In a
previous article, I discussed some of the ramifications of self-driving cars
from the perspective of some of the ongoing themes I have introduced in this
column. I have been concerned about the
loss of human agency, the loss of friction in the human narrative, and being
thrown into an experiential vacuum by being reduced to a passive passenger all
the time. Now it appears that automobiles
are not the only form of human transportation to be affected by
automation. Companies like Rolls-Royce
are working on ships: first ferries and tugboats, but eventually cargo ships to
be operated through remote control or by themselves. No need for human intervention, except a
relatively small amount in the case of remote control, where there would be one
person exerting control out of an office far away from the ship. In particular, the inventors of these kinds
of vessels say that humans get tired, humans make errors and some of these
errors lead to accidents. We have seen
these arguments used for self-driving cars.
Truthfully, they could be used to argue against most implements,
devices, and machines that humans have developed in order to extend their
dominion over the planet earth. Most of
the items that humans have invented have risks.
A person can cut himself using a hand-held razor. This is a major reason why electric razors
were invented. When a person uses an
electric razor, the idea is that he is not going to cut himself.
But
shaving does not represent a significant part of the human narrative. Shaving is not a significant organic imprint
that helps a person feel alive. It is
not the kind of imprint that one would want to preserve on an enduring physical
surface and/or in the memories of the people around him. Sailing a commercial ship on a big body of
water does represent a meaningful part of the human narrative, is a significant
organic imprint that can help at least one kind of a person feel alive, and
does represent a potentially preservable imprint that becomes a part of a
person’s surrogate immortality. And the
specialness of the imprints in this case comes precisely in the need of this
kind of a person, a sailor, to make lots of little decisions and sometimes some
big ones in the directing of his tasks to help get a ship to its destination
and, at the same time, to help keep the ship in good shape and afloat.
And
in the process of making these decisions and performing these tasks, there is
always the possibility of making a terribly wrong decision or performing a task
in a terribly wrong way or simply confronting an unforeseen situation like a
terrible storm or the boat hitting something and springing a leak. A decision or
a task performance or an unforeseen situation or a combination of more than one
of these factors can all put the ship in peril.
Humans
make mistakes. Sometimes they are easily
correctable. Sometimes they are
correctable, but it is too late to prevent some kind of permanent damage in a
situation. Sometimes they are
fatal. And some unforeseen situations
cannot be corrected at all in time and become fatal. Many people today feel they want as much as
possible to get rid of the possibility of human mistakes and even unforeseen
situations from all major life processes.
And the only way that they can effectively accomplish this goal is by
extracting people as much as possible from the human narrative.
Inventors
of the remote control and automated ships say another reason that we need this
kind of cargo ship is that fewer and fewer people today want to go on long
voyages where they have to be away from home and family for long periods of
time. This is a legitimate concern, and
yet it is frequently going to be true that participating in vibrant life
experiences in one area of one’s life narrative is going to require a more
minimal participation in other areas of one’s life narrative. Becoming a sailor, for many people, is
entering a life filled with adventure, fighting to survive on the water and
visiting exotic ports of call.
Furthermore, it has acted as a source of dreams for men who were unable
to give up the responsibilities they had at home in order to pursue riskier
enterprises. Many autobiographies and
novels have been written on the subject of the life of a sailor. Many of the adventures in these
autobiographies and novels have involved dealing with pirates or even being a
pirate. Supposedly the modern remote
control and automated ships are impervious to pirates. There are no sailors to take as hostages, and
cargoes can be more effectively protected.
But
do we let terrorists stop us from living in big cities or from flying? If we are going to go on living, truly
living, there are always going to be problems, unsatisfactory aspects of our
individual lives and our living environments which we are going to have to
confront and deal with. And that has
always been a part of life. Pirates have
been successfully dealt with in the past and are being successfully dealt with
in the present (although there has been a small recent resurgence of Somali
piracy, because foreign governments have let their guard down.) But our new way of dealing with piracy - creating
remote control and automated cargo ships - is creating one more small layer of
vacuumization in our fields of experience in our daily lives. It is one more wedge separating us from our
grounding in the external world. It is
one more change away from our aspiration to live a more adventurous vibrant life.
It is one more elimination of the organic friction that people need in their
lives in order to feel alive.
The
only way to get rid of all the dangerous human error in our daily lives is to
completely take the life out of our lives.
And that is what the inventors of machines like remote control and
automated cargo ships are doing. They
are putting all of us gradually into the living death of overprotection from
ourselves, the living death of a total experiential vacuum. We will be protected, all right, but we will
barely be able to feel anything, because there will be so little left to feel.
(c) 2017 Laurence Mesirow
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