The response-by-analogy is that people still ride horses for pleasure, and we should expect to see the same thing with cars: a (comparatively) small base of enthusiasts practicing the activity in a way that doesn't endanger others.
Broadly speaking, it seems like there are an infinite number of potential "simple pleasures" out there that people could enjoy, and if we have a chance to transition lots of people from a simple pleasure that endangers others to other pleasures that don't, we should probably do it.
I think a better way to reason about the tradeoff (since reasoning by analogy is unreliable) is to suppose that we were in a world where cars had always been autonomous, and imagine how it would play out–specifically, would enthusiasts in such a world try and build human-driven cars (maybe?), would they drive human-driven cars on public roads (probably not?), and would the non-enthusiasts feel a sense of longing for the joys of the road (for the most part, no?).
The future we should try to reach is the future that we would aim for regardless of our starting position. To me, that seems like a future where no one has to drive cars, and some people who want to do drive cars, but no one has to be impacted by the manual-driving of cars if they don't want to. So I think the response-by-analogy is probably correct in this case.
Broadly speaking, it seems like there are an infinite number of potential "simple pleasures" out there that people could enjoy, and if we have a chance to transition lots of people from a simple pleasure that endangers others to other pleasures that don't, we should probably do it.
I think a better way to reason about the tradeoff (since reasoning by analogy is unreliable) is to suppose that we were in a world where cars had always been autonomous, and imagine how it would play out–specifically, would enthusiasts in such a world try and build human-driven cars (maybe?), would they drive human-driven cars on public roads (probably not?), and would the non-enthusiasts feel a sense of longing for the joys of the road (for the most part, no?).
The future we should try to reach is the future that we would aim for regardless of our starting position. To me, that seems like a future where no one has to drive cars, and some people who want to do drive cars, but no one has to be impacted by the manual-driving of cars if they don't want to. So I think the response-by-analogy is probably correct in this case.