVs in the US, 7.95-million of which cost a LOT of money, and not many of those people come to this forum, because they have enough money to not worry too much.

 

[SLB_SA]

QinReno:

Right now (prototype) driverless cars are (or will be) very expensive. Brand new RVs will always be expensive. However, with all of the competition for driverless cars, I expect the price to decrease fairly rapidly and for the expensive brand new RVs to have this feature in a few (5-10) years. I don't expect most people here to be able to afford brand new driverless RVs.

However, brand new driverless RVs will become used RVs someday that people here might be able to afford. With lifespan increases, ObamaCare for "all" and the competition between Uber, Apple, IBM, Google, etc to produce driverless technology, in 10 or 20 years, vandwellers with physical limitations (e.g. poor eyesight) might be able to stay on the road.

You do realize that all of the physical components for driverless cars are getting cheaper and cheaper. "Lidar used to cost $75,000. Experts expect this to fall to less than $100." https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/01/driving-around-without-a-driver-lidar-technology-explained/ The expensive aspect of driverless car, vans, RVs, trucks, etc. is the software. However each extra unit of software is essentially free; why do you think MicroSoft is so rich? (Once they produce a new Windows, making copies is almost free and so the money just rolls in.) With so many companies working on driverless technology, competition will drive down the cost of the software. (Or an open source version will be developed and released.)

 

[QinReno]

This is all very pie-in-the-sky for people on this forum. OTOH, the mainstream 8,000,000 other RVers, who spend $80,00-150,000 for their rigs and stay in $80-100/night RV parks, will have the first self-driving RVs. A few years down the road. The only pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for this forum is "living in the great outdoors".

Thanks for the lidar link. I actually have two $100 lidars for my playtime projects, but they are 1-channel only. For real self-driving cars, you need the high-speed 360-degree multi-channel units, eg 64 channels, and truly massive processing power, currently being multiple laptops. The idea that lidars will cost only $100 some day is pretty optimistic. Selling hardware is not like cloning a disc.

 

[LivGolden]

Q- Driverless cars are a bad idea. Who's going to pay your medical bills if it runs over your foot? That's no good...  :dodgy:

 

[QinReno]

Q- Driverless cars are a bad idea. Who's going to pay your medical bills if it runs over your foot? That's no good...  :dodgy:

It's not your "foot" you need to worry about, it's everything else higher up from your foot. 

OP brought this up, and it's somewhat OT for this forum. He might looking for places to invest, . He's already written off Tesla. Elon is a genius on a par with Richard Branson, but he's also kinda nuts.

Being an electrical and computer engineer, and having worked on such systems, I also have very equivocal feelings about self-driving cars myself. The liability issues are huge. But the Flash is mightier than the Reality.

 

[LivGolden]

I was joking, of course but the truth is we are a lazy bunch. This all started with automobiles when we got tired of rolling our windows down, manually. Everything is becoming a shortcut.  I paid for for an item with a $100 bill at a smart market, recently and the line was held up for 15 minutes while the cashier was trying to figure out the change. She eventually called for the manager. And he was a tad bit perplexed. A nurse, waiting behind me said, "OMG!' The irony of that was simply breathtaking. 

 

[becida]

PS  I told Bob I would try to attend the 2019 RTR and definitely attend the 2020 RTR.  Maybe I will see you there.

About the 2019 RTR? Try hard. I'll bet you could do it...

As to the SS$$, I took my as soon as I could & have been enjoying it since then but everyone is different. 
You sound like a person with drive, maybe you'd have a hard time sitting by a fire, bsing with friends while watching the sun go down... again.
if you're enjoying what you're doing then have at it & save the vandwelling until later. But when is later? I like having time to mess around & read a book without the worries.

Good luck with what ever you do!

 

[SLB_SA]

Hi Becida (Rob?). I grew up camping in northern California and Oregon. We have a family reunion every summer, camping out near Lake Shasta or Fort Bragg or in Trinity county or at Hidden Springs or at Grizzly Creek or on the Oregon coast or somewhere new. We have up to 100 family members show up. The idea that "you'd have a hard time sitting by a fire, being with friends while watching the sun go down" made me laugh; I love doing that and have been doing so for decades.

 

[SLB_SA]

Places in Oregon and California where I have camped or visited (and where you should visit/camp):
Tillamook area https://visittheoregoncoast.com/cities/tillamook/
Cape Lookout State Park https://oregonstateparks.org/index.cfm?do=parkPage.dsp_parkPage&parkId=134
Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=421
MacKerricher State Park https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=436
Humboldt Redwoods State Park https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=425
Oceanside Beach State Recreation Site, Harris Beach State Park, Humbug Mountain State Park (love that place!!), Rogue River, Bullards Beach State Park, etc. in Oregon
Benbow Lake State Recreation Area (two long bicycle trips to Benbow with week long camping while in college)
Richardson Grove State Park (great area!!), Standish-Hickey State Recreation Area, Fern Canyon, etc.
Tons more camping locations.

I'm sorry they moved 101 so it bypasses Willits; I stopped there a couple times this summer.
There is a nice winery south of Corvallis (https://www.tyeewine.com/) which has offered day long music festivals, some of which I attended.

 

[becida]

The idea that "you'd have a hard time sitting by a fire, being with friends while watching the sun go down" made me laugh; I love doing that and have been doing so for decades.

See what happens when I start making assumptions or going down the "maybe" path?  Some day I'll learn!

I'm glad you're able to enjoy the relaxing part of life.

 

[SLB_SA]

Try driving from Toronto to Vancouver on the transCanada highway with two small kids (+ wife). Stop for the moose west of Thunderbay!!

 

[becida]

Try driving from Toronto to Vancouver on the transCanada highway with two small kids (+ wife).  Stop for the moose west of Thunderbay!!

Sounds like you've got everything covered. Good luck with whatever it is you decide to do!

 

[Grim Beret]

Mozadox- I agree with you! Well said