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Episode-1921- Listener Calls for 12-22-16 — 10 Comments

  1. Jack asks whether I will be covering forced sterilization in future history segments. Indeed I will be. I am currently halfway through the book …

    “Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck” by Adam Cohen.

    The book is a little repetitive but generally speaking, Carrie Buck’s case went to the Supreme Court and with typical arrogance bordering on insanity, Cain strikes Able to the ground once more.

    I suggest reading the SciFi novel “When Worlds Collide” by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer (1932). Do not watch the movie. The movie is good but they took out all the pseudo-scientific racial crap. The book is still in print because it is a good story, but every once in awhile you get hit right between the eyes.

    The authors were trying to sell books in the 1930s when ScfiFi was struggling to find its voice. They wouldn’t put anything in a book if it was going to hurt sales. The authors assumed that the readers mostly agreed with them… because they did.

    Here is a link to the “Bison Frontiers” paperback version at Amazon. It includes the sequel “After Worlds Collide”.

    https://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Collide-Bison-Frontiers-Imagination/dp/0803298145/

    Again… great story, but every once in awhile… sheesh!

    Alex Shrugged

  2. I have no problem with driverless cars so long as I am not forced to use them. I want to continue on with my rattly pickup which I enjoy driving and maintaining. Merry Christmas to everyone.

  3. lefty here… didn’t realize it before, but now I realize why I never liked bolt actions. It is a total non-issue with semi, lever and pump actions.

  4. Urban carry holster
    Jack, I have a urban Carry holster. 1st addition. I absolutely love it! Deep conceal carry is the best way to carry for me. I wear it all the time and I usually wear blue jeans and a T-shirt tucked in. I carry a Glock 26 in it. Happy holidays Jack, to you and your family!

  5. Hi Jack,

    Interesting to hear your take on driverless cars. Couple thoughts on this.

    First is the threat of autonomous cars not only to jobs but to personal liberty. There are some folks on the left who insist that at some point in the near future people will not be allowed to drive cars. Autonomous vehicles will be so much safer that eventually the government will ban human drivers. Less risk for insurance. Safer outcomes for everyone on the road. I know you figure we are 30 years away from this, but when it comes you know there will be a push from “progressives” to ban the human driven car. “If it can save just one live…” Thoughts on this?

    Second bit on the lines, some quirky history. They originally put lines on the road to reduce the chance of head-on collisions. After lines became standard head-on crashes went down dramatically. So, like you said, lines make it easier to drive.

    Guns. I’m right handed. Strongly left eye dominant. Shoot handgun right hand using left eye. AR left hand with conventional right controls. Left hand bolt gun. I think you are right on the mark about resale value for specialty lefty guns. I have an old lefty 870 Wingmaster that my dad bought for me when I first stared hunting and I love that gun. He found it used and I’m happy he did.

    Thanks for the podcast!

    Brian

    • On the car issue: Change is coming, some for the better, some for the worse.

      Take for example, Ford’s patent filing for license plate readers on autonomous vehicles. If police are looking for a car, any in a countless fleet of vehicles can locate it and report it’s position in a real-time. Car theft, and criminal get-aways will be things of the past.

      However, many valid objections have been risen in the past with regard to lojack, GPS, and car phones being used as tracking systems. People currently can disable any tracker in their car, so it’s been a minor point of debate. But what happens when it’s everyone else’s car that’s tracking you? It’s not so easy to go unseen.

      How long until facial recognition is added to license plate detectors. It’s a trivial task to do that now, the only hesitation is testing the legal waters and Market testing.

      A Murder suspect who has evaded police enters autonomous vehicle. The passenger is identified as “wanted”, the car locks it’s door and drives suspect to the police station. When that scrolls through your news feed, It’ll be both a very good day for humanity, and a very bad one. On one hand, it’s virtually an end to crime (at least any hopes of getting away with crime), but you also realize everyone is at the mercy of this technology.

      Perhaps it will stop a lot of crime. It may put a significant dent in racial profiling, as more automation is used to detect and track suspects, law enforcement becomes less reliant on the judgement of individual officers, negating personal biases. Perhaps our prison population declines, as the difficulty of getting away with a crime becomes the deterrant, rather than lengthy prison sentences. We could actually reduce prison sentences for non-violent crimes. People could be functionally banned from the roads, negating flight risk.

      But there is also a human tendency toward persecution. The holocaust, McCarthyism… We like to believe we’re “evolved” and “civil”, but at some point in the future, the majority will again unjustly label their neighbors as “undesirable”. When we become dependent on technology for the most trivial tasks, and that technology is controlled entirely by the reigning authority, it’s actually a huge step backwards for humanity.

      Sci-Fi got it wrong. The battle with AI won’t be with some sentient computer bent on destroying humanity. Worse, it will be a servant of bureaucracy. The AI works at the behest of regulatory bodies, confined by the parameters imposed upon the companies that create it.

    • “First is the threat of autonomous cars not only to jobs but to personal liberty. There are some folks on the left who insist that at some point in the near future people will not be allowed to drive cars.”

      Worry about other shit, if we ever get to that level, you’ll be dead and your kids will be dead and your grand kids will be old men and women, fight the battles of your generation.

  6. I wanted to share this website, which is run by MIT. It has scenarios similar to what was presented specifically this episode. It uses machine learning from a large pool of humans to decipher what is the most likely “correct” behavior.

    This data may be used later to make decisions by the autonomous vehicle according to MIT.

    http://moralmachine.mit.edu/

  7. Jack,

    Just listened to this episode, and the issue of how to put lines on the road was solved in the 1930s. It was solved by the gov’t. The TVA and the REA. You can read the section on the USA on this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_electrification. (not that wikipedia is always a reliable source). They will simply create an RLA (Rural Line Authority) division of the REA, make the loans to the appropriate entities and viola! the lines will begin to appear.

    Considering that the infrastructure for the lines is actually already in place, unlike electification of rural areas, it probably would happen much more quickly.

    But, then the next argument would be, “What about dirt roads?!?” … well, at some point we either have to take over driving, or walk.