Let me just give you one example. I live in southern California where it's almost inconcievable to be without a car. Most people are completely and utterly dependent on their cars for survival. Having spent 27 years in the car business, most of that time in high level management positions, I thought I could bring my experience to bear in exploring the effects this dependency.
The first thing I considered was the impact on our freedom. Since we live in free country and are allowed to travel freely from state to state without "papers" I thought surely the automobile must be able to take the credit for enhancing our freedom to a large extent. That seems to be the logical assumption, and at first glance I believe that case can be made. Digging deeper, however, I found some troubling aspects that many people don't consider.
It was from a source as unlikely as the "Unabomber", Ted Kaczynski, that I drew one of my most important observations. He had written, during his days at Berkley if I recall, a treatise about the counter-intuitive impact of automobiles on human society. Rather that offering us more freedom, close analysis revealed many ways where our freedoms had been diminished. In the most basic sense any time a human becomes dependent on something external to survive, obviously your freedom suffers as a consequence. In a more literal sense let me draw the comparison to the most popular form of locomotion before cars, horses. When you owned a horse it was yours. Your own self interest dictated that you should feed and care for your horse, but there were no legal requirements to do so. You didn't have to register them, or insure them, or have them pass emissions tests. You didn't have to have a license to ride them. There were no traffic signals or stop signs telling you how to ride them. When cars began to proliferate most people accepted without hesitation rules regarding their operation. There were speed limits for cars even when horses were still faster than most cars.
Quickly the forces of capitalism, specifically croney or monopoly capitalism, took over. Henry Ford pioneered the assembly line making cars more affordable. Soon the banks and other techno-industrial interests got on the band wagon. A new type of village was constructed called "The Suburbs" which helped promote the dependence on the automobile. Because of that we are now probably 4 generations removed from a time when it was common place for people to walk to work or school, etc.. The power of the automobile/oil lobby can be reasonably accused of attempting to block any investment into mass transit which would offer an alternative to automobiles.
Using the most current statistics, AAA estimates that the average per mile cost of a mid-size car, including fuel, maintenance, insurance, interest expense and depreciation is about $.60 per mile. In California the average driver puts around 18,000 miles per year on their car. That means that the AVERAGE car ... costs the AVERAGE driver about $10,800.00 per year to operate. That's $900.00 per month we pay for locomotion. That's a pretty high price. Add to it the fact that we all have to stand in line and humbly beg our civil servants for permission to drive them and it paints a pretty grim picture. And that doesn't include what I consider one of the most disturbing facts about driving a car, namely that when you sign the agreement to accept your drivers license you are signing away a good portion of the bill of rights in the process. The law enforcement officers tasked with enforcing traffic laws will quickly explain to you that driving is not a "right" but a privilege that can only be exercised with the permission of government.
The part of this realization that probably bothers me the most is that "we" have accepted all of these rules and regulations out of concern for our safety and security unnecessarily. I hate to bring it up again but I must. In the Netherlands there is a town called Drachten that began an experiment in 2003. They took the advice of an engineer and quite literally abolished virtually every law, street sign, traffic signal in the town. The reasoning was that left to their own devices the people would regulate themselves. First out of fear then later out of trust, the citizens of Drachten would realize that they didn't have to be told how to drive. Sure enough, almost ten years later, there have been ZERO actual car accidents. Maybe the occasional fender bender but absolutely ZERO injuries or fatalities. So there is your example. We bought into the control grid because we were told that we must regulate cars for them to be safe. It was not true then, and it's not true now.
Listen I am not here promoting the genius of Ted Kaczynski, though he is, without argument, a brilliant but misguided man. I am just trying to reveal a glimpse of the matrix that we are all part of. The most important aspect of it is the fact that it's subtle. If someone doesn't point it out to you, well, most of you will never see it. You're paying $900.00 per month to drive a car to get where you feel you have to go to live. The car companies, banks, insurance, and oil companies all depend on you to remain dependent on them. It's not an accident the world looks the way it does.
Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons.
R. Buckminster Fuller
The first thing I considered was the impact on our freedom. Since we live in free country and are allowed to travel freely from state to state without "papers" I thought surely the automobile must be able to take the credit for enhancing our freedom to a large extent. That seems to be the logical assumption, and at first glance I believe that case can be made. Digging deeper, however, I found some troubling aspects that many people don't consider.
It was from a source as unlikely as the "Unabomber", Ted Kaczynski, that I drew one of my most important observations. He had written, during his days at Berkley if I recall, a treatise about the counter-intuitive impact of automobiles on human society. Rather that offering us more freedom, close analysis revealed many ways where our freedoms had been diminished. In the most basic sense any time a human becomes dependent on something external to survive, obviously your freedom suffers as a consequence. In a more literal sense let me draw the comparison to the most popular form of locomotion before cars, horses. When you owned a horse it was yours. Your own self interest dictated that you should feed and care for your horse, but there were no legal requirements to do so. You didn't have to register them, or insure them, or have them pass emissions tests. You didn't have to have a license to ride them. There were no traffic signals or stop signs telling you how to ride them. When cars began to proliferate most people accepted without hesitation rules regarding their operation. There were speed limits for cars even when horses were still faster than most cars.
Quickly the forces of capitalism, specifically croney or monopoly capitalism, took over. Henry Ford pioneered the assembly line making cars more affordable. Soon the banks and other techno-industrial interests got on the band wagon. A new type of village was constructed called "The Suburbs" which helped promote the dependence on the automobile. Because of that we are now probably 4 generations removed from a time when it was common place for people to walk to work or school, etc.. The power of the automobile/oil lobby can be reasonably accused of attempting to block any investment into mass transit which would offer an alternative to automobiles.
Using the most current statistics, AAA estimates that the average per mile cost of a mid-size car, including fuel, maintenance, insurance, interest expense and depreciation is about $.60 per mile. In California the average driver puts around 18,000 miles per year on their car. That means that the AVERAGE car ... costs the AVERAGE driver about $10,800.00 per year to operate. That's $900.00 per month we pay for locomotion. That's a pretty high price. Add to it the fact that we all have to stand in line and humbly beg our civil servants for permission to drive them and it paints a pretty grim picture. And that doesn't include what I consider one of the most disturbing facts about driving a car, namely that when you sign the agreement to accept your drivers license you are signing away a good portion of the bill of rights in the process. The law enforcement officers tasked with enforcing traffic laws will quickly explain to you that driving is not a "right" but a privilege that can only be exercised with the permission of government.
The part of this realization that probably bothers me the most is that "we" have accepted all of these rules and regulations out of concern for our safety and security unnecessarily. I hate to bring it up again but I must. In the Netherlands there is a town called Drachten that began an experiment in 2003. They took the advice of an engineer and quite literally abolished virtually every law, street sign, traffic signal in the town. The reasoning was that left to their own devices the people would regulate themselves. First out of fear then later out of trust, the citizens of Drachten would realize that they didn't have to be told how to drive. Sure enough, almost ten years later, there have been ZERO actual car accidents. Maybe the occasional fender bender but absolutely ZERO injuries or fatalities. So there is your example. We bought into the control grid because we were told that we must regulate cars for them to be safe. It was not true then, and it's not true now.
Listen I am not here promoting the genius of Ted Kaczynski, though he is, without argument, a brilliant but misguided man. I am just trying to reveal a glimpse of the matrix that we are all part of. The most important aspect of it is the fact that it's subtle. If someone doesn't point it out to you, well, most of you will never see it. You're paying $900.00 per month to drive a car to get where you feel you have to go to live. The car companies, banks, insurance, and oil companies all depend on you to remain dependent on them. It's not an accident the world looks the way it does.
Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons.
R. Buckminster Fuller
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