Whimsy The Puntable

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“By 2027, every new car sold in the United States could be required to actively monitor the person behind the wheel.

That means watching your eyes, tracking your behavior, and constantly evaluating whether you’re alert enough to drive.

For a lot of drivers, that starts to feel less like safety and more like surveillance.”

“Tucked into a broader federal safety initiative is a requirement for impaired-driving detection technology in all new vehicles.

The goal sounds simple enough: reduce crashes caused by drunk or fatigued drivers.

It’s a problem that has been around for decades, and lawmakers are trying to address it with new technology.”

“To do that, automakers will need to install systems that monitor drivers in real time.

These systems rely on cameras and sensors that track things like eye movement, head position, and overall attentiveness. It’s not just observing — it’s constantly analyzing what the driver is doing.”

“If the system detects what it believes is impairment, it doesn’t just issue a warning and move on.

In some cases, it could prevent the vehicle from starting or limit how it operates once you’re already driving.

That means the car itself becomes the decision-maker, not the person in the driver’s seat.”

“For many drivers, that raises immediate concerns. It introduces a scenario where a machine decides whether you’re allowed to use something you own, based on its interpretation of your behavior.”

what if it’s wrong?

“Fatigue, distraction, or even normal driving habits could potentially be misread by these systems.

Something as simple as looking away for a moment or driving late at night could be flagged as a concern, depending on how the system is calibrated.

That creates the possibility of false positives that could prevent someone from driving when they’re actually fine.”

Bigger problem

They collect data

“The question drivers keep asking is simple: where does that data go?

Right now, there isn’t a clear answer across the board. Concerns are already being raised about whether that information could be shared with insurance companies, manufacturers, or even law enforcement.”

This time of year can be frustrating for people in the aro/ace community.

I will be here, whenever you need to talk. 

transcription under the cut:

On a completely unrelated note, here's Wren WoF, featuring Sky!

Even though they no longer are causing harm to others and are able to actually undo some of their previous harm by living, some folks reacted as though this ending was somehow morally suspect. Morally bankrupt, even.

And I think it might be because so many of us were raised on a very specific kind of kids media trope:

They all fall to their deaths.

Disney loves chucking their bad guys off cliffs. And it makes sense- in a moral framework where villains *must* be punished (regardless of whether their death will actually prevent further harm or not), but killing of any kind is morally bad for the hero, the narrative must find a way to kill the villain without the protagonists doing a murder.

It's a moral assumption that a person can *deserve* to die, that it is cosmically just for them to die, that them dying is evidence that the story itself is morally good and correct. Scar *deserves* to die, but it would be bad for Simba to kill him. So....cliff. (edit: yes, cliff then hyenas. But cliff first. Lol.)

Steven Universe, whatever else it's faults, took a step back and said "but if killing people is bad, then people dying is bad", and instead of dropping White Diamond off a cliff, asked "what would actual *restorative*, not punitive, justice look like? What would actual reparations mean here? If the goal is to heal, not just to punish, how do we handle those who have done harm?" And then did that.

Which I think is interesting, and that there was pushback against it is interesting.