The massive rush of journalists (seemingly none of whom bothered to do the most basic research like, I don't know, getting into a Tesla and looking at how it's Autopilot system works) who were jumping on the "Tesla self-driving system is killing people and needs to be regulated" bandwagon was shocking. A story in the LA Times was particularly ignorant and foolish.
Any owner of a Tesla could have been contacted via this primitive device that today's journalists are afraid to use called a telephone, and interviewed about whether it can function when there are no lines painted on the road, or if it's remotely convenient to get the vehicle to drive with nobody at the wheel.
I chalk it up to a way of thinking that permeates the brains of quantitatively illiterate people (the vast majority of the US population, and the overwhelming majority of journalists):
They think in terms of stories within a framework of a bigger story/narrative. They don't let data point them to reality. They instead think in terms of the privileged white male Elon Musk exploiting his workers and customers with malicious indifference in the pursuit of profit. Anecdotes from people, provided that they are designated as some form of victimized/marginalized group, are treated with the veracity of peer reviewed research. Anyone bringing up hard data that doesn't fit this narrative is attacked for a lack of empathy.
The attacks on Tesla are a perfect lens to view the corruption of journalistic institutions as they transformed themselves into Buzzfeed style confirmation-bias machines, harvesting clicks from emotionally charged lemmings reading the latest tribalistic takes from the former bloggers they employ.
The massive rush of journalists (seemingly none of whom bothered to do the most basic research like, I don't know, getting into a Tesla and looking at how it's Autopilot system works) who were jumping on the "Tesla self-driving system is killing people and needs to be regulated" bandwagon was shocking. A story in the LA Times was particularly ignorant and foolish.
Any owner of a Tesla could have been contacted via this primitive device that today's journalists are afraid to use called a telephone, and interviewed about whether it can function when there are no lines painted on the road, or if it's remotely convenient to get the vehicle to drive with nobody at the wheel.
I chalk it up to a way of thinking that permeates the brains of quantitatively illiterate people (the vast majority of the US population, and the overwhelming majority of journalists):
They think in terms of stories within a framework of a bigger story/narrative. They don't let data point them to reality. They instead think in terms of the privileged white male Elon Musk exploiting his workers and customers with malicious indifference in the pursuit of profit. Anecdotes from people, provided that they are designated as some form of victimized/marginalized group, are treated with the veracity of peer reviewed research. Anyone bringing up hard data that doesn't fit this narrative is attacked for a lack of empathy.
The attacks on Tesla are a perfect lens to view the corruption of journalistic institutions as they transformed themselves into Buzzfeed style confirmation-bias machines, harvesting clicks from emotionally charged lemmings reading the latest tribalistic takes from the former bloggers they employ.