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Once I'd had it pointed out to me that these articles go out of their way never to refer to people on foot as actual people, I just can't unsee it. The only th
by tom_ 7y ago
Once I'd had it pointed out to me that these articles go out of their way never to refer to people on foot as actual people, I just can't unsee it.
The only thing referred to as human here is the driver, and the only person whose safety is discussed is the driver. Clearly at some point during the composition process the writer got bored of using the term "pedestrian", because it looks like he hit up the thesaurus, discovered the term "biped", and decided that would be a good term to use. (But I bet you a fiver these cars won't stop for kangaroos or ostriches other than as part of some generic collision avoidance system.)
In the writer's defence, the sentence about the driver's safety is a mite ambiguous - but it could have been more explicit, so I'm going to be uncharitable here. And I do give him points for sneaking the term "run people over" in the last sentence, because he could so easily have referred to it as an accidental unavoidable pedestrian collision incident or something.
- atoav 7y agoEntire cities are built around our love for cars — the ideology of the superiority and desireability of cars is deeply buried within the fibre of society. It could be that the author thinks they are just being neutral, while the neutral thing would be to describe this technology as something that regulates the interaction between equally valuable human beeings. This is car culture 101: expensive Cars (and their drivers) are the top of the foodchain, cyclists and pedestrians are the bottom. Depending on where you live this might differ (e.g. in the Netherlands cyclists are on the same level as motorists and you can really see it in the architecture).
- xapata 7y ago> Entire cities And the modern police force.
- jakobegger 7y agoTo me, the term "bipeds" seemed like a stylistic choice to emphasize the shortcomings of the systems -- the algorithms are not sophisticated enough to understand what a "person" is, so the author used a different word to emphasize that fact. And the rest of the article is about a test with crash dummies. Why would the author talk about "people" when the tests were performed with dummies?
- jschwartzi 7y ago> And the rest of the article is about a test with crash dummies. Why would the author talk about "people" when the tests were performed with dummies? Because the upshot of the tests is that if your car is equipped with ACAS that "detects pedestrians," then it may lull you into a false sense that your car will avoid running people over and killing them even if you stop paying attention. The reality is that the ACAS is not foolproof and you shouldn't rely on it. But these systems are likely to create a Volvo Effect, where the people who have them drive much more recklessly than people without them.
- stirner 7y agoThe “Volvo effect” refers to standardized testing mostly reflecting the income and education level of one’s parents. I can’t find any research showing that Volvo owners drive more recklessly, but I’d believe it. Do you have any more info?
- mikestew 7y agoThe theory amongst some motorcyclists is that know they’re shit drivers, so they go buy a Volvo. They’re not driving like idiots because they’re in a safe car, they’re in a Volvo because they know they’re a menace. Hard hypothesis to test. Just stay away from Volvo’s.
- braythwayt 7y agoThat's not a theory, that's some kind of urban legend or folklore, and it's nonsense. Repeating it without a shred of substantiation is equally nonsensical. If you want to "stay way from Volvos" on account of it, fine. Please also consider throwing a pinch of salt over your shoulder when you spill it, and crossing the street when you see a black cat.
- mikestew 7y agoEasy, cowboy. If you took that as being passed off as serious science or some shit, you need to go grab another cup of coffee. Or maybe cut back.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoKind of like how they go out of their way to refer to people operating cars as drivers instead of actual people? This kind of language is par for the course because these articles basically use a less terse version of whatever language the study or official report uses and those kinds of documents tend to shy away from things like "people driving cars" and "people walking". You are finding meaning where there is none.
- hello_friendos 7y agoNo, this is actually a real thing that happens when the news covers driver pedestrian interactions. https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/03/28/how-coverage-of-pedestrian-fatalities-dehumanizes-victims-and-absolves-drivers/ https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/03/28/how-coverage-of-pedes...
- tom_ 7y agoYes. Thank you for this post - this was exactly the sort of thing my comment was referring to.
- Kalium 7y agoOne of the side-effects of using "human centered language" tends to be needless verbosity and resulting clumsy writing as the human being writing the piece of writing labors to appropriately center the human being or human beings being discussed.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]