3 ms·

I love that the software (which may or may not be the cause this though I am leaning towards not.) is being crucified for something that could have happened in

I love that the software (which may or may not be the cause this though I am leaning towards not.) is being crucified for something that could have happened in older cars with direct throttle body response. My friend got the throttle cable stuck on a dirt bike that he was using and it was going full tilt until he was able to return the throttle to it's default state. I would imagine that an improperly maintained older car would have the same capability for sticking.

sliverstorm 17y ago
People just leap to blame the software. It's dark and mysterious and people imagine that it is taking control away from them.
- MikeCapone 17y ago
  Exactly. What should matter is "are our cars getting safer or more dangerous?" If that's the question, then I think it's safe to say that they are getting safer. But if you're just looking for something to blame, it's a lot easier to blame something you don't understand.
InclinedPlane 17y ago
It's classic fear of the unknown and of the novel and unusual. For example, people love to talk about the horrors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as though somehow that 0.3% or so of the deaths that occurred in WWII were especially worse than all the others. As though being spitted on a bayonet, blasted into pieces, shot with bullets, starved to death, or burned alive were such loftier ways to die. The difference is that a nuclear detonation is even now an unfamiliar thing, so we imbue it with an exceptionality it does not deserve. However, none of the other tens of millions of military and civilian persons who lost their lives in that war are any better off for the mundanity of the circumstances of their death. Indeed, many millions of those deaths were far more horrific and far more tragic than the casualties of nuclear warfare. I suppose this sort of thing can be chalked up to a peculiarity of how the human mind works. A relevant example would be the widespread fear of credit card theft in the early days of e-commerce, despite the fact that most people were comfortable giving their cards to low-wage restaurant staff, store clerks, and mail-order companies. This is why you need to be very careful when evaluating risk, because our instincts have not yet evolved much beyond what they were at the start of the Holocene epoch 12k years ago, and the instinctual fear responses we still have are often no longer applicable in the modern era.

sliverstorm 17y ago

People just leap to blame the software. It's dark and mysterious and people imagine that it is taking control away from them.

MikeCapone 17y ago
Exactly. What should matter is "are our cars getting safer or more dangerous?" If that's the question, then I think it's safe to say that they are getting safer. But if you're just looking for something to blame, it's a lot easier to blame something you don't understand.

InclinedPlane 17y ago

It's classic fear of the unknown and of the novel and unusual. For example, people love to talk about the horrors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as though somehow that 0.3% or so of the deaths that occurred in WWII were especially worse than all the others. As though being spitted on a bayonet, blasted into pieces, shot with bullets, starved to death, or burned alive were such loftier ways to die. The difference is that a nuclear detonation is even now an unfamiliar thing, so we imbue it with an exceptionality it does not deserve. However, none of the other tens of millions of military and civilian persons who lost their lives in that war are any better off for the mundanity of the circumstances of their death. Indeed, many millions of those deaths were far more horrific and far more tragic than the casualties of nuclear warfare. I suppose this sort of thing can be chalked up to a peculiarity of how the human mind works. A relevant example would be the widespread fear of credit card theft in the early days of e-commerce, despite the fact that most people were comfortable giving their cards to low-wage restaurant staff, store clerks, and mail-order companies. This is why you need to be very careful when evaluating risk, because our instincts have not yet evolved much beyond what they were at the start of the Holocene epoch 12k years ago, and the instinctual fear responses we still have are often no longer applicable in the modern era.