Though I do not like all this computer stuff in cars and in particular not in off road driving, I doubt that a computer controlled slip and torque distribution can easily be outperformed by an average or even an experienced driver in any non-acrobatic situation.
But even if there was a 100% guarantee that all the high tech computer and mechatronic stuff would absolutely and never fail in a cars life, I would still not want to have it.
If one seriously thinks about the question why people drive off road at all, he will have to admit, that in the majority of cases in which we go off road there is simply no imperative reason to do so. I am not talking about farmers, the military, S&R and such things.
But nobody drives the Rubicon trail because he
has to for some urgent reason. Or ASPW & friends driving the CSR, Jim Ratcliffe crossing Namibia or most of us -including me- driving whichever trails in the Moab, through Corsica or the Scottish Highlands. No "need" to do so, bullshit.
We all do so because we simply love it, because of the challenge, the awesome nature and the magnificent experiences we encounter if we do so.
And so is the driving. A question of skill and an exciting experience of satisfaction when you have mastered a difficult section, arrived at a lonely peak or lit a fire at a dream campsite in the evening, We don't
have to do any of this. On the contrary - we are
even looking for it!
When I go for a walk or hike in the forest, I can always call for help on the phone and get something to eat in the supermarket in the evening. And yet I always take my Puma White Hunter or my KaBar USMC with me. Not because I really need it. But it just feels good. Because it simply corresponds to the genetic program that is (thanks god) still influencing us after more than 40,000 years. It is the desire to be able to act independently and to be equipped to do so at any time.
So why are Formula 1 vehicles equipped with sensors and software that always set the optimum slip of 7% when accelerating, measure lateral acceleration and determine the optimum speed on wet racetracks at any temperature? In the end, isn't it a competition between software engineers and mechatronics engineers instead of racing drivers?
If I now look at all this in a larger context, then I think that any kind of heteronomy, and thus also the taking over of decisions by computers or other instances, alienates us from ourselves. Things just seem to work. And we no longer remember how and why. And how could we find our limits when computers are quietly at work everywhere, pushing these boundaries and making us believe that this is our achievement?
I'm sure I've made a big detour here. But if you don't sit back and try to look at things comprehensively, you won't notice that you're becoming more and more dispossessed of reality and taken over by other regulatory mechanisms, so that being human might at a some point end up with being reduced to a "
Total Recall", which has nothing to do with the real
me anymore.
It may seem far-fetched to want to derive from this a rejection of electronic helpers in everyday life. After all, I am a software developer by profession. But my beliefs have changed with age: I think these supposed normalities have already begun to cloud our perception of life and of ourselves.
I don't think that this has anything to do with a conspiracy. Because engineers always build what is possible, including the JLR engineers, and they have developed outstanding solutions. But I have become much more aware of the consequences of such developments.
With this in mind, I love being in nature, being in control of things myself, and more and more try to avoid unnecessary frills. And that's what the engineers overlook: that I don't want these "helpers" at all, because I want to master things on my own - even if the computers in an off-road vehicle perform better than I ever could.