Self-Driving Humans

Do you regularly drive the same route, like from home to work and back? Then you're familiar with the fact that you don't think about driving at all most of the time. Sometimes I'm even so deep in thought while driving, that I don't remember how I managed to get home; I leave work, start the car, and the next thing in the real world I'm conscious of is arriving home...

_{source: Needpix.com}

We don't need self-driving cars if we think about it that way; we're our own auto-pilot on many occasions. The times that I am consciously driving my car, I like to have control over it. With all that talk about self-driving cars I often wonder: do we really want to give up control over the wheel, gas and brakes? When I'm driving on a highway to a location I've never been before, I enjoy controlling the car, I enjoy giving that little bit extra gas to push me into the back of the seat and so on. You might say: "give us a choice then, auto-pilot when we want to sleep on a long drive, and back to manual when we're awake." But that would probably not work in that far away future world, as all cars would be in a network, constantly talking to each other communicating their location, speed, destination, anomalies they might encounter and so on; for such an interactive grid to function smoothly, chances are that they should all behave in the same and predictable way, necessitating them all to be on auto-pilot all the time.

We don't have to worry about that Jetsons-scenario just yet; in the linked video you can see that we're still a long way removed from it. The city's infrastructure would have to be impeccable, with clear white signs and demarcations, and without distracting potholes or other severe damage. And the traffic laws will have to be adjusted too. The only self-driving cars for the foreseeable future are trucks and on their own lanes. This future grid of perfectly maneuvering autonomous automobiles, all behaving in a non-destructive and perfectly predictable manner got me thinking about the human auto-pilot I described in the intro.

However, before making plans for that future network in which everything, not just the cars, is connected through the same all-encompassing control-grid, I wish more people recognized the all-encompassing control-grid that's already dictating our lifes. The human auto-pilot isn't limited to driving cars alone; 90 - 95 percent of your brain function is subconscious. Your Subconscious is a vast collection of unintentional, habitual thoughts, behaviors, and actions. The example in the intro shows that much of these habitual THOUGHTS and BEHAVIORS are learned; in the case of driving my car home through repetition. Such habitual and behavioral learning can be boosted in several ways, most predominantly through systemic rewards and punishment. When we look at society, and the way individuals interact in that society, we have to be consciously aware of the fact that we're all unconscious most of the time. While I'm writing this, my fingers move automatically across the keyboard and the words, sentences and paragraphs simply pour out of the mouth of that little ID in my head. When we talk to our friends, conversation is mostly on auto-pilot.

Back to the car; since the introduction of speed trap cameras, the human auto-pilot's behavior has received a new lesson. The average driver is painfully aware that these cameras exist, and that a speeding ticket, or worse when the offense is big, can be yours without you ever being aware of being caught. In fact, there are cameras registering our behavior everywhere; daily life is increasingly resembling a panopticon each passing year. When you're eating dinner, you're eating differently when some stranger is constantly looking over your shoulder; even without the prospect of punishment or reward, the mere fact that you know someone COULD be watching, will affect your behavior and with time and repetition it becomes part of the 95 percent, it just IS.

_{Why Don't We Have Self-Driving Cars Yet?}

There's no doubt that capitalism accounts for the bulk of the behavioral adjustments we've gone through for hundreds of years, to the point that we now live in a state of capitalist realism, as described by Mark Fisher:

Capitalist realism is loosely defined as the dominant conception that capitalism is the only viable economic system and thus, there can be no imaginable alternative. Fisher likens capitalist realism to a "pervasive atmosphere" that affects areas of cultural production, political-economic activity, and general thought.
_{source: Wikipedia}

Margaret Thatcher once famously said about the free market economy: "There is no alternative!" And as a society we've bought this line and internalized it. We have a society ruled by consumerism because we have been taught to behave like obedient consumers. Some of the most influential work in manufacturing consent and behavioral control through subconscious triggering was done by Edward Bernays, who is credited for the introduction of the term "public relations" as a substitute for "propaganda" as the latter gained a very negative connotation after the Great War. He was a nephew of Sigmund Freud and used much of his uncle's knowledge to figure out the best ways to influence the masses on behest of "democratic" governments all over the world, starting with America.

The title of this post is wrong; we're not self-driving humans, we are being driven by the powers that be, who constantly attack our subconscious minds with an ever growing arsenal of weaponry. The plutocracy has long ago decided that attack is the best defense of their beloved status quo, and capitalism is their best insurance policy; for them it is of vital importance that the free market ideology stays securely rooted in our subconscious minds. That in every thought or discussion capitalism is simply implied as part of reality, something not to be questioned or doubted. And since capitalism works best if we behave strictly as individuals, we live in a highly individualized world in which "personal responsibility" is paramount on an individual level, and "privatization" on an institutional level. Mental illness is diagnosed only on an individual basis, discarding the effects of society on the individual mind, once again following the words of that previously mentioned Iron Lady: "There is no such thing as society." This belief, our individualistic and consumerist behavior, is driven by a tiny segment of the population that holds the wheel of human behavior. Mass-production combined with an insatiable thirst for growth and profits require mass-consumption and consumerism. Holding on to power in a democracy requires the manufacturing of consent. We'd better wake up to these facts of our post-modern lifes before the control-grid that encompasses the self-driving car is a reality...

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind."
_{source: Goodreads - Edward Bernays}

Warning: the below linked video is very informative, but starts in a very depressing way. So if you yourself suffer from depression, or are easily and negatively influenced by seeing and hearing someone who's very depressed, please skip to the 1:25 minute mark to bypass the suicidal talk...

_{Capitalist Realism, Mental Illness and Societies of Control}

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