I‘ve written before about what I called The MRA Meme That Would Not Die — that is, the notion that teaching men not to rape is like teaching drivers not to run people over. That it is, in other words, a silly and pointless exercise.
MRAs apparently think this is a devastating argument, and I’ve seen it return again and again, with slight variations, in memes floating around on Facebook and Twitter. Like this one:
What MRAs somehow seem to have forgotten is that we DO in fact teach drivers not to run people over.
That’s what drivers’ ed is for. And that’s why we make wannabe drivers pass a driving test before giving them their licence. If you run over even one pedestrian during such a test, much less plow into a crowd of people waiting for a bus, you will fail this test.
That kind of makes sense to me. As does teaching men not to rape. (Which also works, by the way.)
Well, now I’ve found a new variation on the Meme That Would Not Die, focusing not on drivers but on the cars themselves:
Sorry to ruin your memes again, MRAs, but WE DO THIS ALREADY TOO. Well, not so much teach them as program them to not hit people. That’s what collision avoidance systems are all about.
If you want to know more, Toyota has prepared a helpful video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAeEnLr3WYk
Meanwhile, assorted carmakers — and Google — are working on self-driving cars; Business Insider estimates there will be ten million of them on the road by 2020, each of every one of them programmed not to hit people.
Except this one, of course:
@ epitome
There’s a museum in Cornwall (at Zennor) that is literally stuff people found in their sheds.
The lawnmowers exhibit is actually really good.
Completely OT, but Alan, I saw this and thought of you:
Ha, POM, thank you!
The weird thing is, the BBC guy who covers all our elections is called Jon Snow. He’s a bit ‘eccentric’ shall we say; and his usual ways of illustrating our elections make that worm thing look like ESPN!
http://www.shortlist.com/news/the-real-jon-snow-explains-the-election-through-game-of-thrones
The worm thing was just hilarious. The GoT thing was also fantastic.
I completely missed this article! But jeesh, now they’re comparing men to inanimate objects with no free will. Self driving cars/auto-emergency braking cars aside, the cars the maker of the stupid meme had in mind couldn’t do anything at all without a driver, much less hit somebody crossing the street. So who do they think is in control of men to make the mindless objects rape other people? Their hateful view of men just gets more and more frightening.
Analogy Fixed-
Women be like “Hey, someone needs to do something about these maniacs going out of their way to target and mow down pedestrians!”
MRA logic- “Sorry, but it’s just too difficult to convict a hit-and-run. Wouldn’t it just be easier to avoid injury by staying inside all the time?”