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Driving to Duluth the other day I was sharply reminded of some rant material when my vehicle flashed dashboard color codes and attention-getting (annoying) beeps to inform me of this or that nonexistent concern. 

Why are such unnecessary things even there? 

If (which for God’s sake you should not try) any of us tried to drive following the green lane lines of the dashboard screen we’d likely have/cause an accident. The green lines are widely inaccurate. So why are they there, other than as my suspicion tells me, some Millennial or Gen Z’r included this tech for not much more reason than because they could. 

Useless distracting information doesn’t seem like much of a safety agenda to me. Why? Because it’s not helpful or needed to get unnecessary sky-is-falling warnings I’ll learn to ignore. 

I think it’s both authoritarian and paternalistic that vehicles now butt into driving. The automation trend seems to believe we’re too stupid to do what we’re doing. Thanks for that.

The unnecessary and unhelpful smartness of vehicles and appliances, etc. is a personal gripe. 

So what, thinks un-modern me, if I can turn my dishwasher on from work? So what? I still had to load it and then unload it. I was right there. Why not just start it washing then? 

Remote starting (which I rarely use) cars in winter has some benefit, but otherwise I’m fine without it. I’m not so rare and sensitive a bloom that I can’t sit in a cold seat for a few minutes. Won’t kill me because so far I’ve survived the “ordeal” many times. Check the obits for cause of death being cold fanny. Not there. Doesn’t happen. 

The technology is there, so we use it, but is the cost of such extras worth it? A dumb oven roasts well as a smart one. I’d take my oven dumb and save the $500, which of course is not an option in smart world. Is that smart? 

How smart are we being required to pay for little-used and essentially worthless benefits that when they are cooked will surely take out the entire irreplaceable motherboard requiring another smart purchase. This sort of smart is costly.

Not that we drivers and consumers are perfect performers. We’re not. 

Other day I arrived at a four-way stop (which of course has the be smartened up into a rondo for driving and snow plowing efficiency requiring a short trip to the right before allowing you to go left, which was the unsmart goal that must be fixed. 

But, back to the other day’s four-way stop. To my right a car arrived before me and was blinking to turn left. OK. Fine. Go. But no. They sat there. Why? 

Well, turned out that other driver decided they should help me drive my vehicle in addition to theirs, doing so by wrist signaling for me to go forward ahead (meaning out of sequence) of them. I wanted to get out of my vehicle and uproot the stop sign to thrash and bash them in the hope (unlikely at best if past experience is any guide) they’d get the message and stick to driving their own vehicle without thinking it perfectly in bounds to tell me how to drive mine. Drive your own cursed car. Not mine. 

Each of us drives their own. It’s simpler that way. I grimly imagine that other driver owns dozens of smart appliances and is in the glow of having recently told a washer to wash or a dryer to dry and is unable to stop this useless habit from spreading into other areas of unneeded helpfulness that are rarely beneficial or sought after. 

Sam Clemens (who you may know by another name) commented on the fruitlessness of argument with the stupid (I’d include idealogues, committed or followers in general) because such persons will invariably drag you down to their level and then clobber you with the vast weight of their overwhelming ignorance. 

Sam used fewer words. Now of course I’ve just contradicted myself regarding the virtues or lack of regarding stupidity. 

Well, smarts or stupidity are not all of one kind. Odds in a card game are roughly the same for the genius physicist as the retired store clerk. 

Is it idiocy or genius self-promotion to open frozen packets of food product, dump them in a fry cooker, sort the result into boxes and think yourself a skilled maker (cook) of quick-food? Purchase of pre-built storage units from a big-box outlet does not make one into a cabinet maker. 

But, it’s often so, the lines between taking credit or giving blame exists in sketchy and presumptuous wrinkles resting in gray (or grey) areas between the ears.

‘S long as I’m in this mode I can’t resist hitting on one of the larger stupids that raise my temp. Writing. 
Once asked to give a course on Creative Writing, I declined with harumph and speed of a cheetah. I like writing, so why decline? Why? Because there’s no such thing as Creative Writing, one of the sillier notions ‘bout as authentically useful (says I) as being a fast-food chef. 

Communication (written or oral) doesn’t happen without agreed-upon, shared elements that have little-no need or use for one-off creations. Calling writing creative is, to some, ego boosting. No more. 
Being clever in discourse doesn’t create anything, either. If there’s no creation in communication what is there? One thing. Audience. You. The result has to make sense to an audience. That’s it, everything, really.

Now back to the four-way stop. If you see such an intersection with a battered car and missing STOP sign you know who to credit. 

I can be held to account just north, in Aurora, next to the St. James (biblical, saintly and kingly all in a go) Pit, in a white house with an attached garage where a pile of uprooted STOP signs is heaped outside. Easy to find. Come armed as I’ll be with my original two useful for embracing.