When you reach adulthood, the parenting is supposed to end. Put another way, you’re no longer a child when you’re no longer parented. The car companies seem to disagree.
During a recent test drive of a new VW, I attempted to change the radio station while I was driving – a task that adults used to be assumed to be capable of doing. That assumption no longer holds. I tapped the touchscreen a number of times, which is necessary when you want to change stations using a smartphone-emulating tap/swipe interface (unless the vehicle in question came also with a tuner knob, which some do). After a few taps, the tuner stopped tuning and a pop-up appeared advising me that the ability to change stations via the touchscreen interface had been “temporarily paused” for “safety” and that I ought to “please focus on driving.”
As if I hadn’t been doing that. As if I were not capable of doing that and changing radio stations at the same time. I am also able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Most adults can do that.
It made me want to put my fist through the touchscreen – or tear it out by the roots and throw it out the window. An adult’s response to being treated like a child by a car. More finely, by the people who built the car. Not just this car, either. This parenting of adults by their cars is becoming general; it has also metastasized from the early-stage annoying to unendurable – assuming you’re an adult who does not like being treated like a child by your car.
This latter is very important. It is your car, isn’t? At least, it says so on the paperwork – including the financing paperwork. You handed over your money to buy what they say is “your” car. The state issues a piece of paper – the title – that says it’s “your” car, too. But is it, actually? How can it be when you are controlled by their car? It is like discovering the thermostat in your house won’t let you up the heat because it has decided it’s warm enough for you.
Parents control their children. It is the thing that defines the relationship. It is generally a benevolent relationship in that the parents are adults and the children need – they benefit from – the parenting they get from adults. Kids, after all, lack the experience and the judgment to competently function as adults. That is what defines the state of childhood.
But childhood is supposed to end. When you are old enough to buy – and drive – a car, you are presumably an adult. At least, that was once the presumption. That presumption began to be eroded half a century ago, when the government decided it was not sufficient that adults were free to buy seatbelts if they felt the need of them. The government forced adults to buy them (by requiring every new vehicle to come with seatbelts, regardless of the grown-up adult’s evaluation of the need for them. Next came a requirement to wear them. This is the government acting as parent – as opposed to respecter (and guarantor) of the right of putatively free adults to decide for themselves what’s best for themselves.
Unfortunately, there was no surge of outrage over this. Adults accepted being parented and so accepted (implicitly) that they are children forever and that the government (and corporations) need to parent them forever. It was easy to get them to go along by framing this parenting as being a matter of safety. There aren’t many who want to be seen as opposed to “safety” as it implies irresponsibility. The backers of government-corporate parenting would (and still do) point out that wearing seatbelts (and having air bags and so on) make it “safer” to drive and this is generally true – in the sense that it is generally true that if you wreck your car and are wearing a seatbelt (and there’s an airbag) the odds are it is less likely you’ll be hurt as badly or killed than if you weren’t wearing a seatbelt (and the car lacked air bags).
Well, so?
It is also generally true that people who eat a balanced diet and exercise regularly and don’t smoke live longer (and healthier) lives. Following the logic of those who like to parent us, we ought to be made to eat our veggies and also pestered (maybe fined) if we do not exercise. Smoking? It has already become difficult – and expensive – to obtain cigarettes, which used to be sold in vending machines, back when adults weren’t treated like children.
Now it’s down to being parented when you try to change the radio station. This would be a deal-breaker for me, if I were considering a new car and discovered that it would block me from changing the radio station while driving. Just the same as it is a deal breaker for me with regard to the “drowsy/distracted driver” eye-movement monitors that will be installed in all 2027 model year vehicles, per federal “safety” requirements.
It is enough, already.
It was enough a long time ago, when you stop to think about it. This mewly and sinister parenting of adults ought to have been met with a punch in the face half a century ago. It is one of the great mysteries of the last days of the West that a once vital and – dare it be said? – manly people allowed themselves to be effeminized so completely. It’s no wonder so many “men” have grown teats. It’s what happens when testosterone is replaced by estrogen.
I need to go shift some gears to take my mind off all this for awhile.
. . .
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Total Control is the Endgame. Where you have jew experts, Big Brother, deciding every aspect of your fate. No individualism, no creativity, no connection to God. They want you dead, Goyim, do not comply. If the rollout of clotshots did’nt convince you, what will? The merger of your military with IDF child murderers and rapists? The fact that you are disallowed to criticize them, the sickest motherfuckers on the face of the earth? Weimar Inflation, already planted here? ZOG makes products that you hate because they hate you.
“It made me want to put my fist through the touchscreen”
I wasn’t half way through your first paragraph when this precise thought had already jumped to mind, so definitely a case of reinforcing a bias when I read it was your reaction, too.
I’d have beaten the fucking radio with a baseball bat seeing that prompt.
“if I were considering a new car………………..”
Why would anyone with an Automotive IQ over 40 consider a New Car?
There are plenty of older cars in very good condition one can consider. I closely missed purchasing a W126 Mercedes S Class WITH NO electric seats, windows or sunroof and had manual air conditioning and a standard 5 speed gearbox. For a brief moment, I was considering a W124 Mercedes E Class equipped the same but it had a sunroof. Currently, I am considering a 190 Mercedes equipped like the S Class because it has the more desirable hand operated parking brake instead of one operated by foot. There are good, interesting, much more rewarding cars out there but a person has to put some effort into getting one.
Temporarily Paused
‘Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell was admitted to a hospital Sunday, his spokesperson said, but there was no immediate information about why he was there or his prognosis. McConnell, 84, was the longest serving Senate leader in history before stepping aside from that role while finishing his final term, which ends in January.
‘He was hospitalized with a concussion in March 2023 and missed several weeks of work after falling in a Washington hotel. After he returned, he twice froze up during news conferences that summer, staring vacantly ahead before colleagues and staff came to his assistance.’
https://apnews.com/article/mitch-mcconnell-hospital-health-senate-kentucky-bf3d75527d77002c430f4270afbfc0af
Doctors are frantically pressing his Reset button, to no avail. 🙁
VW was targeted in 2015 by Jewish Power the same way Germany was in 1914 and 1939. It was known as “diesel gate”, and it was made completely clear to VW that either they cooperated with Jews or they would end up “Morgenthau’d” like Gaza is today. Jewish love of vengeance (aka Genocide) is one inescapable lesson of history that all EP readers should understand.
So now VW is the bleeding edge of the enforcement of the Noahide empire. They are merely trying to conform to the whims of Jew stooges like VD Pfizer, Trump, Starmer, Macron or the rest of their shabbos goyim puppets.
Like all lackeys throughout history, VW has internalized the lesson that they needed to anticipate the demands of their masters in order to gain their approval, and hence we have VW instituting big-Jew-is-watching-you controls in their automobiles before they are even mandated.
Talented German engineers and managers have had over 80 years to learn to work within the “justice” presided over them during the Jew run Nuremberg kangaroo trials. Just like Palestinian teenagers who have been continually chain and gang raped by the “most moral army in history”, aka the IDF, they know that Jews will gleefully eradicate not only your asshole, your entire family but your entire blood line for refusal for complete and total submission to their demands.
So here we are, with big Jew making sure that their goyim slaves don’t deviate from their newest mind control “safety” commandments in the slightest fashion.
Eric Peters bitterly clinging to the golden age of automobiles where NPC goyim were permitted to switch between the limited selection of Kosher radio stations reminds me of some Waffen SS volunteer reminiscing about how they used to line up sadistic murdering Jewish kommissars against the wall before they gave them the Sturmgewehr treatment.
“I am also able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Most adults can do that.”
No. No. No they definitely can’t.
Hey shabbos goy, be grateful we let you drive where & when you want for now…that’ll change soon!!! (Muwhahahah and much hand rubbing)
And you want to listen to the radio at the same time??? We’ll put you in your place, Goyim!!!
I wish this was all just a laugh, but I’m afraid there’s a very strong degree of truth to all of it, and then some!
YMMV….
Enjoying the before times yesterday! Moses Lake WA airshow and a small car show along with the planes. Guy older than me @71 had a sweet Sunbeam Tiger fully restored with a well done British Racing Green paint job. “Pile ‘o parts like my other Sunbeams but this Tiger was special to me & got it wrapped up in time for today!”
Related to this topic? Look at the controls and dash in a car like that Sunbeam. Round gauges, real with a metal trim ring and GLASS face no plastic. Big tach, big speedo. You’re in total control and expected to monitor the car, & best of all the car won’t be monitoring you.
Airplanes? B29, P38, P40, P51 and a Catalina for the old warbirds. Look at the complexity of a B29. Four 18 cylinder engines, pressurized areas for the crew, central gun control for the turrets. Peak build rate at 300 a month and one month at 375.
Here’s a useful computer application from the ‘40s:
https://www.glennsmuseum.com/items/b29_fire/
Go look at the cutaway of that 18 cylinder engine. Now, how the hell did they make 1200 or more in one month? Plus every other aircraft engine for the multitude of warbirds every month?
PS: the Sunbeam won best of show, certainly deserved it!
B-29 central fire control computer: it consists of gears, relays and vacuum tubes — an analog computer. A competent TeeVee repairman of the 1950s and 1960s could diagnose and fix it, just as military mechanics did during the war. Moreover, it can be repaired and operated today — no obsolete, unavailable custom chips!
RE: WWII mechanics, again where would you ever find the brains and mechanical aptitude today in the headcount required to keep everything from machine guns to B29 bombers functioning in Europe and the Pacific? Like you say, with the right training this analog device was repairable. Today? Toss the solid state box and plug in another for lotsa $$$$.
Off-topic, I found this interesting: More from “The Health Ranger”, Mike Adams, who seems to be following in some of my footsteps, seemingly a man after my own heart. This is fitting, because I am building an analytical lab, similar to the one for which he reportedly works and will hopefully soon engage in a scientific blog of sorts, following in some of *his* footsteps.
Says the Health Ranger:
“I Used to Mock EVs — Here’s What Changed My Mind
I’ll be the first to admit it: I spent years mocking early electric vehicles. The early models had laughable range, charging took hours, and battery replacement costs could total the car. When I first heard about people planning cross-country trips in a Nissan Leaf, I thought they were insane. And I was right — for that era. The technology simply wasn’t ready.
But here’s what changed: I’m currently hauling solar panels, rack-mountable lithium iron phosphate batteries, and a high-voltage inverter to my studio in Central Texas, preparing to build a full off-grid power system that I’ll demonstrate on camera.”
Not sure what he means by “studio”, because that doesn’t sound very “off-grid”, but good otherwise. What was alarming was what he is supposedly paying for his system:
“I’ve analyzed the numbers for my own system: a 10kW solar array with 30kWh of LFP storage will run me about $35,000 in panels, batteries, inverter and wiring.”
WTF, mate?
The system I’m putting in for my lab and garage is similar, though only 4.5kW worth of solar, but with about the same volume and type of battery storage. The solar panels were slightly used and gave me a wonderful discount.
But my system costed only about $6,000. The Health Ranger is paying $35k. Is he having it built and installed by someone? Likely. I calculate that with 10kW worth of brand-new, state-of-the-art panels, such a system should still cost >$10k.
He’s definitely right that solar and battery storage have decreased considerably in price in recent years, but he doesn’t seem to be taking advantage of that. Perhaps, however, his “studio” is in a city where they have expensive “permits” that are best dealt with my paying vampiric contractors. As for me, I’m done with such things, the gods willing.
The link:
https://www.naturalnews.com/2026-06-12-why-off-grid-solar-suddenly-makes-sense.html
Yeah, Mike Adams bans anyone from his website that dares name the jew. He’s a gatekeeper.
Most of the “alternative” media is controlled, some directly, some just via self censoring. I don’t know which Mike Adams falls but there are 3rd rails he won’t touch. To some extent I wouldn’t blame him if it’s just attempting to limit scope creep and keep a focus. One person can’t know everything. I’d compare it to the mainstream where the same person can be an ‘expert’ one week on epidemiology, the next on computer science (A.I.), next on Middle East geopolitics. It’s absurd and obvious they get spoon fed a narrative.
That said, he may have a point. If you build a system to harvest and collect solar energy with enough capacity to reliably charge a car in a day or two you may be the one who is set up to survive an indefinitely long collapse. The simplest 1965 Falcon relies on a very long supply chain for gasoline eventually.
“This mewly and sinister parenting of adults ought to have been met with a punch in the face half a century ago.”
It is a certainty that there should have been generations of resistance that never arrived. They boiled this frog well. Not only with vehicles, of course, but with all manner of erosion in property and personal rights. Think “building codes” and so much that has been forbidden or requires *permission* from your Neo-feudal Lords.
I recently cancelled the “insurance” (extortion contract) on two of my non-running (for now) vehicles. The Mafia family quickly contacted the “MVD” who sent me vaguely threatening letters and told me that I had to go to their website to fill out “De-insurance” forms, or I would be issued fees for them cancelling my registration, because that is OH-SO burdensome, I guess. The government website wanted me to make an account, and to do this, there would have to be FACIAL-RECOGNITION scanning, through my laptop.
I don’t think so.
I will print out the form and send it though the mail. If that doesn’t work, then fuck ’em.
Any thing that can be done to distance us from government “services” can’t be done quickly enough.
The aspect of this I find exasperating is that while these automakers have turned every car into a data collection device (so they can sell your data for profit) and an annoying mother in law of sorts, they jam these butt-ugly screens into every car they make.
I know they’re cheap junk and designed to reduce production costs while creating forced obsolescence so you’ll have to replace the vehicle sooner, but how can you claim to care about safety when you have a distracting TV in every dash?
I hate modern cars and WILL never buy one. They’re over complicated, soulless junk.
Peter Daisyme expounds on a subject dear to Eric’s heart:
‘The wealthiest person I know personally drives a 2018 Toyota Camry. He owns three rental properties, has over $2 million in investment accounts, and could buy any car on any lot without blinking. He chooses not to, and his explanation is both simple and profound: “A car is a tool that takes you from one place to another. Everything beyond that is a payment for other people’s perception of you.”
‘The person leasing a $70,000 SUV might have a negative net worth. The person buying rounds at the bar might be maxing out a credit card. The couple who just renovated their kitchen might have raided their retirement accounts to pay for it.
‘Meanwhile, the person with $1.5 million in the bank is wearing jeans from Target, driving a paid-off Honda, and eating dinner at home. They do not look wealthy because they channeled the money that would create the appearance of wealth into building actual wealth.’
https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/why-millionaire-next-door-drives-used-car-and-what-teaches-about-real-wealth
It would be one thing if new cars were fantastically desirable — like that bubble-top 1961 Impala SS 409 coupe that I lusted over. But my bike still had training wheels on it. 🙁
However, paying $50,000-plus for over-teched dogshit is a mug’s game. Count me the hell out.
You have just described my conservative lifestyle. I’m now in the latter half of my 70’s and have acquired enough wealth, many years ago now, to also indulge in foolish acquisitions but I still drive my 2018 Passat SEL. While it has entirely too many computer BCMs and ECMs, it’s clean, reliable and lacking in the new technology that is designed to make you insane. I should mention that I’m an IT guy so, tech doesn’t scare or intimidate me. I just don’t want it to aggravate me as it most certainly will. I would like a newer vehicle but my research has not produced anything that interests me. I prefer two-wheel drive sedans and there are damn few of those available that are respectable and acceptable, regardless of price. I may just die with my VW or buy a completely restored classic to use as a daily driver. I have owned a variety of those but not for daily use. The one thing you can’t take away from newer vehicles is their handling and quiet cabins.
There was a book years ago called “The Millionaire Next Door” or something like that. My mother read it and took it to heart, taught us kids to be frugal. Now I’m just past 60 and work only because I want, not need. We don’t have a lot but we have two paid off houses, one is a rental, the other modest. We’re driving a 2005 Honda Odyssey and a great shape 1999 Lexus ES we bought used from a neighbor when her parents stopped driving. I have a 2003 F150 for utility jobs. I don’t live like a hermit but I buy only things I need and when I buy something it’s gotta be worth owning. As a result I buy a lot of used things and use my spare time to repair what can be repaired.
So the ‘infotainment systems’ that compromise our privacy are also *less functional* than ancient analog car radios from 75 years ago with mechanical linkage push buttons that actually worked with the vehicle in motion.
You have been served.
All because screens are cheaper for the automaker to buy and install. Of course the savings aren’t passed on to the consumer.
Mechanical buttons and knobs that you could feel and identify without taking your eyes off the road even once.
If the voice control systems were worth a damn this would be much less of an issue. But there’s no way to really make voice systems work the way we search for music. When I’m playing something on my phone I make a lot of use of the “next song” skip button on the steering wheel. Not because I don’t like the song that came up on the playlist, but because that’s not what I’m in the mood to listen to at that particular moment. Maybe AI Siri will figure out what I want to hear, but I seriously doubt it.
And trying to use voice commands to tune a radio? Fuhgeddaboudit! As the radio scans up the dial and hits all the NPR, Jesus, latino (why do they always have the strongest signals?) and “Urban” format stations, and blow right past the station you might want to hear, how can it not just constantly scan over and over. All the while you’re shouting “Next” or whatever it needs to set the musical roulette wheel in motion again.
Oh fuck that😂🤣😂🤣 Glad I think that most new cars look like different colored jelly beans melted at different temperatures. I wouldn’t buy one even if it had a fuckin’ ball massager 😂
My purchases of new cars are ‘temporarily paused’ … until hell freezes over. 🙂
That’s hilarious, I think of newer cars as beans or eggs. So I fully agree with your description of them as melted jelly beans. They have no character that sets them apart by model and brand anymore. Barely any features that make you want to buy one versus another, other than maybe one is slightly less unreliable.
I suspect we can blame the manufacturer’s lawyers for you being unable to change the radio station. Of course they were also the same people who removed knobs and buttons and replaced them with a touchscream.
As for your thermostat example, a buddy who was a landlord had to install covers over his rentals to prevent the tenants from cranking up the heat and leaving the windows open at the same time and yes it actually happened multiple times.
With utilities pushing connected thermostats and the possibility of you not being able to access the thermostat a bag of ice around the enclosure or a hair dryer on low should make the thermostat respond the way you want it too. 🙂
Open source smart thermostat. There are others, this was just the first hit on the search engine.
https://hackaday.io/project/203798-esp32-based-smart-thermostat
Hi Landru,
I read a story a few years ago about an electric company in Colorado that seized control of customers’ smart thermostats during a heatwave and if someone tried to change the settings back to where they had them, they got a message saying something like “Energy Emergency”. These smart meters and smart thermostats that LOTS of people have are ways for government and electric companies to ration electricity in the name of “Sustaining the green (or smart) energy grid”. Could those devices also be used to ration electricity for the masses but give the NUMEROUS data centers being built around the country the MASSIVE amount of electricity they’ll need?
Hi John.
That’s why I like low tech solutions for high tech problems. Even if GovCo checks there would be no signs of tampering. Of course an analog thermostat combine with jumper leads would work also if you can reach the wiring (two thermostats controlling the same HVAC system may create issues but I doubt it).
Yeah, our gas company offered “free” thermostats provided you connect them to the internet. No thank you, I am old and prefer to be warm in the winter and can afford to pay for the heat. F*ck off and let me live out my remaining days in comfort, whatever my “carbon footprint” is.
My 2018 Camry “infotainment” system does not allow anyone, even the front passenger, to use the touch screen to scroll through the MP3 music files stored on a flash drive while the vehicle is in motion.
I can see the point in heavy traffic, but not cruising at highway speeds on a stretch of interstate.
The MP3 player is great, but I’ve stored so many albums (yes, I still have those) on the flash drive that I occasionally need to access the catalog on the touchscreen, and that means finding an exit.
Hi Roscoe:
I use a standalone MP3 player connected through a FM transmitter adapter that way I can fast forward through embedded ads in podcasts.
For what it’s worth none of my cars have touchscreams but at some point I might wind up with one.
‘This would be a deal-breaker for me, if I were considering a new car.’ — eric
Same here. But on a short test drive, how likely is a prospective buyer to elicit all the objectionable nannying algorithms?
And what of the invisible telematics; the over-the-air updates that might happen months later; the subscription features that might expire after the first year?
Auto makers have become a minefield of shoddy products. misrepresentation and fraud. The best way to avoid getting gypped is to shun them till they go out of business. 🙂
The trend will stop when we quit buying nanny-cars en masse. When every person that test drives a car comes back to the dealership and says to them, “I otherwise like the car, but having a car tell me I can’t change the radio station for my safety is a deal breaker, so, yeah, I’m not interested anymore. What do you have on the used lot?”
When every single person says “Thanks, but no thanks” to nanny-tech, we’ll start to see change.
No, we won’t. What we’ll see is more bailouts and government schemes to get you into a new car. Because the automobile industry has been anointed as one of the crown jewels of a nation. Governments see themselves as “making it to the big leagues” if the country builds cars. Because only with the steady hand of government at the keel of the economy will investors feel comfortable enough to build a big factory that employs thousands of people.
And as soon as there’s a slump, for whatever reason (such as too much government entanglement), the taxpayer and central banks will do whatever’s necessary to keep the automobile sector happy.
They can throw subsidies and incentives at the car makers all they like. If the people don’t buy them, they eventually will stop making them.
The EV market is a direct example of this. In the past 2 years, how many automakers have done 180’s on their EV plans? Once the incentives dried up, and the people started to realize how horrible they were, the sales fell into the toilet, and now we’re starting to see a return to IC tech.
This is no different. When people refuse the nanny tech and dealers’ lots sit full of nanny cars nobody wants, change WILL happen. Voting at the ballot box never makes any difference, but voting with our collective walleta always does…eventually.
“When people refuse the nanny tech and dealers’ lots sit full of nanny cars nobody wants…”
Except that people need transportation. A crippled car is still superior to public transportation. Like flying, the automakers and government nannies will continue to ratchet down. Because they can. The idea of keeping old vehicles running will stop when the plastic body panels degrade and there aren’t any replacements. In some areas you might be able to find someone who can fabricate a replacement, but anywhere there’s annual inspection eventually the vehicle won’t pass.
Met with resistance a half century ago? Hardly. The pattern was well established in the late 19th Century when the “Progressive” movement was taking shape.
One of the first targets of these nanny-staters was “child labor”. That opened the floodgates as to what a “child” was. When you consider the benefits to labor unions, GovCo schools and social do-gooders it all makes sense.
The relentless ratcheting up of “childhood” has resulted in many, if not most, believing that “the human brain doesn’t mature until 25 years old”. Talk about a scam. And GovCo backs it, surprise, surprise.
(link)
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3621648/
Naturally this conflicts with God’s idea of “maturity” because GovCo knows more than God. Only humans are considered “children” while being able to produce their own children. But, the “child protection” industry benefits greatly at little or no cost or effort.
Think about it.
Mark in BC, Government schools , which were rebranded as public schools, were essential to the dumbing down of Americans as they teach what to think and not how to think.
Essential to dumbing down americans
Doesn’t require much effort…..
“Only humans are considered “children” while being able to produce their own children.”
Says the creepy pedophile wannabe.
Interesting how the human brain seemed to mature faster in the past. David Farragut commanded a ship at age 12. Queen Victoria ruled Great Britain at age 18.
People rise, or fall, to the expectations set for them. When young people were expected to mature and take responsibility early, that’s what happened. When people are expected to act like immature idiots well into their 20s, as is the case today, that’s what we get.
If the government really believes the human brain doesn’t mature until age 25, then they should prohibit military service for anyone under 25. Fat chance of that happening, right?