Get Ready to Cling . . . Tightly

Guest Post by Eric Peters

Cadillac’s Vehicle-to-Vehicle communications technology shares vehicles’ locations, speeds, directions and traffic conditions up to nearly 1,000 feet away.

For automated – note, not “autonomous” – cars to become other than a technocratic curiosity, to make the concept functionally viable on a mass scale, it will be necessary to eliminate cars that aren’t automated. That’s because the whole point of automated (not autonomous – which means independent) cars is to collectivize transportation.

To regiment and control it.

Cars that are still entirely under the control of the person behind the wheel do not fit into this matrix. They are outliers, the vehicular equivalent of a voluntary income tax – and we can’t have that, either.

Hence the proposal that all new cars be capable of so-called “vehicle to vehicle” (V2V) communication. That they be fitted with the technology to constantly transmit and receive data about their direction, location, speed and so on.

That this be made mandatory – like air bags.


V2V is a critical step toward the replacement of autonomous cars with automated cars – which must be aware (like the Terminator) of their environment, of the other cars within a certain radius of their position at any given moment. This in order to anticipate the need to alter course or speed to avoid impacting another car.

Which the car will do – without any input from you.

For saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety, of course.

That is how it’s being presented – and it’s on that basis it will be force-fed to us. Including those of us who want nothing to do with it. Can you say rip tide?

About half of all new cars already have or offer (it’s not yet mandatory) automated braking and steering “assist.” The car decides it’s necessary to stop – and applies the brakes if you don’t.

It steers itself in the direction it thinks is right.

The fully automated and therefore no longer autonomous car will come standard with these things. And for the potential of this technology to be maximized, all cars must come standard with these things – as well as the V2V ability to constantly chatter with all the other cars in the immediate vicinity.

And – the really Big Thing – they will chatter with a central hive brain of some sort. Which will coordinate and control the whole enchilada. The central hive brain will be in constant contact with – and in constant control of – all the automated cars.

Via V2V.

It’ll be like having a cop with a two-way radio riding shotgun – only worse because it will be a Super Cop. A single, central all-controlling cop who cannot be dodged – much less bargained with.

He will control the speed and direction of all the cars under his supervision. Decide when you will move at all.

Lovely, yes?

Which brings up the issue of autonomous cars that do not have V2V capability. Or automated “safety” systems.

They aren’t subject to supervision – much less control. They are wild cards, under the control of the person behind the wheel. He can accelerate as he likes – and brake as he likes and when he decides it’s necessary to brake.

His direction is random. Only he and those he chooses to inform know where he is going – and how he gets there is up to him.

He can elect to ignore stupid/arbitrary traffic laws such as those forbidding perfectly safe U turns and right-turns-on-red.

And he can “speed.”

Super Cop does not like this at all.

Truly autonomous cars –  that is, cars without V2V technology and not equipped with driver pre-empting automated driving technology – will have to be gotten rid of.

For saaaaaaaaaaaafety.

You can already hear the Fat Lady warming up her pipes. Picture Elon Musk with lipstick.

The DOT proposal does not say autonomous cars will be banned – not openly. But it is the necessary and logical conclusion of this whole putsch.

Automated and autonomous cars – oil and water. It has to be one or the other. It should be obvious which one the government and the corporations that increasingly might as well be the same thing (picture the Tyrell Corporation from the original Bladerunner movie) favor.

It is a control freak’s multiple orgasm.

The government will achieve the long-sought dream of ending free movement – at least, free movement by car. The squat, Beetle-like people that Orwell wrote about, who gravitate toward government, will know when you come and when you go and much more important, it will be within their power to determine how you go or if you go at all.

Corporations – the big car companies – will be able to put most of the population on the debit card merry-go-round. Whenever you want to go someplace, you click an app to summon a car and just as quickly (probably more quickly) the charge-by-the-hour will be deducted from your account.

Automated cars are nothing less than a kind of Metro Bus diaspora. As if the trains were able to leave the tracks and venture down sidestreets, but no less under the control of the conductor.

An epic fight is brewing – hopefully.

It is a fight that will pit Americans who cling to the idea of being autonomous – of being in control of their cars – and how they come and go – against those who do not understand that automated cars will be the end of their autonomy.

Many of the latter are foolish enough to believe that automated cars will free them, which is bizarre given the fact that their cars will be utterly controlled by someone else. They also foolishly imagine they will be whizzing along at high speed, getting to their destination much faster and more efficiently.

This is hilarious.

And, sad.

Think about any form of collectivized transportation and ask yourself how fast and efficient it is. Whether it is geared for speed – or the least common denominator.

Yup.

Channeling Charleton Heston in the first Planet of the Apes (end scene):

They finally, really did it.

God-damn them all.

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MN Steel
MN Steel

Gee, I guess motorcycles, ORVs and sundry other vehicles will go the way of the white man as well, in their u(dys)topian World of Tomorrow…

At least we won’t have to battle the Alliance in space as in Firefly in the future.

So we got that going for us…

Oh, and lots of firearms and the will to use them as well.

Anonymous
Anonymous

There is no will to use them.

Except among certain notable minority types who have no hesitation in using them (usually against each other).

Dave
Dave

A new breed of tree hugging fucks will be spawned to write their letters and articles shaming you into getting rid of your “freedom car” for the sake of the children and polar bears.

Shannon
Shannon

+1 for “freedom car”

Maggie
Maggie

Times Two.

rhs jr
rhs jr

Don’t we just love Big Brother being so thoughtful of us. Maybe we can make hand held devices to send all their cars off a cliff too.

TampaRed
TampaRed

we’re taking notes here junior

Barney
Barney

Anything that much fun will get you into trouble.

TC
TC

Will be nodding my head saying “told you so” the first time some clever carjackers with a laptop convince one of these “smart” cars that it’s trapped in a standstill traffic gridlock. Though probably easier to just jump out and stand in front of and behind the car. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

Will these cars let their passengers be robbed/raped/killed? Will the car sense danger and plow over the presumed attacker? What if the attacker was just a drunk crossing the road? Who assumes the liability?

TampaRed
TampaRed

that’s why we need gun control,so some nut doesn’t think he’s being carjacked and hit a pedestrian–
it’s for the greater good

Maggie
Maggie

It is amazing how easily people who work in the totalitarian controlled atmosphere accept that control as “freeing.” Freeing all of our time and attention to be devoted to working to pay taxes. On a computer that feeds the Controller.

James the Wanderer

The only people who can afford new cars can have them.

Mike Murray
Mike Murray

Great, the car will be able to monitor your conversations, detect contraband, lock the doors, and deliver you to the nearest detention facility. Combined with full web monitoring, “net neutrality” and a cashless society where all “money” and purchases are tracked, the world will finally be “safe”.

nkit
nkit

I want to go back to the old cars, like KRIT that built autos in Detroit from 1909-1916. You remember them? Sure, you do.

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Westcoaster
Westcoaster

None of this will ever come up for a vote by we the sheeple. Bureaucrats will make that decision for us with “regulations”. And one day they’ll make a rule change that any non-big brother equipped car will only be allowed to use the public streets in display mode. Sort of like classic car insurance is today.

JK (the other John)
JK (the other John)

But, how do I override the steering wheel when I suddenly want to whip into a convenience store to buy a 12 pack of beer?

James the Wanderer

Took a trip this week through western Colorado, hairpin turns up and down mountainsides; no freaking way automatic driving would EVER work. There were places that parts of the road had failed (landslides, maybe freeze / thaw damage) and down to single lane (one place had traffic lights set up to control traffic on the single lane; sign said “waits up to 20 min” and it lived up to it). Others said “falling rock next half mile” and so on.
Which brings up a point for even dry, level roads in well-behaved climates: how does automatic V2V handle hazards IN THE ROAD? Will it be able to see sinkholes, washouts from floors, missing manhole covers and similar nightmares of daily life?
Pipe dreams, all this crap. As soon as a few really spectacular accidents are CAUSED by this shit, mechanics will make loads of money disabling / taking out these failure-prone and unnecessary systems.

Anon
Anon

You realize this type of nonsense actually works on our favor. Let me explain. The stupid fucks and sheeple that go for this, are the same maroons that love Tesla, hate The Donald because of his “Russian Ties”, watch CNN and The View, drive a Prius and love government intervention in to everything. Most likely, they also live in a big urban center.
These people will be the first adopters of this “technology” because it is safe and modern and all that jazz. They will hopelessly depend on it, and make their stupid “statement” to the rest of us “alt righters” and “technology Luddites” just like they did with the Prius….Then they will have accidents, get dead a few times, and their will be less of them to deal with.
Let them have all of their stupid tech, and safety nonsense. Those of us that are sensible, intelligent and deplorable will be driving our normal non-safe cars just fine. And BTW, be passing them on the freeway snickering, just as is done now when a normal drives past the Prius with the “coexist” sticker with the unicorn rainbow in the back window…..

Maggie
Maggie

There is always a kind of Dukes of Hazard nature in the USA flyover spirit that understands how important a trust with one’s horse is to the journey. I gaze at those pre-80s classic cars around a hillbilly area like we have relocated to and want to open the hood and actually SEE cords, cables and breathing apparatus on the internal organs of my HORSE once known as a Chevy, Mopar or, for Chris’sake! a FORD: Fucked Over Rebuilt Dodge. And all built right here in the You Ess of Aye’s factories in some of the most historic and lovely towns and cities in the Northern Tier of Flyover Country. Detroit, Michigan? Is that still there?

Old Dog
Old Dog

I’m with rhs jr and TC in spirit.

Just as there are radar jammers and cell phone jammers, just tweak a frequency and send a batch of cars willy-nilly in a stretch of highway.

Maggie
Maggie

Take it from me; in order to avoid being in an accident on various freeway situations I did not like being forced into, I have seen occupants of a car saved by a driver’s reactions to a sudden situation you do not normally see on a daily basis, i.e., the driver rounds a curve and is suddenly facing an oncoming car trying to pass illegally in a no pass zone. Fortunately, the driver of the car I sat inside simply drove off the pavement onto an uneven shoulder and avoided the “unavoidable” crash quite adeptly. If you are like me (and about half of the general populace is female but I am guessing the percentage of TBP readers who are “Female” on their original birth certificate is in the ten to twenty percent range), the idea of driving onto the grass shoulder or the gravel of the median to pass an obstacle at high speed doesn’t hold the same appeal for Daisy as it does for Bo and Luke. I mean, she can DO IT… punch the engine on that Charger and fishtail that cute little rear end as she lays some tread with a pretty little squeal. She just doesn’t live for the tunnel vision high speed driving requires so that obstacles can be avoided or incorporated into the route without harm. It is called thinking outside the driver’s seat and it allows a thinking mind to seize control of a trusting steed’s direction and force in a mutually beneficial sharing of information to further shared goals. If the analogy fits, think the theatrical power of the Man From Snowy River’s triumphant plunge down that mountain on his sturdy mountain horse Bess (or something similarly alliterative with G’day Mate or Now That’s a Knife.)

Now, ask yourself why an island nation fairly isolated geopolitically that has some of the most beautiful scenery available to mankind and unexplored resources Outback and Beyond might be the best place to be right about now. As much as we love our little piece of the Ozarks out here in flyover country, I am thinking of making a journey to the Land Down Under soon. Just to see what I can see.

I really am eager to get a couple of horses, but then again… I am thinking a couple new 4×4 quads from John Deere might be in order. I do like a John Deer engine. I wonder who makes them now?

I am hazarding a guess: Briggs and Stratton?

Ah, I feel a “when I lived in Oklahoma story” coming on. When my husband was in Saudi for the umpteenth time before he retired the first possible second after twenty years in August 1999, I decided to take the plunge and buy him a really good riding lawn mower from either John Deere or GET THIS… KRAFTSMAN? Remember when that brand mean dependable? It was 1996 and my neighbor’s husband talked me into getting him a Poulan Pro.

We hated that mower. HATED.

I wonder if that poor decision on my part just three years into our marriage played a role in how much my husband HATED our neighbor that recommended the Poulan? We have stuck with John Deere since then, but then I just wondered? Do they still build them here?

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