A woman in Tempe, Arizona recently became the second victim of a fatal car accident between an innocent person and a driverless car. Advocates of driverless cars say that in the aggregate they will be safer. But the fact remains, there’s something incredibly creepy about automated driving, especially when it’s being tried out in area is full of oblivious pedestrians. Technology is heading toward more and more automation, including pilotless planes and drones that choose their own targets for assassination. How will the human race survive the new paradigm? Very, very carefully.
They’re Testing Driverless Cars Against Clueless Pedestrians? Come With Me If You Want to Live.
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I’m going to quit reading Science Fiction. Driverless cars are one of those just really cool innovations I read about long ago … but now that they’re here, it’s kinda creepy. (what Ted sed)
OTOH, how bad can they be compared to human drivers who are shaving while eating breakfast and checking their Twitter feed?
Ted, why do you think that the presence or absent of a «brain» in the US government’s frontman has any bearing on the damage done to that country – or for that matter, the world ?…
Henri
Find any old accident and replace “drunk driver” with “driverless car” and the story’s suddenly novel enough to provoke indignation.
Imagine if local gun violence from the past week happened all in one hour. That’s the difference between the victims being obscured or being remembered.
International law only applies to U.S. enemy states. And so on…
Human life itself has no value. This is the morality of the American pundit class.
WTF????
Call in the proof-reading staff!
“… especially when it’s being tried out in area is full of oblivious pedestrians.””
Meaning — “… especially when it’s being tried out in [an] area [that] is full of oblivious pedestrians.”
or
“… especially when its being-tried-out in-area is full of oblivious pedestrians.”
Missed a hyphen between “out” and “in” myself. Stressed by wife nagging me.
😀
Hey, derlehrer – long time no read. Hope you’re giving as much stress as you’re receiving. 😉
“I said I’d do it and I will. There’s no need to keep reminding me every six months” – Petruchio
I fear my ignorance is showing, but in a country in which the Second Amendment is worshipped above all the others put together, don’t pedestrians have the right to arm themselves with RPGs to protect themselves against vehicles, wither driverless or otherwise ? Wouldn’t that tend to render traffic more «polite», according to the device peddled by that outstanding example of the educators’ tribe with whom we’ve recently become acquainted on these threads ?…
Henri
Henri,
Weapons are to defend against (biological) people, who, as explained, below, have no value.
Vehicles are PROPERTY and may NOT be effaced, damaged, stolen or otherwise treated as to reduce their functionality or resale value (insert mild guffaw, here.)
My question is, why shouldn’t biological people defend themselves, with whatever arms are appropriate, against the myriad harms caused them by the corporate people?
«Vehicles are PROPERTY and may NOT be effaced, damaged, stolen or otherwise treated as to reduce their functionality or resale value (insert mild guffaw, here.)» Sounds like just the argument we need, falco, for reintroducing chattel slavery…. 😉
Henri
@falco
” My question is, why shouldn’t biological people defend themselves, with whatever arms are appropriate, against the myriad harms caused them by the corporate people?”
I dunno, why not? Under our current system, those “people” can screw you over & ruin your life with impunity.
As a firm believer in the Neanderthal Social Contract: If they don’t play nice with me, I have no obligation to play nice with them. I am free to beat them with an antelope’s thighbone until they quit whining, then take all their stuff.
Hello Henri,
Re: “Sounds like just the argument we need, falco, for reintroducing chattel slavery….”
The USA hardly NEEDS this argument. The essence of said argument never went away.
It may seem to have disappeared. In reality it was merely “repurposed” into wage slavery. As such it superceded “live-in” slavery by eliminating the costs/bother of housing and feeding of the chattel.