That the brain uses electrical/chemical signals is crank science about subatomic particles messing with your aura in a way comparable to "body thetans" in Scientology.
If that were not so, electrical/chemical engineers could upgrade our brains with their knowledge of electricity/chemistry.
Scientific progress is thinking about stuff. And my Occam's razor is leaning toward "if just arithmetic could yield consciousness we would have figured it out by now".
> I imagine the jury heard "autopilot" and then assigned blame to the company that called it that.
It's only fair. If the name was fine when it was attracting the buyers who were mislead about the real capabilities, it must be fine when it causing the same to jurors.
There's another similar argument to be made about the massive amount awarded as damages, which maybe will be lowered on appeal. If people (Tesla included) can make the argument that when a car learns something or gets an "IQ" improvement they all do, then it stands to reason that when one car is dangerous they all are (or were, even for a time). There are millions of Teslas on the road today so proportionally it's a low amount per unsafe car.
"Autopilot" isn't even the most egregious Tesla marketing term since that honour goes to "Full Self-Driving", which according to the fine text "[does] not make the vehicle autonomous".
Tesla's self-driving advertising is all fucking garbage and then some George McGee browses Facebook while believing that his car is driving itself.
I don't think these terms are meaningfully different in the heads of most people.
I know autopilot in airplanes is a set of assistive systems which don't remotely pretend to replace or obsolete humans. But that's not typically how it's used colloquially, and Tesla's marketing benefits heavily from the colloquial use of "autopilot" as something that can pilot a vehicle autonomously.
As gets pointed out ad nauseum, the very first "cruise control" product in cars was in fact called "Auto-Pilot". Also real "autopilot" systems in aircraft (where the term of art comes from!) aren't remotely supervision-free.
This is a fake argument (post hoc rationalization): It invents a meaning to a phrase that seems reasonable but that has never been rigorously applied ever, and demands that one speaker, and only that one speaker, adhere to the ad hoc standard.
> real "autopilot" systems in aircraft (where the term of art comes from!) aren't remotely supervision-free
Pilot here. If my G1000’s autopilot were flying and I dropped my phone, I’d pick it up. If my Subaru’s lane-keeping were engaged and I dropped me phone, I might try to feel around for it, but I would not go spelunking for several seconds.
I can't tell which side of the argument you're on here. The driver in the Tesla case didn't "drop a pen". Your Subaru is a recent car and not a 2018 Tesla Model S (which was launched before the Full Self Driving product everyone here seems to think they're arguing about existed!).
And... no pilot is allowed to operate any automatic pilot system without supervision, I genuinely can't imagine that's what you're implying[1].
[1] Your "drop a pen" example seems deliberately constructed to invent a scenario where you think you're allowed to stop supervising the aircraft because it sounds harmless. It's not. You aren't. And if the FAA traces that post to your license I bet anything they'll suspend it.
Couldn't agree more. This thing where words have a common definition and then a secret custom definition that only applies in courts is garbage. Everyone knows what "full self driving" means, either deliver that, come up with a new phrase or get your pants sued off for deceptive marketing.
Sadly most people don't know that this case involved a comparatively ancient Tesla that did not have FSD. Seems like better attention to the "meaning of words" (like, the ones in the article you seem not to have read) might have helped things and not hurt them?
The car didn't have it. They weren't advertising it at the time of the crash. You couldn't buy it yet. And the upgrades wouldn't ship for months. I think I stand by what I said. Your attempt to make this about FSD seems to be basically a lie, no?
Autopilot is used when referring to a plane (until Tesla started using it as a name for their cruise control that can steer and keep distance).
In the context of a plane, autopilot always meant automatic piloting at altitude, and everyone knew it was the human pilots that were taking off and landing the plane.
Pilot is a relatively high status career. They are always shown taking off and landing in tv shows and movies. I would be surprised if people thought they just sit back and relax the entire time.
The first cruise control system in cars was released in 1908, before planes and was called a "governor." It maintained throttle position.
The first modern cruise control (tied to speed) was released in 1948, and was called a "speedostat." The first commercial use of the speedostat was in 1958, where the speedostat was called "Auto Pilot" in select Chrylser luxury models. Chrysler almost immediately renamed "autopilot" to "cruise-control" the following year in 1959, because the use of the term "auto pilot" was deemed misleading (airplane autopilots in 1959 could maintain speed and heading).
Or in other words...the history of cruise control is that the name "auto pilot" was explicitly rejected because of the dangerous connotations the term implied about the vehicle's capabilities.
The market Tesla is advertising to is not airplane pilots. It is the general car buying public.
If they are using any terms in their ads in ways other than the way the people the ads are aimed at (the general car buying public) can reasonably be expected to understand them, then I'd expect that could be considered to be negligent.
Much of the general public is going to get their entire idea of what an autopilot can do from what autopilots do in fiction.
Notably, an aircraft autopilot will NOT avoid hitting anything in its path, or slow down for it, or react to it in any way. It's just that the sky is very big and other aircraft are very small, so random collisions are extremely unlikely.
> an aircraft autopilot will NOT avoid hitting anything in its path, or slow down for it, or react to it in any way
TAWS (terrain) and ACAS (traffic) are built into modern autopilots.
And Tesla lied about its autopilot’s capabilities in proximity to this crash:
“In 2016, the company posted a video of what appears to be a car equipped with Autopilot driving on its own.
‘The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons,’ reads a caption that flashes at the beginning of the video. ‘He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself.’ (Six years later, a senior Tesla engineer conceded as part of a separate lawsuit that the video was staged and did not represent the true capabilities of the car.”
As is also pointed out ad nauseam, the claims made about autopilot (Tesla) go far beyond the name, partly because they sold a lot of cars on lies about imminent "FSD" and partly because as always Elon Musk can't keep his mouth shut. The issue isn't just the name, it's that the name was part of a full-court-press to mislead customers and probably regulators.
Everyone here seems to think this is a case about full self driving. That product didn't exist yet when the car in question was manufactured. No one was making the claims you believe were made.
It's also worth mentioning he would have been required to keep his hands on the wheel while using autopilot, or else it starts beeping at you and eventually disables the feature entirely. The system makes it very clear you're still in control, and it will permanently disable itself if it thinks you're not paying attention too many times (you get 5 strikes for your ownership duration).
Is there any contextual difference between the first instance of cruise control (which has since been relabeled cruise control, perhaps with reason), automatic flight control, and a company whose CEO and fanboys incessantly talk about vehicle autonomy?
I like the idea of explaining Mad Magazine's Spy v Spy as a Nash equilibrium. Nash is about strategies, particularly that neither side could do any better with any other strategy. Spying's justification then comes from fact that withdrawal would be a worse strategy.
The CIA does more than counterespionage. For example, Chile would be a much better place if the CIA didn't overthrow its democracy and install a fascist dictator, Pinochet, in its stead.
The US needed access to Chilean copper mines. The Allende government wanted to nationalize the profits of Chile’s natural resources.
Allende was democratically elected. Costa-Gavras made an excellent film about the coup & aftermath.
What do you mean Eastern Europe? The only one meddling is Russia, which is why Eastern Europe wants to join NATO. To protect themselves from an aggressive neighbor who started the end of the Cold War with invading a former satellite state. If Russia wasn't so eager to revive its imperial ambitions, there would be no interest in joining NATO.
The answer should be an obvious yes here, reading HN on anything political is an exercise in frustration, fascist apologies and whataboutism+mccartism.
How do you know, having some superpowers? Since when has US mandate to overthrow democratically elected government because its not leaning towards direction CIA wants? Saddam was also heavily supported by CIA and whole US government for example. And few other merry folks.
At least admit a fuckup and don't try to macho-out of this sin of your fathers. Decent folks would be at least ashamed of their mistakes and apologize (I know that's for decent nations to pick up, but its nice to lay clean moral actions and then watch reality divert because of blahs).
Good one. I guess Allende being a socialist justifies killing him, disregarding the popular vote, dismantling a democracy, stripping Chileans of their rights and putting up a fascist dictator. Jesus Christ.
>Chile would be a much better place if the CIA didn't overthrow its democracy and install a fascist dictator
Empirically that's not a very well-supported statement, if you compare the economy and living conditions of Chile to its neighbours. Empirically speaking, electing communist governments almost always leads to reduced living standards. It's like if the US hadn't intervened in to help a fascist dictator in South Korea, the whole of South Korea would be as poor as North Korea is now.
> Empirically speaking, electing communist governments almost always leads to reduced living standards.
Almost always leads to a CIA-backed coup or civil war which indirectly indeed reduces living standards. In the other scenarios it often resulted in generally improved living standards via industrialization, increase of literacy and social programs. In yet others gross mismanagement and large scale famines, or fluctuating results depending on the time scale. There is no commonly accepted uniform outcome, and "almost always worse living standards" is clearly not one.
Yeah, with help of KGB. What could possibly go wrong? It could become as democratic as Cuba. In best case. Or take path of other countries with exported communist revolutions, like North Korea, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam. You just don't know about pervasive and perverted level of informants and delation that was installed by these "democratic" countries
Well you went off the rails. The comment is talking about Chile, which was a democracy before the CIA overthrew the government and installed a dictator. What does that have to do with other countries or the KGB?
Saying the "CIA overthrew its democracy and installed a fascist dictator" is a vast oversimplification of what actually happened and ignores the role of other international actors, not to mention the domestic actors themselves.
Like most "CIA coups", the role the CIA played in Chile is more of a "hey let's help this guy who is already planning a coup" and if you dig into the details, it raises the question if the CIA had done nothing whether the outcome would have changed at all.
> Like most "CIA coups", the role the CIA played in Chile is more of a "hey let's help this guy who is already planning a coup" and if you dig into the details, it raises the question if the CIA had done nothing whether the outcome would have changed at all.
Helping a fascist coup is bad, even if the fascist coup didn't need your help.
Is it worse if the alternative is another authoritarian?
It's not a choice between democracy and a fascist (Allende was going regardless), it was a choice between a US friendly authoritarian or a USSR friendly authoritarian.
This is a nice summary of the situation in Chile at the time, the actors involved (domestic and international) and the role of the CIA.
To get a sense of the CIA’s role, they didn’t even think Pinochet had it in him - they had others pegged as the coup leader. They were surprised to find out it was Pinochet.
No. Non sequitur. If I say Pinochet is bad, saying "Allende is bad too" is a completely nonsensical comparison, as they aren't even remotely similar and the things people are claiming are bad aren't even in the same categories.
It would be like someone saying "Kim Jong Un is a horrific leader" and then another person responding with "yeah well my home owner's association president is terrible too." Just a complete non sequitur.
It's really not complicated. Don't support people who murder, torture, and expel people from their homes.
"The other guy was worse," is factually pretty off base. You can pick and choose sources all you want, but the fact is that Allende was elected as democratically as any US president in the last few decades: the idea that foreign interference invalidates an election is pretty specious. And even if you want to call Allende a dictator, he's definitely a better dictator than Pinochet: he killed far, far fewer innocent people. I give zero fucks about US-friendly vs. USSR-friendly in this case: if the US friendly dictator kills hundreds of thousands of people and the USSR friendly one doesn't, the USSR friendly one is better.
Let me make this clear: if you choose capitalism over preventing mass-murder, your morality is screwed up.
And even if somehow Allende was worse (which again, is not true), that doesn't make supporting Pinochet morally right. Most 5 year olds know two wrongs don't make a right.
> To get a sense of the CIA’s role, they didn’t even think Pinochet had it in him - they had others pegged as the coup leader. They were surprised to find out it was Pinochet.
If your argument is that the CIA was incompetent, that doesn't look much better for them.
> As if the money was for the strikers and not just their leaders...
So you're claiming the leaders were able to convince 250,000 union members to strike because... the leaders wanted it? That makes no sense.
As laid out in the article, the truckers were already upset at the government undermining their entire industry. They didn't need $28 USD to convince them to strike.
It wild how people think the CIA with a few million dollars can convince an otherwise stable democratic nation to overthrow it's leader in a coup.
As the article lays out, the CIA were mostly observers who tossed a bit of money to opposition parties. It's questionable if the CIA had any impact at all considering they weren't backing Pinochet himself, and the timing of the coup caught them by surprise. It's pretty clear they weren't very plugged in to what was happening.
> Is it worse if the alternative is another authoritarian?
Yes, the USA shouldn't be meddling in the domestic affairs of other countries to action its proxy cold war against a rival super power.
I acknowledge that the USA determined this was a correct course of action in order to strengthen its hegemony, and the hegemony of global capitalism, however it was still unethical and in opposition to the needs of people in the USA.
But if the USDR is already meddling it’s not longer purely “domestic affairs” is it?
If your take is that it’s unethical, that’s fine, but you need to consider the alternative - giving the USSR free rein to meddle in the domestic politics of the Southern hemisphere. The citizens of those countries end up living under an authoritarian anyways.
I’m not saying it isn’t an ugly business, but I’m not sure the alternative is much better.
I also believe it's unethical for the USSR to meddle. I don't think two wrongs make a right. Also, let's not be naive and pretend like the USA supported Pinochet out of the goodness of the CIA's heart - it was absolutely to use the country as a pawn in the country's cold war against the USSR.
First, I'll answer the post ipso facto aspect: The USA did meddle, and was that good? In the case of Pinochet, no, because he was a brutal authoritarian and was obviously the worse alternative to the leftist, not even communist, government he overthrew. Also, if the people voted for communism, then, that's self determination, let them have it. If it works, it works, if it doesn't, it doesn't, that's no business of America's. A military coup is "might makes right," an unethical ideology. So if we compare the two forms of meddling, actually, the USSR's was more ethical, since it was aligned with the will of the people. Overall though I still think neither country should have meddled.
What should have been done instead? If the USSR is meddling, the USA as a nation state should do nothing more than leverage its platform to expose any instances of meddling, especially if they were against the will of the people (e.g. fraudulent votes). The people in the USA is a different thing entirely, if I knew what direct action people could take to resist nation state meddling entirely I'd write it here, since I don't, I'll just say the usual: form subversive relationships with neighbors in opposition to authority, mutual aid in opposition to capital-derived infrastructure, mutual education, mutual bonds.
As for Hitler, who also rose to power undemocratically I might add (Reichstag fire and the like), he was committing a genocide, any and all means to stop that is ethical, including full invasion by other nation states. On the other hand, I can't think of an ethical way for a nation state to prevent him coming to power. After all, at the time, I'm not sure it was possible to predict what he was about to do - an anti-semitic politician wasn't exactly groundbreaking, and nobody had ever seen a Holocaust before. If Germany can't prevent itself from becoming a fascist hellhole I don't really see America's responsibility there other than to offer safe haven to any fleeing Jewish people, gays, trans people, communists, etc. Since time machines don't exist, I can't think of an ethical justification for USA meddling in Germany pre-Holocaust or pre-invasion of Poland.
What do you think? I think an interesting question is, "what is ethical and allowed if Hitler 2 arrived today and began seeking power?" Such questions could have interesting answers depending on what you think America should be allowed to do to the current person and nation conducting a genocide, Netanyahu in Israel.
> It sounds like you’re backing away from meddling is always bad?
No, they just never said that in the first place. What they said was, "Yes, the USA shouldn't be meddling in the domestic affairs of other countries to action its proxy cold war against a rival super power." Emphasis mine.
It is insane that this is downvoted. You have to be wrong in the head to think that a country helping a coup that clearly damaged another country is a good thing.
I think it's even worse than that. The CIA simply was not concerned with the well-being of the Chilean people, seeking only to further US cold war interests no matter how many people it killed.
>Like most "CIA coups", the role the CIA played in Chile is more of a "hey let's help this guy who is already planning a coup"
Absolutely wrong, to the point of negationism. Amongst many things, the CIA trained South American militaries and police in torture through the School of the Americas.
If "this guy" wasn't already planning a coup, the CIA would have done it themselves anyway. Overthrowing Allende by any means was a core mission for them. The CIA was directly responsible for killing a general, René Schneider, who stood against any attempt at a coup.
And then they collaborated with Argentina's (and other South Amrican dictatorships') Operation Condor:
-mass abduction
-death squads
-torture of anyone suspected of being even vaguely leftist (electric shocks, prolonged immersion in water, cigarette burns, sexual abuse, rape, removal of teeth and fingernails, castration, and burning with boiling water, oil and acid)
-throwing them alive fron planes into the sea, hands and feet bound
-kidnapping newborns from their "leftist" mothers (subsequenly killed) to give them to conservative families
“ In the best traditions of the CIA, catastrophe ensued. Viaux ignored the explicit U.S. instructions to cease-and-desist; two abduction efforts against Schneider, on 19 and 20 October, failed; the third attempt, on 22 October, ended with Schneider being mortally wounded (he died on 25 October);”
Your whole article is a giant "trust me bro" based on some unclassified testimonies coming from the most guilty, and ends with the insane and unsupported assertion that Allende was going to set up gulags (which doesn't address the fact that the CIA, before and after the coup, trained the juntas of all South America how to disappear and torture opponents on the French model of the Battle of Algiers).
In the short-term, the wheat and chaff are very mixed for sure.
But I don't think nation-states are likely to survive for more than 500 or so more years. And the capacity for collaboration, innovation, and even perhaps transcendence into something like a distinct and more peaceful species seems to only grow.
Hi we're looking for volunteers to be incarcerated unjustly (without habeas corpus) so that when criminals perform a calculus vis a vis deciding to be poor they will be diverted from crime by the unjustness of your incarceration. Looking forward to hearing from you!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event
We live on a planet saturated in one of the most corrosive pollutants (to life that evolved before it). If an anaerobic intelligent life had evolved before the world was conquered by cyanobacteria, in a society with a profit motive for manufacturing sugar, would they have farmed the very thing that would wipe them out?
Right, and said slightly differently: this is the context against which we have to judge whether there was any natural experiment we can refer to. There's no reason to think that the history of life on earth thus far has presented a sufficiently comparable case, to reassure us that what's happening is a re-run of a familiar event we've already seen, where everything works out well.
Yes that is nicely concise, but in addition I was trying to say that the line of reasoning that life has persisted through cataclysmic environmental changes and therefore worrying about them is fearmongering is a facile argument as the persistence of lichens and prototaxites etc has no bearing on the survival of humans. The nature of a cataclysm is very relative, as the oxygenation of the atmosphere and oceans would be meaningless to geochemical anaerobic bacteria that live miles below us.
We only have coal because trees grew and fell on each other for like 60 million years before anything figured out how to decompose lignin.
That the brain uses electrical/chemical signals is crank science about subatomic particles messing with your aura in a way comparable to "body thetans" in Scientology.
If that were not so, electrical/chemical engineers could upgrade our brains with their knowledge of electricity/chemistry.
Scientific progress is thinking about stuff. And my Occam's razor is leaning toward "if just arithmetic could yield consciousness we would have figured it out by now".