Why would you NOT want to drive this?Posted on 03/24/2018 7:58:36 AM PDT by NOBO2012
Could there be anything less American than driverless cars? I suppose sexbots might quality but certainly driverless cars are right up there.
Seriously, driverless cars have no place in the land that practically invented the open road, hit-the-road-Jack-never-come-back motif. And Michael Walsh agrees:
…these vehicles are emasculating, imprisoning, anti-American, and inhuman. And now, in the wake of the first fatal accident involving an “autonomous vehicle,” they’re deadly as well.
Whence comes this rush to robot cars? Did the public demand it? Or have our betters in the tech industry and in the bowels of the bureaucracy taken it upon themselves to correct our lamentable human failings and, in the name of “safety,” shove these vehicles down our throats?
He also touches on how the fear of terrorism has led to the trashing of the Fourth Amendment. Citing how we’re all subject to government overreach, unreasonable search and seizure at airports and “legal” snooping via your computer, phone (and bank records) he wonders “why would you climb into a robocar and take yourself hostage on purpose?” And notes that convenience “is no reason to voluntarily surrender your personal autonomy to something that will, by definition, be subject to close governmental scrutiny and control.”
All of which seems self-evident to anyone of a certain age. Not so for Millennials – many of whom didn’t even want to learn how to drive – who have been conditioned by propaganda to embrace mass transportation, Ubers and Zipcars. Not only do they feel they are saving the planet by not owning their own means of transportation. And it allows them to forego yet another right of passage to adulthood: the assumption of responsibility for owning and operating a set of wheels to get them from where they are to where they think they want to go. They’ll never appreciate that joie de vivre kindled simply by listening to a “road song” written to celebrate freedom and mobility – both euphemistically and literally. Pity, really.
Here’s just a partial list of my best ‘Hit the Road’ songs, feel free to add your own:
The Beach Boys — ‘Little Deuce Coupe’
Ronnie and the Daytonas – Little GTO – aka the “The Wah Wah song”
The Stills-Young Band — ‘Long May You Run’
Janis Joplin — ‘Mercedes Benz’
Wilson Pickett — ‘Mustang Sally’
Willie Nelson — ‘On The Road Again’
The Doors – Riders on the Storm
Prince — ‘Little Red Corvette’
Tracy Chapman — ‘Fast Car’
Don Henley — ‘Boys of Summer’
And of course the ultimate Motown car song, Aretha Franklin’s Freeway of Love (in her Pink Cadillac)
Mr. Walsh concludes his analysis of driverless cars with this:
But that’s what the land of the free is rapidly becoming: a nation of passengers, without even enough gumption to be backseat drivers. Enjoy the ride.
They once said “as GM goes, so goes the nation.” I say “no” to gray, soul-less, driverless cars. I say let’s make Motown great again and see how it works out for the rest of the country.
So let’s hit the road, Jack (and Jackie).
Posted from: MOTUS A.D.
"Progress" doesn't always mean that things get better.
Good way to describe the Ram. I thought of getting one when they first came out when I was still an outdoors camping skiing guy. The Chevy and Ford trucks are just boxy ugly. But then, a truck isn't about looks, but utility.
Or "Hollywood Nights".
I got to buy a couple of tires for my 16 Tacoma. They were the last originals. The other two had been replaced due to those fantastic roads here in SC.
56K and change. A couple of nights back I just happened to look at a rear tire and saw a braid. I had gotten lazy and not checked often.
I converted my 65 Jeep to electronic ignition. That is one thing I have no regrets over. It never ran that great on points. I had to file the retainer plate some to get enough advance.
I’d love to have one like Rick Simon’s Power Wagon from the 80s show.
“It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford slowing down to take a look at me”
Can’t have that any more. Maybe this:
“It’s a female gendered person of unknown orientation, my preferred deity, in a robot Ford being reprogrammed for a possible passenger pickup”
Ruins the song.
I agree with that. I’d say the same thing about paying for poor survival skills if she had been out walking at night unarmed and been killed by a mugger. But I would still blame the mugger. :-)
Used to do that song in one of my bands.
Just like cars with drivers.
If we're going to ban driveless cars because of one fatality and condemn the whole lot of them, then all the rest of the automobiles on the road need to be likewise condemned and taken off the road.
Once driver-less cars become the norm what will local communities do to make up all that cash they used to get from citations?
I don’t think that driver-less cars could be programmed to break any rules of the road.
Go for the tax per mile driven?
Raise gas tax thru the roof?
Increase registration fees?
Huge tire tax?
Come up with some kind of “Road Subscription” to have access to any road?
Unintended consequences seen from a mile away.
What’s the point in that? Twisting the wrist and tilt’n the horizon is what it’s all about.
You do know the Continental, right? It’s not really Lincoln (although I grew up on Town Cars and adore Lincoln’s of the past). It was’56 and ‘57 and only a coupe. Hardly any cars of the ‘50s were really “boxy”. Definitely the ‘60s, though I far prefer that to the plump little blimps of the last 30 years.
Cadillac got ridiculous with the fins. They are iconic but the hype from that leads to overrating. Some of the ‘57 are nice, but some did not look right. I’d prefer the earlier. The ‘59 I hate...but of course that is most hyped! My mom grew up mostly on Cadillacs, but she loved her brothers’ c.50 Crestliner!
May be. I think the Tokyo Drift sequel got them thinking about the need for speed and interest in hopping up their little Civics. Did I just say, "hopping up"? How old am I?
poor analogy. The mugger had criminal intent.
I love boxy. It’s sharp, it’s masculine!
Ford trucks in the ‘90s were actually wussied with rounded slouching noses instead of what had been nice and sharp and upstanding. But they’re back to pretty masculine. My dad had a ‘91 recently replaced by a ‘15 and it looks as nice as his old (last of the good boxy).
But when Chrysler started going retro c1990, we in the auto-parts shop loved it. Loved the retro Dodge trucks, and they still have some hint of that. Before that Dodge was THE worst of all the looks.
Did you see the inside video of the fatality? I did. The car has 360 radar and night vision and heat vision (FLIR), but it didn't spot the woman crossing the street until it was on her.
This technology needs refinement.
I hate that song.
LOL sorry! About as hated as the original “McArthur Park”!
I would give MacArthur Park the most annoying song award for that year. 2525 was no great wonder, but at least it rocked just a little.
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