Automated braking, Lane Keep Assist, Park Assist, Back-Up Cameras, Traction Control, ABS… all this technology is, is idiot-proofing.
It operates at the level of an idiot, too.
A skilled/competent driver not only doesn’t need it, he can often outperform it.
Skill and competence, are, however, not what’s wanted. They are the opposite of what’s wanted.
What’s being engineered, arguably.
You get what you encourage. And less of what’s discouraged.
The automated braking systems soon to be mandated decelerate the car when it’s either not necessary or so prematurely it’s preposterous. Like there’s an old lady (or a Clover) underneath the dashboard somewhere.
Which of course there kinda is. Joan Claybrook’s ghost, perhaps? An eHarpy you can’t kick to the curb – or turn off.
It engages when the car up ahead (way up ahead) is turning off the road and will be long gone by the time you actually get there. The concept of covering the brake pedal is something a computer does not grok. You, a human (and not an idiot) can evaluate changing conditions in real time with more perspicacity than a computer, which is programmed with limited parameters and does not do nuance. It may become necessary to brake and you are prepared to, if need be.
If not, you don’t.
But the computer will.
This is its own “safety” problem, interestingly enough. Abrupt braking when not necessary can trigger a chain reaction accident. The car behind you rear-ends you because your car braked suddenly and for no good reason. Another car passed within a few feet, say. Or, the light up ahead turned yellow but your car was already in the intersection.
You also lose the ability to power out of a potential problem – and avoid an accident – because the computer has cut the throttle. Which it will, when it applies the brakes for no good reason.
How, pray, is this “safer”?
Sometimes, swerving – and flooring the gas pedal – rather than standing on the brakes – is just what the doctor ordered. But the presumption of incompetence denies this option. Acceleration – evil!
Always.
Slowing – good.
Also always.
The programing of all these “safety” systems is at the level of the most over-cautious/fearful (and not-skilled) driver imaginable. The sort of “driver” (air quotes for the proper emphasis) who slows down on a snow-covered uphill grade. Which is just what computer-controlled traction control does. The dumbed down programming seeks to limit wheel slip at all costs, even if that means losing the momentum critical to making it up the got-damned hill. A good human driver can modulate throttle, countersteer and deal with a little sliding, maintaining momentum … and make it up the hill.
Which is “safer” – the TCS-gimped car stuck by the side of the road – or in the road blocking the way for every other car behind it – or the deftly-driven, human-controlled car that doesn’t get stuck halfway up the hill, in the middle of the road?
The chief virtue of ABS is not decreased braking distances. It is keeping the wheels from locking up so as to avoid loss of steering control. A driver who knows how to drive can decelerate and steer at the same time and not lose control of the car. There are situations (ice) where ABS is useless and also those where it’d be helpful to be able to lock the brakes up briefly.
But, again, the presumption of incompetence. Some are, so everyone must be treated as such in order that they all eventually become such.
Which is why back-up cameras are now mandatory standard equipment in every new car. It is taken as a given that people are too inept to not back over toddlers without computerized hand-holding. So now, rather than using their own eyes – which have depth perception as well as peripheral vision – they rely, oxen-like, on a little TeeVee screen inside the car that has a field of vision much smaller and with no depth at all. But this is – we’re advised – “safer” than simply using one’s eyes and mirrors and maybe checking behind the car before getting in the car that no toddlers are sleeping behind the rear wheels.
Give it another ten years or so. Skill – hell, basic competence – behind the wheel will not only not be needed, it will have most firmly been retired. Stigmatized. Ostracized. Punished.
Passivity will become the defining characteristic of the land of the once-free and formerly brave.
What is the end game?
Is it to engineer a society of Eloi – simple creatures unable to do anything for themselves? It may well be. And – read your H.G. Wells – where there are Eloi, there are also Morlocks.
It is in the interests of the Morlocks that the Eloi become nice and soft.
Tender.
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Hi Eric, et al,
Somehow I seem to be receiving a “free” subscription to Time (barf) propaganda rag. I almost always pass them immediately on to the recycle bin but the latest issue has driverless cars as its cover story. The ignoble fish wrap is far worse than I ever remember. These shitheels are making a “moral” argument that people have no right to drive. The purges are coming sooner than expected. Anyway, what a content-free waste of paper. It’s actually depressing that Time has not gone under but I imagine that they receive some sort of subsidy for being the mouthpiece for tyranny that they so glaringly are. Oh yeah, and they are heavy into the anti-Trump rhetoric of course (not that I have any admiration for the guy but he’s at least entertaining and effective at getting the collectivistas panties in a twist). The Time dweebs are heavily on the welfare/warfare party train….be it Hitlery or Crudes or Schlubio. Pass the popcorn, I think 2016 is the year it all comes down.
Hi Giuseppe,
The pace is picking up. I attended a “virtual” (gack) press conference the other day at which a Ford exec beamed joyfully about the driverless car and how hard they are working to get them into production.
I took the orange barchetta ought for a drive yesterday to try to shake off the chills.
“the fps, weight of bullet, etc. were the same.”
Yeah, but really I would rather the ’06 had remained the standard cartridge. I like being able to find milsurp ammo for my M1A, but It would be nice to have that one cartridge for an ’03 Springfield and for my M1A.
I was warned not to use .308 hunting cartridges in my M1A, something about the heavier bullet weight causing bolt slam which could cause the rifle to double cycle. I have a lot of Spanish milsurp steel core I bought in 2012 and haven’t used yet. It’ll be nice to be able to shoot again, once my left arm has healed some. more.
One reason rear view cameras are needed are the stupid “safety” regulations that make so many cars so hard to see out of (not to mention much heavier)!
Not just making the Eloi soft, but also raising the cost of cars out of range of the little people. The control freaks HATE the freedom that personal automobiles provide.
Unfortunately, an out-right ban would lose votes. So the ever increasing prohibitions and requirements are couched in terms of the key-word “safety”, which the government-schooled respond to with programmed predictability.
Eight, do love me some Janis Joplin,” Me and Bobby McGee,” written by Kris Kristofferson, produced by Paul Rothchild, (As you can see, I,m a classic rock fan). First time I heard it, was sitting in a bunker, outside of Da Nang. Young and dumb, hope I picked some wisdom along the way. Still learning, which is why i stop here, just about every day…
Skip
skip67, some old college buds and I were looking at old pics a few years ago of some UT students, Farrah Fawcet and Janis Joplin. Lordy, they don’t make em like that(Farrah Fawcet) or that(Janis Joplin) anymore. Well, I guess they do but it passes right by me if so. But I am clueless for the most part. I was behind this young couple at the store recently. They were all tatted up and pierced out the wazoo. The guy picks up a tabloid and they start looking it over. I’m standing there with my single item, a pack of coffee filters and think “I didn’t realize they still printed those rags”. I’m all bidness at the store. Stand there and try to mentally make price-checks in front of me not happen.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/02/ira-katz/never-trust-government/
Cowboys, don’t let your babies grow up to be mothers.
eric, here’s a bit of how Who, What Why gets ripped off. Maybe they use your stuff too. http://whowhatwhy.us9.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=a9c27247b8a9046ea939df8ca&id=7144204cb4&e=b7f164fc35
8, it’s probably reasonable to assume that AP and UPI steal from any source they encounter. At least when they do, they’re putting out something other than their usual government supplied lies.
Ed, I simply assume they’re amoral. Reuters has been caught red-handed in some scandals in the last few years making me look silly since i thought they were a semi-reliable source. I really don’t know why I thought they might be on the up and up. My bad.
Dear Ed, 8sm,
Here’s some direct quotes for y’all, in case anyone imagine there was even a shred of objectivity in the MSM.
“The news is whatever I say is the news.”
— David Brinkley, former NBC Anchorman and media industry icon
“What is news? You know what news is? News is what you news directors interpret it as. News is what we at CNN interpret it as. The people of this country see the news that we think they oughta see.”
— Ted Turner, Founder of CNN
“We are going to impose our agenda on the coverage by dealing with issues and subjects that we choose to deal with.”
— Richard M. Cohen, former Senior Producer of CBS News
“Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have.”
— Richard Salant, former President of CBS News
Bevin, great catch. I’ll bet some TV addicts would claim you made them up, but they sound pitch perfect to me.
bevin, I’m just now catching this and it’s a keeper. Thanks.
Morlocks of every generation should be respected. They are the ones to know when SHTF or when you find yourself in real trouble.
The ones that worked the hardscrablle dust with nothing but a dull blade. Codgy old coots that rebuilt steam tractors from scratch. Located a good spot and then dug wells fought off all comers, and held what was theirs. Knew enough about land, men, women, children and animals so that they could thrive most of the time, and survive all the time.
The Morlock farmers in this movie, for one. Dam good. Just Dam.
The Southerner (1945) – Jean Renoir
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7wEoPLwvp4
Eloi are great fun to have around when times are good and you are flush and well appointed. A fair maiden eloi or good time dandy eloi have there place. But in the end, always judge a man by what he can do and does. And never on how he appears, seems, or is generally regarded to be.
One nasty and unpleasant Morlock is worth at least a thousand of even the nicest most decent Eloim you’d ever care to meet.
Internet Libertarian Morlock Chris Cantwell’s new twitter, now that the Council of Eloi has seen fit to suspend his other longtime account.
Sure Eloi will blather about twitter or facebook or automobiles being tools of oppression you’d do well to avoid.
Better to have a good horse, windmill, and quill and parchment. Yuck yuck yuck.
But really, who really much cares what the Elois of the world have to say. Even Morlocks are social beings, and the solitude can be hard, but they’re the ones that catch the fish heads, and them Eloi should get back in the kitchen and make you a sammich before they piss you off and you end up eating one of the poor things during a blind famished rage you didn’t even intend to engage in.
Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be libertarians…
Radical Agenda
@RadAgenda
Blogger, podcaster, aspiring helicopter pilot for the Pinochet administration.
https://twitter.com/RadAgenda
The Elois may have all the money but what looms for us right now, worldwide excepting those people who won’t know if or when the dollar they never heard of crashes. But the Morlocks will dig in…literally, into the ground and raise food and can make it until the govt. creates wealth taxes to the point they can’t even remain on their own land. That’s when the shootin starts. Don’t push a man too hard who has nothing to lose. Freedom’s just another word for nothin left to lose, nothin ain’t worth nothin but it’s free.
Never push a man to violence, who has been looking for an excuse to use it.
Meme from Facebook…
While Wolves may not care about the opinions of sheep, but these sheep have enlisted wolves to enforce their will on other wolves.
The sheep care little about the bloodletting; like in the parable, “…Everyone knew it was worse on the other farms.”
(One of the gun control parables, explaining that it was about managing perception, and unintentionally showing what government always deteriorates to)
I think the Morlocks need to take charge. Eloi, like children, don’t know what’s right or good. Adults (closer to Morlocks than Eloi, an hopefully better than both; also, hopefully more than just overgrown children) are supposed to train and teach the children.
That cycle has been interrupted, and all that makes ANY civilization great is being stomped out by the Eloi running the show.
Why wait for the inevitable collapse?
Why not address the problem proactively?
E.G., had the Morlocks handled the problem of the Eloi proactively, there would’ve been no Eloi, and the Morlocks would not have degenerated to cannibalism and subterranean life. They would’ve grown their own food… Eloi Grasshopper can dance all winter, right? While Morlock ant is warm and happy in the hill…
Even better/worse, trying to make it up an icy hill, being unable to, but then sliding backwards on the ice.
Or I wonder if those aluminized mylar balloons reflect enough to trigger the auto-brake. Curses!, foiled again!
(I’d love it for cop cars – don’t our “heroes” need all the protection they can get?).
Completely self-driving clover cars have been covered.
Clover-assist might be as bad or worse.
Rest assured our GovCo overseers will not be made to suffer the depredations of auto-braking or any of the other madness visited upon the mundanes(h/t Will Grigg).
You see, they are special, anointed and just plain better than the rest of us. The movie The Magnificent Seven has a great line in it, Calvera (played by Eli Wallach) who is a “bad guy” but might as well be POTUS says, “If God had not intended them to be shorn, He would not have made them sheep.”
Sheep and Clover, a match made in Hell.
In a world of Eloi and Morlocks I would choose to be a morlock. In the HG Wells story the Morlocks were the product of the working class while the Eloi were the upper class. The upper class became unable to do for itself and thus the lower class took over.
Wells was a bit off however. Perhaps because of heeding the warning. Through generations using defective government schools, media, and parental government idiots who are unable to do for themselves have been created out of the middle and lower classes. Now people clamor for the protection of the upper class. Ban guns. Ban driving. ban this, ban that. Have the government license this and that. The masses now believe people are incapable of doing things past generations did when they were much harder to do. People can’t be trusted because they are like small children. At some point we may not even be trusted with electricity.
Every moron, every Darwin award winner, every dufus who does something that hurts himself or others becomes an excuse for more government power. The scientific management of society achieved.
What’s wrong with banning guns? They’re dangerous.
So is government. Let’s ban it!
need guns to do that. Dem gummint boys will NOT qo quietly into that “good” night….. they be needin sum he’p……
CBS, they sure are. A friend’s wife handed me her new Browning .380 pocket pistol and said “try it”…..and so I did. I pulled the trigger and it smashed the web of my hand. I didn’t even think to look if the can was “hurt”.
Then a friend wanted to shoot my Garand. I instructed him to jam the clip in and in the same motion jerk his thumb out. He didn’t move his thumb fast enough……yeow
My (Korean war infantry vet) Dad warned me about ‘M-1 Thumb’ when I first got my CMP Garand back in the ’80s. Being young, dumb, and full of (beans), I didn’t really listen to him. Shoulda – yeah, youch.
After three decades, the Old Man could still field strip the thing blindfolded . . .
Prolly could still drill all eight in the same two inch or less circle at 200 yards, too…..
Friend of mine (newlyh so at the time) Korean War Vet, still had his M1 Garand. Hadn’t fired it in close to thirty yhears, found a “deal” online for some Greek balk ammo, milsurp, in a bit Spam Can. Bought one, decided he had to try it before buying ten more. First clip he was a tad rusty, next clip he was settling in, working at 100 yards, leaning across the bonnet (hood) of an lder Ford truck that happened to be handy. Second string came in at about four inches, the third just over two. Then he popped another clip in, and proceeded to rapid fire all eight…. about a three inch group. He tought it would be a good idea to get a few more spam cans of that same ammo. And he proved once again that a man who depends upon his rifle for life itself over a period of time can lay it aside for decades and pick it right back up again. Oh, did I mention the rifle was absolutely stock…. original military iron sights. I can only imagine how close he’d have been if his eyes had been as well preserved as his Garand….. one more long range equaliser Uncle Stupid knows not of….. with an owner who knows very well what he is about.
” He didn’t move his thumb fast enough……yeow”
Which is why I chose an M1A, same platform, but with a detachable mag, and in 7.62 NATO instead of ’06 as well. Lots more military ammo available.
I still have a scar on my thumb knuckle from a Browning slide. Some of those semi’s are unkind to a certain size hand.
Most of the Korean war era and later Garands were chambered in the 7.62 x 51 NATO instead of the 7.62 x 55 .30/06. Reality is, I’d love to have one of each, good bores.
A friend who shoots some competition long range said both rounds are now the same. Well, they must have changed since I used to shoot the shorter round in the HK 93 I had and the .06 in my Garand and they .308 style round hit way below the .06 just putting the target in the sight without adjusting for range.
I didn’t know about that. Thanks for the info.
Ed, I didn’t word that very well. What he meant was the fps, weight of bullet, etc. were the same. With the new powders I can see this being correct but it didn’t work that way in the 90’s.