Yeah this thread has really squicked me out. Of course dehumanization is an age-old tactic for enabling asshole behaviors of all sorts. I'd like to hope, however, that outside the current commuter-hell driving context, few people would even admit to themselves, let alone broadcast to the world, their considered preference for killing children. That is, when they no longer drive, perhaps people won't be quite so insane about auto travel. The twisted ethos displayed in this thread will be considered an example of Arendt's "banality of evil".
I don't even drive at all, and yet this thread irks me from the other direction. Dehumanization is an age-old tactic for enabling asshole behaviors, and bringing children into a discussion is an age old tactic for justifying irrational decisions ("Think of the children").
You claimed that any car may be driven slowly enough to avoid killing people on the road with only mere convenient to others. That's patently false: firetruck. And then there are several other posters claiming that it's the driver fault if any accident happens at all, due to the mere fact that the driver chooses to drive a car. If we remove every single vehicle in the US out of the street tomorrow, a whole lot of people would die, directly or indirectly. I'd like to see anyone stating outright that "usage of cars in modern society have no benefit insofar as saving human lives is concerned".
In the end, I think both sides are fighting a straw-man, or rather, imagine different scenario in the discussion. I read the original poster as imagine a case where swerving means on a freeway potentially being deadly for at least 2 vehicles, along with a multi-vehicle pile up. You're imaging suburban CA where swerving means some inconvenience with the insurance company. I have little doubt that everyone would swerve to avoid the collision in the latter.
Also since we're on HN and semantic nit-picking is a ritual around here, "avoid killing children in the road above all other priorities, including the lives of passengers" is NOT a good idea. As far as the car knows, I might have 3 kids in the backseats.
I believe you, that you don't drive at all. You call both situations strawmen, yet each is a common occurrence. Safe speed in an automobile is proportional to sightline distance. If drivers or robocars see a child (or any hazard) near the road, they should slow down. By the time they reach the child, they should be crawling. That's in an urban alley or on a rural interstate. If the child appeared before the driver or robocar could react, the car was traveling too fast for that particular situation.
In that "traveling too fast" failure mode, previous considerations of convenience or property damage no longer apply. The driver or robocar already fucked up, and no longer has standing to weigh any value over the safety of pedestrians. Yes it's sad that the three kids in the backseat will be woken from their naps, but their complaint is with the driver or robocar for the unsafe speeds, not with the pedestrian for her sudden appearance.
This is the way driving has always worked, and it's no wonder. We're talking about kids who must be protected from the car, but we could be talking about hazards from which the car itself must be protected. If you're buzzing along at 75 mph and a dumptruck pulls out in front of you, you might have the right-of-way, but you're dead anyway. You shouldn't have been traveling that fast, in a situation in which a dumptruck could suddenly occupy your lane. In that failure mode, you're just dead; you don't get to choose to sacrifice some children to your continued existence.
Fortunately, the people who actually design robocars know all this, so the fucked-up hypothetical preferences of solipsists who shouldn't ever control an automobile don't apply.
Thanks for your response. That's certainly an interesting way to think about driving (in a good way). Your previous posts would have done better by elaborate that way.
Just a bit of clarifying, I didn't call the situations rare or a strawman. I said the arguments were against a strawman, as you were thinking of different scenario and arguing on that.
Out of curiosity, had the situation with 3 kids in the car being potentially deadly to swerve. What would the response be?
"You claimed that any car may be driven slowly enough to avoid killing people on the road with only mere convenient to others. That's patently false: firetruck."
As a firefighter I'd like to offer a few thoughts on this:
- fire engines, let alone ladder trucks are big but slow. Older ones have the acceleration of a slug and struggle to hit high speeds
- with very, very few exceptions, the difference of 10 seconds to 2 minutes that your arrival makes is likely to have no measurable difference (do the math, most departments are likely to have policies allowing only 10mph above posted limits at best, and if you're going to a call 3mi away...)
- again, as mentioned, most departments have a policy on how far the speed limit can be exceeded. It might feel faster when it goes by when you're pulled over, but realistically there won't be much difference
- "due caution and regard" - almost all states have laws saying that there's implied liability operating in "emergency mode" - that is, you can disobey road laws as part of emergency operations, but any incident that happens as a result thereof will be implied to be the fault of the emergency vehicle/operator until and unless proven otherwise
If I'm driving an engine, blazing around without the ability to respond to conditions as much as I would in a regular situation/vehicle, then emergency mode or not, I am in the wrong.
This is a ridiculous claim to make. Emergency vehicles will be the very last kind of vehicle to get autonomous driving (if ever), because they routinely break regular traffic rules, and routinely end up in places off-road in some way.
Hell, modern jumbo jets can fly themselves, from takeoff to landing, but humans are still there specifically to handle emergencies.
> As far as the car knows, I might have 3 kids in the backseats.
Strange that you envision having a car capable of specifically determining 'children' in the street, but nothing about the occupants. Especially given that we already have cars that complain if they detect an occupant not wearing a seatbelt, but no autonomous driving system that can specifically detect an underage human.
> You're imaging suburban CA where swerving means some inconvenience with the insurance company.
"I'd rather other people die than me" is not about imagining mere inconvenience with insurance companies.
For someone complaining about strawmen, you're introducing a lot of them.
You seems to selectively cut out and either skim or didn't read my full post. Except the last paragraph, my full comment has little to do with autonomous driving and just driving/ morality with regard to driving in general.
No, I do NOT trust the car to detect children either on the road or in the car, that's why I phrased my comment that way.
> "I'd rather other people die than me" is not about imagining mere inconvenience with insurance companies.
Yes, I specifically point out the scenario the poster of that quote might be thinking about to contrast with the inconvenience scenario.
You should take your own advice: read the post again before commenting.
