Hah! Found it! This discussion reminded me of Robert Heinlein's rant against the automobile. Turns out it is from the YA novel "The Rolling Stones"[1]: "Despit

Hah! Found it! This discussion reminded me of Robert Heinlein's rant against the automobile. Turns out it is from the YA novel "The Rolling Stones"[1]: "Despite the name 'automobile' these vehicles had no auto­control circuits; control, such as it was, was exercised second by second for hours on end by a human being peering out through a small pane of dirty silica glass, and judging unassisted and often disastrously his own motion and those of other objects. In almost all cases the operator had no notion of the kinetic energy stored in his missile and could not have written the basic equation. Newton's Laws of Motion were to him mysteries as profound as the meaning of the universe. Nevertheless millions of these mechanical jokes swarmed over our home planet, dodging each other by inches or failing to dodge. None of them ever worked right; by their nature they could not work right; and they were constantly getting out of order. Their operators were usually mightily pleased when they worked at all. When they did not, which was every few hundred miles (hundred, not hundred thousand) they hired a member of a social class of arcane specialists to make inadequate and always expensive temporary repairs. "Despite their mad shortcomings, these 'automobiles' were the most characteristic form of wealth and the most cherished possessions of their time. Three whole generations were slaves to them." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rolling_Stones_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rolling_Stones_(novel)