No sane person “hates” – as I have been accused of “hating”-  electric cars or self-driving cars or air bags or any other technology or device. Hating them is as irrational as hating guns. They’re all morally neutral. Tools.

What irks is being force-fed electric cars, self-driving cars – and so on.

It never seems to be enough that a new device or technology is merely available. Put on the market by those who designed and built it – and then left to succeed or fail on the merits of the thing.

It’s always a totalitarian push that everyone will have “x” – want it or not.

Self-driving cars will follow this pattern. Swords Into Plowshares... Paul, Ron Best Price: $4.00 Buy New $15.99 (as of 11:36 UTC - Details)

But there will be a big difference this time.

Once they transition from futuristic technology to everyday viability – and we’re this close to that unhappy moment – proposals will be warbled (then laws enacted) restricting and ultimately forbidding the operation of non-automated cars on the government’s roads.

Against the State: An ... Rockwell Jr., Llewelly... Best Price: $5.02 Buy New $5.52 (as of 11:35 UTC - Details) Remember: Driving is a privilege (as they see it). Not a right.

Elon Musk – the billionaire crony capitalist who loves the idea of directing the flow of history using coercion rather than consent – recently let the self-driving cat out of the bag. It will be done Because Safety. Here is the relevant quote:

“It’s too dangerous,” said Musk. “You can’t have a person driving a two-ton death machine.”

Italics added.

Scarlet Letters: The E... Jack Cashill Best Price: $3.00 Buy New $9.84 (as of 08:10 UTC - Details) People, in other words, cannot be trusted to behave responsibly on their own. They must be presumed irresponsible – incompetent. All of them. Every last one of us. Premise accepted – which Musk and his fellow coercive utopians will insist upon – and the next step is not only obvious but inevitable.

Within ten years, perhaps sooner, not one of us will be allowed to operate a “two ton death machine.” This will be forbidden. Not initially. But give them time.

Cars that do not drive themselves will first be vilified as unsafe, a threat to the children. This is already happening. Musk says the evidence is “overwhelming” that cars driven by us rather than by him (via computer proxy) are horribly dangerous.

Our Final Invention: A... Barrat, James Buy New $9.99 (as of 05:35 UTC - Details) Those who “cling” to them will be rhetorically tarred and feathered.

Within a very short time – as the autonomous car pupates into a reality – the push to retire cars we’re allowed to drive ourselves (remember, government roads we’re privileged to use) will become a shove. It will begin with nudges, such as restricted lanes. Autonomous Cars Only. Just as was done – and is still being done – to encourage the use of hybrid and electric vehicles.

These will be expanded.

From one lane to all of them. The highways will be first. Secondary roads a few years afterward. Think I’m exaggerating? Ask Musk.

Or, ask Google.

Read the Whole Article

The Best of Eric Peters