Self-driving cars. Good idea or not?

P&C drink and review a mango IPA, then discuss self-driving cars.

There’s a 1-5 level system for different levels of car automation. We’re at about level 3 now, but we’re getting closer to levels 4 and 5.

In order to give some context to the discussion, the boys replay some footage of their recent ride in a self-driving car, and all the ethical decisions that had to be made to program the vehicle before they got on the road.

Then they reflect on how self-driving cars would change life and society. 

The inner dialog

I was speaking with a friend recently who told me that she does not have a constant dialog going on in the back of her mind.

Apparently not everyone has an inner monologue. I had no idea.

It must be peaceful!

Does that apply to songs as well?

I’ll hear a single word or a short phrase and my stupid brain immediately consult the lyrics library. Then I’ll find “It never rains in California,” or (heaven forbid) “Knock three times” or … something … playing in the back of my head for days. A good day is when it’s just a melody with no lyrics.

Can we admit the shutdown was a mistake?

Is it reasonable to ask people to keep these two thoughts in their heads at the same time?

1. Shutting down the country was probably the best decision at the time, given what we knew then. The stats we had in February were truly frightening, and the experts were telling us a million people could die.

2. Knowing what we know now, it was a mistake. The virus is not as deadly as we thought, and — with 20-20 hindsight — we can come up with several plans that would have been better.

Are people intellectually capable of that kind of thinking? Or has outrage culture, Trump Derangement Syndrome, “Trump can do no wrong” syndrome, etc., robbed us of that ability?

The inner circle

There’s a common theme in life and art of the “inner circle.” That is, among the people who seem to be in charge, there’s an inner group of the people who are really in charge. (Although sometimes the people who are really in charge are hidden in the background.) C.S. Lewis speaks of the inner circle at the university in That Hideous Strength.

To get into that group you have to show your loyalty to a particular mindset, and sometimes there’s a price for entry. Sometimes that price involves giving the group the ability to blackmail you.

You hear about that sort of thing in gangs, where you have to go commit some crime before you can enter, or get to advance to a certain level in the gang. The concept was also explicit in the NXIVM cult, where women had to give “collateral” to join a special group. The collateral was stuff they could use to bribe you with.

There are tons of examples of this sort of thing, and I’ve heard some real-life examples that are scary.

If this happens with law firms and cults and gangs and such, is it more likely or less likely that it happens with more consequential organizations — like governments, big corporations, or maybe even governments and big corporations?

I’m not sure what to make of it. You have the Harvey Weinsteins and Jeffrey Epsteins of the world, who seem to show that powerful people are complicit in very awful things. And while it would be nice to believe that there are institutions to uncover such crooked behavior (the media, law enforcement), we know that often they are complicit. (Think of the Rotherham scandal.)

What’s your opinion of these kinds of stories?