My Time at the STEPS+ 2019 Fall Symposium

Last week, I attended the STEPS+ 2019 Fall Symposium, hosted at UC Davis. (I'll have more details about the broader reasons for the trip in an upcoming post). It was a nice set of talks and open discussions about energy issues in transportation, as well as a good opportunity for professional networking. Much of the discussion was focused on California because its large geographic & demographic size, the fact that its own metropolitan areas have minimal spillover into other states and vice versa, and the clear separation of powers between the state and local governments means that it can effectively operate like an autonomous country in miniature (evidenced also by its own large population and economic output). That said, the diverse range of political interests, geographic features, and climates in the state make it to some extent a microcosm of what would need to happen at the national level too with respect to combating climate change, decarbonizing the economy, and making transportation generally more sustainable. Thus, although my interests tend more toward the direct relationship between transportation and issues of socioeconomic equity, there are strong indirect relationships through energy and climate issues too, so it was really interesting to learn about these, to learn more about communication between researchers and policymakers, and to see what models exist for working toward greater sustainability in transportation.

My Time at the 2019 SmartDrivingCar Summit

Last week, I attended the 2019 SmartDrivingCar Summit, hosted in Princeton University by ORFE professor Alain Kornhauser. As someone with a physical disability, I've become excited of late about the possibilities that autonomous vehicles could offer people like myself as well as older people or people with cognitive disabilities, blindness, or even those without disabilities but live in poverty, while also wondering about the socioeconomic implications for such people with respect to the development of autonomous vehicles and associated systems in practice. Given this, I've been in conversation with Prof. Kornhauser about these issues for several weeks, and desirous of learning more & meeting people in the field, I attended the conference.

Laudably, the conference had the overall theme of prioritizing development of autonomous vehicle systems to serve the needs of those in marginalized groups (where marginalization could be socioeconomic or through disability). As I have been reading about some predictions about socioeconomic impacts for the last few months, presentations touching upon those aspects felt more familiar to me, but it was really interesting to also see the technical developments in this field, current innovations in transportation network development for elderly & disabled people, and psychological aspects to bear in mind with respect to popular acceptance of autonomous vehicles. For instance, with respect to the last point, it didn't really occur to me that some people in marginalized communities may feel a sense of social belonging with others at public transit stops as they are designed now and may feel more socially isolated in small autonomous vehicles.

The overarching concern at the conference was about the funding pressures being acutely felt following the incident of an Uber autonomous vehicle killing a pedestrian in Arizona last year, along with the general failure of fully autonomous systems to materialize at this time despite predictions from 3-5 years ago that it would happen now. As a result, the tone of the conference felt more measured than some of the hype from that time might have suggested, yet there was an overall sense of optimism and motivation to do more work toward solving these problems. Even if fully autonomous cars fail to materialize, whether the problems are technical (i.e. they just won't work unsupervised) versus political (i.e. the number of accidents in testing becomes unacceptably high), I am personally optimistic about the possibility of working toward solving some socioeconomic inequities in transportation even with current innovations. Overall, I really enjoyed learning more and meeting new people, and am hoping to get more involved in this field in the future.

On Political Correctness and Retard[suffix]

I've wanted to talk about this for a while, but this (Brent Dykes, Yahoo! News) provides a good starting point. It's about how Obama Administration Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel called liberal lobbies planning to air attack advertisements on conservative Democrats opposing the health care plan "[expletive] retarded".
I do not at all condone this. He should have attacked the plan on its merits rather than mindlessly foulmouthing it. I also think it would be best if he sincerely apologized for this, though knowing him, it probably won't happen.
Sarah Palin, who has a son with Down Syndrome, has responded by calling for his resignation/firing, saying that this will affect her son and other similarly affected people the same way African Americans would be affected by someone using the 'n'-word to insult them. While I don't agree with this extreme reaction, I think it is entirely reasonable to condemn him as she did.
That said, I wanted to use this opportunity to bring up something bigger about the word "retard"/"retarded" and political correctness.
I don't think it is at all right to use "retard"/"retarded" as an insult against mentally handicapped people. In our schools, we are taught to use words like "mentally handicapped", "mentally disabled", or "mentally challenged", among other words; "retard"/"retarded" aren't even part of this vocabulary (i.e. they are completely ignored altogether). Hence, I have never once met someone who used the word "retard"/"retarded" to [insultingly] refer to a mentally disabled person. This probably isn't true in other parts of the country, but from my own experiences, the word "retard"/"retarded" has solely taken on the meaning of a synonym for "idiot"/"imbecile".
That is probably what Emanuel meant; I still don't support him on this, because as it is, it is a pretty vicious insult to use against someone else.