I hate driverless cars. That is the fact that needs to be explained. Not justified, but explained.
Driverless cars pose no threat to my job, my income, or my wealth. That's not it.
The insurance companies, or safety-nazis, might force us to use driverless cars. That would be a threat to my enjoyment of driving. But even if that threat were eliminated, so each of us always had the option to drive ourselves, I would still hate driverless cars. That's not it either.
What I hate is the very option to use a driverless car. Because being able to exercise that option, even if I did not have to exercise that option, would make "driving" something very different from what it is without that option. In much the same way that "hunting" means something very different today in an agricultural economy with supermarkets than it did for our ancestors. "Wouldn't it be cheaper and easier and safer to just buy some meat at the supermarket, or do you think it's fun to kill animals for sport?" "Why not just press the auto button, so you can sit back and relax and enjoy the scenery or read a book?"
I don't want to live in an idiocracy, whether it is dysgenics or technology that creates that idiocracy. Satiation is not the bliss point; satiation is hell.
The Jalopniks don't like driverless cars. It is true that "Google's Co-Founder Sergey Brin Doesn't Understand Us And Never Will", but I am not sure that Jalopniks fully understand ourselves either.
"Our reality is radically different from Brin's. We enjoy the drive, we thrive on the involvement, we revel in the experience of focusing on one thing well. It's part of who we are and what we do. Which makes Brin's ignorance that much more astounding.
…..
Nothing illustrates that fissure between us and Brin better than one of his final comments to Khosla.
"It's also really nice to not have a steering wheel," says Brin. "To not have pedals.""
We want the steering wheel, and we want the pedals; and three pedals are better than two, even if a two-pedal car can change gear quicker than we can.
Yes, it is true that we find driving enjoyable, and many others don't. But we find it enjoyable in part because it is a real challenge, that our world imposes on us, and not an artificial challenge that we made up for ourselves. With any artificial challenge, that nagging question always remains "why am I doing this?"
You could say it's "pride", in trying to do something well that needs doing. And driverless cars will destroy that pride, because we won't really need to do it any more. Driverless cars will destroy our "jobs", even if it isn't a "job" in the normal sense of the word, because we are self-employed, and we are our own customers.
That pride is part of who we are; driverless cars are an existential threat to us.
Consequentialist/utilitarians will never get this.
Yes, I fully understand that many people don't like driving. Even more importantly, some people simply cannot drive, and cannot learn to drive. Maybe my eyesight will deteriorate, and I too will be unable to drive.
But I do feel an urge to smash the machines.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
Delurking to say bravo, Nick – you said what I’ve been thinking better than I could articulate it myself.
Thanks Declan!
I have now just read your May 19 post. I like it. We are following similar paths.
“Consequentialist/utilitarians will never get this.”
This is actually a pretty profound little litmus test. Most of the time I read your posts and generally agree with you, or at least can see how your conclusions are at least reasonable. However, the more I read of this post the less I understood it. Until I got to the final sentence – I’m certainly a consequentialist and I am basically a utilitarian.
Matt: yep. And my guess is that economists will have a harder time understanding it than non-economists. It goes so much against the grain.
Nick – you must read this latest by Charlie Brooker describing introducing his toddler to an on-line game called Motorbike Driver, and everything that’s wrong with human progress:
Worst of all, in the iPhone version – which surprise, surprise masquerades as “free” – the bike runs out of fuel now and then, and the only way to refill the tank it is to wait for a countdown to expire (slightly harder for a two-year-old than completing a tapestry), watch an advert (evil) or to purchase in-game petrol from the App Store. I first became aware of this when he screamed and hurled the phone across a restaurant table in a fury. I caved in immediately and, illustrating everything that’s wrong with human progress, found myself spending real money on non-existent petrol for a non-existent motorbike in a desperate bid to appease an infant. Spending money to shut him up felt transgressive and undignified – but worse still, I was literally fuelling his addiction.
Nick, if I may paraphrase, you enjoy doing something that a) you’re good at, b) is challenging, and c) is useful (in a utilitarian sense). In a world with self-driving cars, manual driving won’t be useful any more. You dislike the idea of that world because there’s one less thing for you to enjoy. Is that fair?
You also enjoy doing maintenance work on the MX6 yourself, right? Does the idea of a self-repairing car bother you as much as the idea of a self-driving car? And if so, what about the idea of professional car mechanics, who are basically car-repair robots (other than the robot part, anyway)?
If you want a challenge you can go hunting or weave your own cloth or write a book or anything. There’s never going to be a shortage of productive activities for people to do. We dont need to clutter the streets of commerce (literally in this case) with people’s hobbies.
I love this post Nick (and no, I find no joy in driving). I find it interesting how many find it in some way troublesome to acknowledge that innovations that may benefit others can have a profound psychological cost to others. Somehow we’re not supposed to say anything when over-all welfare improving changes are net negatives for us?
However, I think the real gem of the article is this:
Because being able to exercise that option, even if I did not have to exercise that option, would make “driving” something very different from what it is without that option. In much the same way that “hunting” means something very different today in an agricultural economy with supermarkets than it did for our ancestors.
I think people who cannot truly fathom this truth cannot understand the massive challenges that modern technology poses to so many aboriginal peoples. Even were they not subject to exploitation/racism/poverty, having your core identity become an optional “hobby” seems (by my observations) an almost insurmountable obstacle to long-term success.
Tom: thanks! I think that is the key point too.
“I think people who cannot truly fathom this truth cannot understand the massive challenges that modern technology poses to so many aboriginal peoples. Even were they not subject to exploitation/racism/poverty, having your core identity become an optional “hobby” seems (by my observations) an almost insurmountable obstacle to long-term success.”
I have for some time suspected that something like that was true and important. Especially for men. And I suspect that the decline of the fur trade due to animal rights people was especially damaging for destroying a bridge between the old ways and skills and the modern global economy. And I suspect that aboriginal men, like US black men, are canaries in the coal mine for many white men.
I have toyed with doing a post on this, but my near total ignorance of aboriginals, plus race/sex being a minefield, means I haven’t. So I write posts on money, which even though it matters a lot when it screws up, doesn’t matter as much as that stuff, in the long run.
Plus, Tom, if you read through the comments above, you will see that many commenters missed that key point. And I think the reason they missed it is because it’s just too weird, so their eyes skimmed right over it, like a typo.