Danger in Every Step

[suchandra]

 

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="629"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" width="629">Last Updated: Thursday, 19 July 2007, 10:08 GMT 11:08 UK

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</td></tr></tbody></table><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="629"><tbody><tr><td colspan="3">Look, no hands

 

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<!-- E IIMA --><!-- S IBYL --><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="416"><tbody><tr><td valign="bottom">By Tom Symonds

BBC News transport correspondent

 

 

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<!-- E IBYL -->This car can drive itself. It's taking part in the Darpa Grand Challenge, a Pentagon contest to generate ideas for self-driving combat vehicles - ideas which are already starting to be used in cars we drive today.

On a quiet university campus across the water from San Francisco, an enthusiastic bunch of young computer boffins are working on what could be the car of the future.

<!-- S IIMA --><table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="203"><tbody><tr><td>No-one at the wheel

 

</td></tr></tbody></table><!-- E IIMA -->"Sometimes we talk to it as if its an unruly child," says co-team leader Ben Upcroft.

Another member of the team jumps out of the front seat, crosses the road and presses a red button on a box in his hand. "The RAV4 is going autonomous," he says into a radio.

The car moves, slowly forward, like a learner terrified of touching the accelerator. The steering wheel is turning. It is driving itself. The speed is frustratingly slow, and from time to time the car veers towards the verge.

But what's impressive is that no-one is sitting inside.

<!-- S IIMA --><table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="203"><tbody><tr><td>An earlier Darpa rally in the desert

 

</td></tr></tbody></table><!-- E IIMA -->The Sydney-Berkley driving team are entrants in the 2007 Darpa Challenge, to be held in October. Sponsored by the United States Government, which wants to develop driverless military supply vehicles for war zones, the challenge will end with a 60-mile race through a mocked-up "urban area". The most important rule? No humans allowed.

The location of the challenge hasn't yet been announced. But it's likely to be a US military base, with roads and intersections. More than 50 teams are in the running, with 30 expected to start the race.

Cars will have to navigate by themselves, avoid other cars, circumvent traffic jams, stop at junctions, follow road markings and give way when they're supposed to. A serious test for artificial intelligence.

Hi-tech kit

There is a clear favourite. Across town from Berkley, the team at Stanford University are entering Junior. Again an ordinary-looking estate car - apart from £250,000 worth of sensors mounted on its roof.

<!-- S IIMA --><table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="203"><tbody><tr><td>The kit that drives the car

 

</td></tr></tbody></table><!-- E IIMA -->These can scan forwards, sideways and backwards to find the edge of the road and any moving objects in the car's way.

Junior is still being tested off-road, but it is easily capable of driving itself at speeds that would be quite acceptable in the average city.

The team are training it to cope with busy intersections, a vital skill for city driving. We watch as it approaches a crossroads marked with cones. Another car arrives from the left. Junior stops, thinks for a minute, lets the other car turn right, and then makes a graceful left itself.

Both the Sydney-Berkley team and the Stanford team are finding the challenge isn't so much building a car that can keep itself on the road - they've cracked that. The last Darpa race was in the Nevada desert. Some cars ended up in the bushes, but four managed to complete a 160-mile course. Stanford's team got there first.

They're also close to cracking the problem of detecting other traffic, and pedestrians. Mike Montemerlo from the Stanford team believes the winning car will be the one that quickly gets itself out of jams, a considerable task for a computer, and made more difficult by the fact that much of the rest of the traffic will also be computer-guided.

The main challenge is trying to teach the cars not to be too cautious.

<!-- S IIMA --><table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="203"><tbody><tr><td>Driver not required

 

</td></tr></tbody></table><!-- E IIMA -->The Berkley car can be thrown into a panic by a falling leaf. "The computer sees the leaf as though it was an infinitely high concrete pillar sticking out of the ground," says one technician.

That means the computer tends to hit the brakes a little too often. The Berkley team admit they're outsiders, but believe training their car on a real road may help them with the unforeseen problems likely to be thrown up by the race.

But watching the teams put their vehicles through their paces, it's clear that the safety of computer-controlled vehicles is becoming less of a worry.

Car of the future

So how long it will be before computers can drive as safely as humans?

<!-- S IBOX --><table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="208"><tbody><tr><td width="5"></td><td class="sibtbg"> You might buy a car that has a special button called an 'auto-chauffeur' button. You push it and it drives you home and wakes you up in your garage

 

Sebastian Thrun

 

</td></tr></tbody></table><!-- E IBOX -->"How have you convinced yourself that human driving is safe?" says Stanford artificial intelligence expert Professor Sebastian Thrun. "We kill about a million people a year around the globe. Almost every loss of life is a result of human error. Statistics will tell us the truth, that these cars are more reliable than human driving."

Apart from the US Government's aim of making the resupply of military units a safer prospect, this research is one day likely to be used to build future cars. There are already models that can park themselves, or keep in their lane on a motorway. Professor Thrun has more extravagant ideas.

"You might buy a car that has a special button called an 'auto-chauffeur' button. You push it and it drives you home and wakes you up in your garage. And maybe we have the self-park button that says 'drop me off at the office then go and find yourself a parking spot'. You could have a mobile phone button that calls the car back when you need it."

A future where your car is an obedient pet sounds fantastic. Unless you're the law firm of a motor manufacturer. Imagine if the auto-driver fails, and there's injury or death. Instead of the driver getting sued, the car company is in the dock. So much of this technology will be introduced gradually.

But there are other less obvious benefits. Children could be driven to school. The elderly and visually impaired could gain new mobility.

Computer-controlled cars could organise themselves more efficiently, talking to each other to minimise the space they take up on the road without getting too close. That could cut traffic jams - and road rage. And you could read the paper, or answer e-mails on the way to work instead of sitting, hands locked to the steering wheel, seething with frustration. In the future, we could all be back-seat drivers.

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A car obsessed human society signals mainly one thing: Dissatisfaction with this human body. They are so frustrated with the human body and consider it as nature's miscarriage because it cant fly or savely move with high-speed. They actually don't know what this human body is made for - therefore they adopt all these ersatz bodies. Car bodies look like insects and people who love their cars surely get such bodies which savely can go very fast and also can fly savely. Therefore this appeal to spread the Holy Name is so urgent, present humanity is about to navigate to next births in realy low bodies....

 

[Guruvani]

 

I was in a serious car accident two months ago. My car was totaled; by Krishna's grace, I was not. The car was old, a classic, with no safety features such as airbags or even headrests.

 

My wife, who wants to keep a living husband around for awhile, has strongly expressed the wish that the next car I buy be a new one, with up-to-date safety features.

 

I understand the wisdom in her wishes, and have promised to comply.

 

By your reasoning, this makes my wife and myself "demons".

 

Institutionalized thinking at its best, or maybe worst is a better description.

 

I understand your point and sympathize with your position.

 

At the same time these conditions remind us of how and why Srila Prabhupada wanted ISKCON to start developing rural, agrarian farm communities so that devotees could have an alternative to the auto based, petroleum based society of the modern world.

 

That is one of the great failures of ISKCON today is that there is no progress being made to move away from all this modern madness and show an example to the world how human society can live more simple, peaceful and spiritual lives without all this dependence on machines and technology that is factually destroying the planet as we speak.

 

So, maybe we are "demons" by partaking of all these modern evils.

One thing for sure, the Krishna consciousness movement is not doing it's job if it doesn't demonstate to the world a better way of living than our modern madness of materialistic civilization.

 

ISKCON is too busy with petty internal politics now to be bothered with saving the world.

Right now ISKCON is just fighting over who gets to be guru in what zone while the world is gliding to hell at a high rate of speed.

[Guest guest]

In the early days of the movement (or so I heard 35 years ago, so subject to correction), a major wreck occurred and four disciples of Srila Prabhupada were killed. He had 40 disciples at the time.

 

Cars suck, but we are forced to use them as slaves. Just like the capitalistic money trip. Im supposed to be retired after 25 very hard years working as a civilian for the Navy. Yet I still work hard 40 hours after my body has been exposed to killer amounts of cadmium, chromium, lead, arsenic, gamma radiation well beyond the permitted exposure limits.

 

I read Gulag Archipelago, and pity those so-called humans, but equal pity goes out to the slaves of the so-called free world, who are being so brutally treated by their kings. We need a King Vena episode, and King Prthu to return to show us all how to live as free human beings.

 

Srila Prabhupada told us of the idealism by expressing his desires. But he needs us to see it thru, so whenever we see wrongful death or injury caused by the kali yuga iron machine, we must hope for cooperation from all who ever heard of Prabhupada, who tells us of the revitalization effort of King Prthu and the recovery from the slavery imposed by King Vena. Theory now, the cooperation is in the hands of our children.

 

My friend just got killed, knocked off his bicycle by a tool rental company employee who is underpaid and understaffed. The company could not supply a second driver to help with the pick-up of a trailer and back-hoe. The cops call it a freak accident, I call it murder, but maybe that is just me trenchtown angst talkin.

 

Not just danger at every step, rather sheer horror. I got a pension, plus a good paying job, but I gotta use a tapped out credit card to buy a can of tar to repair the gaping hole in the roof of the trailer that rots out as we speak.

 

Bring on the calamities, haribol, ys, mahaksadasa

[theist]

 

A car obsessed human society signals mainly one thing: Dissatisfaction with this human body. They are so frustrated with the human body and consider it as nature's miscarriage because it cant fly or savely move with high-speed. They actually don't know what this human body is made for - therefore they adopt all these ersatz bodies. Car bodies look like insects and people who love their cars surely get such bodies which savely can go very fast and also can fly savely. Therefore this appeal to spread the Holy Name is so urgent, present humanity is about to navigate to next births in realy low bodies....

 

 

Good insight.

 

A common expression here in American is to refer to Americans "love affair with their car." I look at some of the drivers of these huge mega-trucks, cranes, bull dozers and the like as becoming so into the feel of manipulating that big machinery that they get a birth ob a planet where dinosauer like creatures are roaming about. Who knows, but one thing for sure attachments for the feel of manipulating cars trucks and huge machinery and the like can only lead downward away from the human form. Unless of course one has a kirtan cd playing all the time in the cab.

[Murali_Mohan_das]

 

Bring on the calamities, haribol, ys, mahaksadasa

 

This is the prayer of Queen Kunti, isn't it?

 

Buying a safe car is common sense. Using the car in service to the Lord makes the vehicle blessed.

 

The materialist's *primary* concern is their own safety. Materialists will often disregard the safety of others in order to maintain their own safety or even comfort (what else is the War in Iraq??).

 

A dedicated unit of conscousness will not be preoccupied by their own safety, but they will not disregard it completely unless they are in the Antya-Lila mood of Mahaprabhu or something similar.

[theist]

I want to be calamitiy free. I can't handle much more of this c**p.

 

I ain't Queen Kunti.

 

I ain't even Job.

 

I'm just a little piss ant that is tired of being stepped on and I can't take it any more.

 

NO MAS!

[Guruvani]

Yesterday, my daughter suffered another emotional trauma even worse than the car accident she had on Monday that totalled her car.

 

Yesterday evening her boyfriend's father was racing at the drag strip in Gainesville and was in a terrible crash with the other car.

Both cars were demolished and engulfed in flames.

 

Now, the father of her boyfriend, is in Shands hospital in a coma and with massive burns over 40% of his body.

 

It doesn't look good.

 

My daugher is very hurt because she actually spent a lot of time at their home in the last year.

 

The family is well-off with a custom cabinetry shop in the area.

They have a nice home in a wealthy part of town.

 

He had enough money to have a drag racer car that he really enjoyed.

 

Now, he is on the verge of death and everyone is in the throws of emotional suffering.

[muralidhar_das]

Wow this poor girl is having a difficult time lately!

 

I know it isn't realistic but maybe she should stay away from cars for a while. It looks like the position of the god of automobiles in her horoscope is not good right now.

[Guruvani]

 

Wow this poor girl is having a difficult time lately!

 

I know it isn't realistic but maybe she should stay away from cars for a while. It looks like the position of the god of automobiles in her horoscope is not good right now.

 

[sanatan]

 

I understand your point and sympathize with your position.

 

At the same time these conditions remind us of how and why Srila Prabhupada wanted ISKCON to start developing rural, agrarian farm communities so that devotees could have an alternative to the auto based, petroleum based society of the modern world.

 

That is one of the great failures of ISKCON today is that there is no progress being made to move away from all this modern madness and show an example to the world how human society can live more simple, peaceful and spiritual lives without all this dependence on machines and technology that is factually destroying the planet as we speak.

 

So, maybe we are "demons" by partaking of all these modern evils.

One thing for sure, the Krishna consciousness movement is not doing it's job if it doesn't demonstate to the world a better way of living than our modern madness of materialistic civilization.

 

ISKCON is too busy with petty internal politics now to be bothered with saving the world.

Right now ISKCON is just fighting over who gets to be guru in what zone while the world is gliding to hell at a high rate of speed.

 

And I appreciate your response.

 

Yeah, it's a common failing: we all are entangled to some degree in possessions and use of the particular material infrastructure we find ourselves in...myself and my wife, way too much so in the last seven years, after leading a much more simple and austere life for the preceding twenty years.

 

If we can't directly emulate what SP envisioned, at least we can go back to where we were before...we have been in the process of doing this since early 2007, and the May auto accident moved things along, both in the sense of being a jarring reminder of how things and life itself can get snatched away in a second, and in the fact that it removed something that wasn't really needed and won't be replaced.

 

But an equal or greater failing for any of us is to still be in the mentality of unthinkingly blanket-dismissing those who haven't seen the same light in a spiritual sense or don't live by our principles as "demons", "karmis", and similar.

 

This mentality directly contradicts the nonsectarian Sanatana-dharma so flawlessly presented to the west by Srila Prabhupada. If SP used terms like these, it was in an instructional sense, and not to be imitated...after all, he came here to teach all of us to see every living entity as an eternal part and parcel of Krishna.

 

Whatever ISKCON's or any other Vaisnava institution's failings, we have to take the responsibility upon ourselves as individuals, even if we're not near approaching the spiritual platform of a Srila Prabhupada, to try and think and behave as though we are. Otherwise, we're another large group of sectarian cults, just as guilty as the Christians or Muslims of propagating an eternally-divisive kanistha attitude.

[zjj]

Your poor daughter. Please send her my sympathies, it's difficult to have so much trauma all at the same time. I also agree with Muralidar Prabhu. Tell her to stay away from cars for a while.

 

Haribol!

Jai

[suchandra]

 

 

I know it isn't realistic but maybe she should stay away from cars for a while.

 

Looks like this farmer also came to know how dangerous cars are.

 

 

 

 

 

[theist]

lol 2 green grinners :D

[govindablu]

interesting

[sanatan]

d