Do readers wonder why people sometimes let ‘systems’ make decisions for them? Two systems which do so are bureaucracy and computers and, although these two systems are supposed to operate for the benefit of individuals, it often feels to me as though individuals are less important than those running the system or, more dangerously, that the system itself has an inbuilt bias favouring ‘the group’ and not the individual.
This is the case with bureaucratic systems, especially those whose operators regard the rest of us as being stupid. For example, Whitehall’s latest wheeze is to remove Latin abbreviations such as e.g. et al and etc, from government web sites. This was explained by a spokesman as necessary because, “These terms, while common, make reading difficult for some people.” Personally, I find it difficult to figure out what is going on in the head of the bureaucrat who wants to censor abbreviations that have been in international use for over two thousand years.
Although my wife reckons I am generally an affable chap, I do get irritated when bureaucrats impose their self regarding, superior and often, politically correct views, on the rest of us. However, because the Shropshire poet A.E Houseman wrote that (too much) “Thinking drives men underground”, I’ll calm down. In any case, I reckon that as Latin abbreviations are more useful than most bureaucrats, we’ll continue to use them anyway.
Now to move on to computer systems; Some time ago I reported that the US Tesla Corporation had made a car for Google which drove itself, and I mused on which future autopilot car would take precedence when two of them came head to head in Welsh House Lane. Would it be the new BMW or the old Ford? What, or who would decide?
That is a problem for the future, but in the meantime the first death involving a driverless car occurred in Florida on 7th May, when the car of Joshua Brown went underneath a lorry. This is the first recorded fatality involving an autopilot vehicle and Tesla’s website explained that the sensors, which steer the car, had failed to recognise the white side of lorry against a sunlit sky.
Despite this, Tesla founder Elon Musk believes that driving is too dangerous for humans and says that, “This is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated.” He goes on, “Among all vehicles in the US, there is a fatality every 94 million miles but worldwide, there is a fatality every 60 million miles.” Statistics are interesting but driverless cars pose bigger questions than just the engineering ones. For example, what ethical considerations are built into the car for when it has to swerve one way to avoid a child or another way to avoid three elderly pensioners?
Ethical questions such as these have serious implications, and so I hope that those deciding them have as keen a concern for the individual as does the originator of ‘Christian ethics’. He was certainly a ‘one-off’ with ultimate concern for the individual. He did not toe the party (system) line, nor was he an administrative clone with a corporate checklist.
To conclude my musings for this month; in mid-August I noticed that wasps were nosing around my small apiary. This is a sign that queen wasps have stopped egg-laying and are preparing for winter hibernation. A consequence of which, is that worker wasps, which die before winter, now have no purpose in life and so go on a gluttonous prowl for food which includes raiding the stores of unwary bees.
One way a bee-keeper can help his colonies guard their honey is to partly block the entrance to the hive, and it was whilst doing this that I recalled Arthur Taylor from Staunton telling me some forty years ago that, you must always have empathy and be sensitive to the needs of your bees. However, empathetic sensitivity to bees or anything else is not easily taught, and this difficulty is illustrated by the following account from the female tutor of a class for pregnant women and their husbands in Mississippi.
She opened the class with, “Ladies. Exercise is good, and walking is the best because it strengthens the pelvic muscles and will make delivery easier.’ Walk steadily and take a rest now and again. Grass is the ideal surface because it is soft.” She then turned to the men. “Gentlemen remember that you’re in this together. You should walk with her; in fact the experience will do you good”.
After a long silence a shy young man raised his hand. The tutor smiled and nodded encouragement as Wayne stood and tentatively enquired ……
“Would it help if she carried a golf bag while we walked?”
View from the Pew 