Title : A Thought About Cars And Driving
link : A Thought About Cars And Driving
A Thought About Cars And Driving
Time was, reaching the age of sixteen was celebrated for more than one reason. At sixteen years of age, a youth could start taking driving lessons, with an eye to winning a driver’s license and achieving that ultimate badge of American independence: auto-mobility!
(Yes, yes, it helps to have a car, but that’s a separate subject.)
I’ve read several times that today’s young Americans are far less interested in learning to drive and acquiring the means than were the teens of my generation and the following one. A few other commentators have mused in pixels over what this might mean. Needless to say, opinions vary.
But consider that pattern a backdrop to another set of developments: specifically, the emergence of the self-driving car.
Here’s a rather impressive story about a cross-continent trip in a self-driving car. The engineer who claims to have accomplished the feat said he only touched the wheel and pedals out of biological necessity:
Anthony Levandowski, the controversial engineer at the heart of a lawsuit between Uber and Waymo, claims to have built an automated car that drove from San Francisco to New York without any human intervention.The 3,099-mile journey started on 26 October on the Golden Gate Bridge, and finished nearly four days later on the George Washington Bridge in Manhattan.
The car, a modified Toyota Prius, used only video cameras, computers and basic digital maps to make the cross-country trip.
Levandowski told the Guardian that, although he was sitting in the driver’s seat the entire time, he did not touch the steering wheels or pedals, aside from planned stops to rest and refuel. “If there was nobody in the car, it would have worked,” he said.
Let’s assume that this actually happened as described above. What does it mean?
For one thing, it suggests that the practical significance of being able to drive is decreasing, and that it could conceivably drop to zero in the future. For another, it indicates that there’s one hell of a lot of highly detailed information available about the national road system: available, moreover, to a vehicle in motion. And for a third, it implies that we’re approaching a state of affairs in which it will become feasible for the federal government to demand that all cars be self-driving.
At that point the privately owned automobile would become an endangered species. Indeed, it might be abolished by law. For why, after all, would anyone need to own one? Just dial up the nearest depot, have one toddle over to your location for whatever jaunt you have in mind, and have it return to the depot when your errands are complete. No muss; no fuss; and no garage needed.
The special variety of competence and self-assurance required to pilot a moving car would disappear within a generation. Add it to the list of other competences our hyper-specialized economy has made scarce.
A dear, departed friend often lamented to me about the disappearance of basic competences. That friend was so ultra-competent, and in so many ways, that I’d have bet my savings that he could start from the forest primeval and rebuild American civilization to about the 1950 level. I can’t imagine what he’d think of a society in which true independent mobility over distances longer than a mile or two was uncommon.
Specialization has two faces. One of them is economic efficiency. The other is a level of social interdependence that implies an equal degree of individual helplessness. I wrote about it in Freedom’s Scion:
As they exited the tree-lined corridor from the commercial strip and turned onto the pathway to Morelon House, Althea halted her husband and turned to face him. “I can’t figure out what he’s planning, can you?”
Martin gazed at her ruefully. “I’ve been thinking about that and nothing else, love. But I’m dead certain it’s nothing we’d enjoy.”
“So what now?”
He grimaced. “I don’t know. Postpone the trip, for sure. How to get our initial load up to Thule? Frankly, I don’t think we have much choice. Our clan had heavy-lift capacity at one point, didn’t it?”
She nodded. “Yeah, but we sold the plane when Adam’s dad set up shop here. Charisse said she was happy to get rid of it. It made more sense to hire it out, so we wouldn’t have to maintain a plane and train pilots.”
She glanced at the entrance to Morelon House. The old mansion looked as sturdy as ever. It presented an appearance of immutable strength to all who saw it. Yet it had begun to seem to her that the clan had undermined that strength in several ways, with several decisions. None of them had been fatal; indeed, when each was made, it had appeared to be the obvious choice. Yet in combination, they had rendered Clan Morelon massively dependent upon the wills and skills of a multitude of outsiders...persons who might not be as available or dependable as one would hope.
—That’s the downside of the division of labor, Al.
Yeah. I can see that, Grandpere. But how could we have avoided it?
—By resisting all the temptations to specialize and to make use of specialists. By purchasing absolute self-sufficiency at the price of economic advantage. Which, incidentally, no clan or society known to history has ever managed to do.
The incentives are too strong, aren’t they?
—Judge for yourself, dear. Put yourself in Charisse’s place at the point when Jack Grenier moved into the area and started offering his services around. Would you have done as she did, knowing only what she did at the time?
Probably. If there’s a lesson in this—
—If there is, Al, no one has ever drawn it. The division of labor is the one and only path toward general prosperity. It can go to an incredible depth. A frightening depth. And it is utterly reliant upon the character and good will of the specialists. Let one critical specialty be corrupted by political forces, or conceive of a grudge against some other group, or even decide that it can rape its customers without fear of reprisal, and the destruction spreads faster than anyone can act to check it.
When mastering the skills required to drive was a rite of passage toward adulthood, the young American could claim at least one “merit badge” for having won a license. What happens if that’s taken from them? What would replace it – if anything?
Oh, never mind. It’s too early in the morning for such pessimism. Besides, my digital auto-grinder / brewer has just texted me that the coffee’s ready, so it’s time to power up my electric scooter, have it zip me over to the kitchen, and let the waldoes pour me a cup of java. Yeah, yeah: I still have to add the milk myself, but no doubt someone is working on that. See you later.
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