Alone in Self-Driving Cars: How Convenience Dissolves Consensus
The Mess of Human Interaction is the Point
Preface:
In a series of essays in partnership with Squarespace, we’re making sense of our relationship with reality and how culture is constructed.
Making it real is now an act of rebellion, a middle finger to the paralysis brought on by consensus collapse. The line between fact and fantasy continues to blur, but when reality is this negotiable, the soil for preferred futures is fertile. You can just do things. What’s the future you want to see? Making reclaims agency amidst lost meaning. So, don’t escape this reality — design the one you want. We desperately need your alternatives.
Literally make anything real with -10% off any site. I’ve been using Squarespace for 15 years, and cannot recommend them enough.
Build a better reality, then charge admission. With member-only areas, e-commerce and content monetization, create your space away from the noise. Decide a price and monetize products, services, courses, or any exclusive content. Make, sell, repeat. Fund your preferred future. No design experience required. Just the will to make something real.
The following piece is a collaboration between Matt Klein + Ruby Justice Thelot.
Ruby Justice Thelot is a designer, cyberethnographer and artist based in New York. He is a professor of Design and Media Theory at New York University.
There’s something odd about getting into a Waymo.
After a couple phone taps, the vehicle slowly glides to the curb with perfectly controlled movement, as if fixed on invisible tram-rails etched into the road for its robotic wheels. The white Jaguar moves with the elegance of a prima ballerina, with none of the emotion. All control. Perfect precision. No mistakes. The interior of the self-driving cocoon is comfortable. Supple leather, still new. It talks with a meticulously paced digital intonation. Ambient lo-fi music eases you in.
The whole affair reeks of violent convenience.