There’s something incredible about the sheer, dumb simplicity of this news story, and therein lies its appeal. Here’s everything that happened: the water company dug a hole in a Pittsburgh street to do some maintenance. They put up a big ROAD CLOSED sign so people could see that the road was, you know, closed. Because of the big hole. Then, someone drove deliberately around the ROAD CLOSED sign, and right into the hole, like, well, a raccoon or an idiot would. That’s it. That’s the story.
Here’s some video of this fascinating yet profoundly simple tale:
What is it about this driving of a 2020 or newer Hyundai Sonata right smack into a huge hole, in broad daylight, surrounded by orange cones and signs and workers that’s so fascinating?
The driver of the Sonata did this at three in the afternoon. It wasn’t dark. It wasn’t hard to see. Weather seems to have been clear. Assuming the car’s windows were, in fact, transparent, I can’t think of any reason why the driver wouldn’t have seen the cones, the ROAD CLOSED sign, the workers, the equipment, the hole.
And yet, somehow, the car ended up in the hole.
No one was hurt, happily, except maybe the faith in humanity of everyone reading this. Maybe there were extenuating circumstances? A health issue?
How are we supposed to look at this and not think, huh, this feels like an analogy for all those idiots who ignore qualified professionals and experts and “do their own research” on any number of subjects and somehow end up drinking their own pee.
How are we supposed to look at this and not be baffled by humanity’s near-limitless capacity for apathy, idiocy, and, well, shitty driving?
I complain about problems with self-driving car systems all the time, and then humans pull this kind of shit and make me look like an ass, too. Now the machines are laughing at us, and all the insufferable AI-humpers out there are going to have another thing to point to, and they won’t be wrong.
All because someone drove around a huge ROAD CLOSED sign and a bunch of cones because maybe, I don’t know, they thought they knew better? They weren’t going to let some smug-ass sign tell them what to do? They thought those signs were for other chumps, the sheeple?
I have no idea. All I know is this ended with car in hole.
Maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way. Maybe I need to see this as a way to glorify all the wonderful things humans have managed to pull off, because, come on, no one was making it easy.
Someone avoided all the warnings, and drove into a hole.
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