The downside of automotive technology

[onlinebiker]

The systems will likely use multiple layers of redundancy and be programmed to pull over in stop if any one element fails.

This is just a lame attempt to justify the silly argument that people are reduced by having machines do their labor. Instead, it frees them up to do other things.

Lol...

Really - you think that some consumer is going to let a " minor thing" like failed circuitry force them to take the bus instead????

Wrong. They paid good money for that 20 year old pile of circuitry - and they will find a hack online that allows them to bypass all that safety nonsense.

You think they' re going to take that piece of shit to the dealer and spend more than they paid for the car to fix it????

Bwaaahahahahaha...

You think that - you' ve never bought a used car.

Nope - as these things age - you' ll have a bunch of broken cars navigating the streets - by people who probably don't really know how to drive without an electronic nanny.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

All technologies have an inherent risk of failure, from flint hatchets to nuclear reactors. Automotive technology is no different - brakes fail, tires blow out, and so on (in point of fact, one of our vehicles is at the local garage waiting for an ECM and a fuel pump). But risk of failure is not a good reason to abandon any technology; the goal isn't to make something completely safe, but to make it as safe as possible.

Auto-drive technology is no different.  I've no doubt that it will involve sensors, fail-safes and the like, but these will not totally eliminate the risk that one or more systems will fail.  But so what?  The goal is to reduce human control of the vehicle to the greatest extent possible, because human error is the primary factor in car crashes.

Now if you'll excuse me, tomorrow is laundry day, and I've got to get ready to go down to the river and beat my clothes on a rock.

Boru

[Yonadav]

The systems will likely use multiple layers of redundancy and be programmed to pull over in stop if any one element fails.

This is just a lame attempt to justify the silly argument that people are reduced by having machines do their labor. Instead, it frees them up to do other things.

Quite a bit of straw there. I like machines. But machines do enable the abandonment of basic life skills to a degree that is not easily measurable, so we don't really know what the potential cost might be in the long wrong.  It makes sense to be thinking about these things, rather than making vapid strawman statements in opposition.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The systems will likely use multiple layers of redundancy and be programmed to pull over in stop if any one element fails.

This is just a lame attempt to justify the silly argument that people are reduced by having machines do their labor. Instead, it frees them up to do other things.

Quite a bit of straw there. I like machines. But machines do enable the abandonment of basic life skills to a degree that is not easily measurable, so we don't really know what the potential cost might be in the long wrong.  It makes sense to be thinking about these things, rather than making vapid strawman statements in opposition.

Well, that's the whole point of machines, innit?  To make 'basic life skills' needless.  I feel pretty comfortable not having the skills to find the clay to build the kiln to fire the pots to store the meat from the antelope I ran down and killed with a fire-hardened stick.  These were all once basic life skills.

Boru

[Yonadav]

Quite a bit of straw there. I like machines. But machines do enable the abandonment of basic life skills to a degree that is not easily measurable, so we don't really know what the potential cost might be in the long wrong.  It makes sense to be thinking about these things, rather than making vapid strawman statements in opposition.

Well, that's the whole point of machines, innit?  To make 'basic life skills' needless.  I feel pretty comfortable not having the skills to find the clay to build the kiln to fire the pots to store the meat from the antelope I ran down and killed with a fire-hardened stick.  These were all once basic life skills.

Boru

Look at what I said about us losing basic life skills to a degree that is not easily measurable.  We don't entirely understand what skills we are losing. Also, I think that you are conflating 'life skills' with 'way of life'. What are we losing when a freshly graduated high school honor roll student can't convert .85 into a fraction? Sure, she can do math with a calculator. But she doesn't understand rudimentary things about how numbers relate to each other. That makes her a monkey with a calculator. In what other ways are we being reduced to monkeys? We don't really know. And perhaps it doesn't matter. Perhaps we hit a peak in the general population's literacy, mathematical, and scientific literacy, and the norm is for most humans to not understand these things. Most of us were illiterate until pretty recently in social evolution, and perhaps most of us are going to be basically illiterate again.

[brewer]

My own preference is to have the most "dumb" car I can find. My current car is 11 years old. Not sure I'm gonna like what I find when it's time to shop for a new one. 

Old farts hate some changes.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Well, that's the whole point of machines, innit?  To make 'basic life skills' needless.  I feel pretty comfortable not having the skills to find the clay to build the kiln to fire the pots to store the meat from the antelope I ran down and killed with a fire-hardened stick.  These were all once basic life skills.

Boru

Look at what I said about us losing basic life skills to a degree that is not easily measurable.  We don't entirely understand what skills we are losing. Also, I think that you are conflating 'life skills' with 'way of life'. What are we losing when a freshly graduated high school honor roll student can't convert .85 into a fraction? Sure, she can do math with a calculator. But she doesn't understand rudimentary things about how numbers relate to each other. That makes her a monkey with a calculator. In what other ways are we being reduced to monkeys? We don't really know. And perhaps it doesn't matter. Perhaps we hit a peak in the general population's literacy, mathematical, and scientific literacy, and the norm is for most humans to not understand these things. Most of us were illiterate until pretty recently in social evolution, and perhaps most of us are going to be basically illiterate again.

Ok, so she can't convert decimals to fractions.  Unless she's going to be an engineer or a mathematician or sommat, what does it matter?  Why would a pastry chef or an auto mechanic or a trauma surgeon need that particular skill?  Why would a poet need to know how to smelt ore?  Why should a radiologist need to know iambic hexameter?

Boru

[onlinebiker]

My own preference is to have the most "dumb" car I can find. My current car is 11 years old. Not sure I'm gonna like what I find when it's time to shop for a new one. 

Old farts hate some changes.

If you told me 40 years ago that I would someday work on fuel injected, computer controlled cars with ABS technology - I would have thought you were stoned out of your mind. But, I work on DOHC, F/I engines and find them simple.

But I hear ya - I don't want my car braking for me, parking itself or doing the driving.

[Fireball]

My own preference is to have the most "dumb" car I can find. My current car is 11 years old. Not sure I'm gonna like what I find when it's time to shop for a new one. 

Old farts hate some changes.

I know what you mean. I have a '70 Chevy truck that I can fix anything on, except electronics like the radio. Newer cars that I've bought, I got the extended warranty. Any black box breaks on these cars, it's a kilobuck to fix. That's a downside, plus needing a computer hooked to the thing to figure out what is wrong with it (nothing wrong, at this point in time). Once out of warranty (in 8 more years, for my car) if something big breaks it gets donated to charity. I may not even need a car by then. My wife will be retired by then, so we could get rid of one.

[Yonadav]

Look at what I said about us losing basic life skills to a degree that is not easily measurable.  We don't entirely understand what skills we are losing. Also, I think that you are conflating 'life skills' with 'way of life'. What are we losing when a freshly graduated high school honor roll student can't convert .85 into a fraction? Sure, she can do math with a calculator. But she doesn't understand rudimentary things about how numbers relate to each other. That makes her a monkey with a calculator. In what other ways are we being reduced to monkeys? We don't really know. And perhaps it doesn't matter. Perhaps we hit a peak in the general population's literacy, mathematical, and scientific literacy, and the norm is for most humans to not understand these things. Most of us were illiterate until pretty recently in social evolution, and perhaps most of us are going to be basically illiterate again.

Ok, so she can't convert decimals to fractions.  Unless she's going to be an engineer or a mathematician or sommat, what does it matter?  Why would a pastry chef or an auto mechanic or a trauma surgeon need that particular skill?  Why would a poet need to know how to smelt ore?  Why should a radiologist need to know iambic hexameter?

Boru

I'm not necessarily looking for agreement from you.  I'm just pointing out that we can't be sure of what else is lost when rudimentary mathematical literacy is lost. When I was young a lot of rebellious teenagers who didn't like to go to school and were thinking about dropping out, asked questions exactly like the questions that you are asking here. I guess those mid-20th century rebellious teenagers were ahead of their time (even though they could convert a decimal to a fraction).