Category: Teen Topics
Hi all, Do you think that in the future there will be technology that will make us see? Do you think this would ever happene? Just wondering.
Yeah, I do. People are already working on it. I have my doubts that it will be any better, though, especially for those who have been blind since birth, such as myself. If you've been blind all your life, your brain adapts to it. My thinking is that sudden visual stimuli will be overkill to the brain, and may be very difficult to handle. it's a very highly debated topic, though. It'll be interesting to hear what others have to say.
By the way, I wanted to question something about the title. "Save you from blindness"? I'm sure others will think differently, but I see my blindess as nothing more than a characteristic; another prospective. I certainly don't see it as a trap that I need to be "saved" from.
I agree with this. I regard blindness is a minor inconvenience, and an occasional pain, but nothing that is life-altering.
I agree. blindness isn't, and doesn't have to be a bad thing.
as for the possible technology, I wouldn't be into it...but that's just me.
i agree with the last four posters here. I've been blind my entire life, an couldn't imagine how overwhelming it would be to actually see color for the first time ever, to truly know what it means when someone says, "that's ugly." etc.
Sorry, It was a mistake on my part. I meant to say te3ch that will give you sight. I agree with OceanDream, and I think it would would be very hard to adapt
I'd be a bit leary of it, myself. To be totally "foolproof", it would have to circumvent the ocular system entirely and be wired directly into the brain ... and I'm a bit nervous about anything that attempts to rewire the brain, since damage there could be more problematic than blindness, says I.
I agree with with the last seven posts. honestly, I just think it easier to embrace my blindness, and it does help me in the longrun, and i don't think I'd actually want to see again, if that makes sense.
This topic, among others recently, does raise some rather compelling thoughts.
First, I understand that for some, coping, if you will, I rather prefer the term adaptation or exaptation for myself, people use slogans and plattitudes like Blindness is only an inconvenience, embrace one's blindness, don't hide one's blindness, compensate for one's blindness.
Now bear in mind what I have to say comes from somebody for which none of the above has any meaning whatsoever. So, if they do to you, this is not an insult, just another perspective.
Blindness isn't really an identity, e.g. we don't birth blind children, maintain blind rituals, possess blind heritage. Legal blindness, or total blindness for that matter, is measured in visual accuity: nothing more, nothing less.
That being said, to eliminate blindness, and the need for expensive adaptations, the inconveniencing of others around us, at least from a practical perspective, can be seen as nothing less than a pragmatic, albeit challenging, move.
In general terms, being brutally honest, what is the biggest inconvenience of blindness? Speed, is it not? To sighted people, most of what we do is done slowly. Finding things slowly, even if it is fractions of a second slower than they do. There is no snapshot / quick glance / instant 3-dimensional representation of a screen, a document, a war zone that is your teenager's room. You or I cannot, at a cocktail party, catch the eye of somebody across the room who desperately wants to talk to you, is stuck in a manner they know you can help them with, etc., or even flirt with an attractive member of your attracted sex at a distance.
Well, consider that doctors didn't fix it, but some of you now can text so damned fast you're probably close. Someone texted you, you read it, you responded - I've seen my daughter do it at what is to me an alarming rate. Is it as fast as the above visual interchange? At five seconds per text: you could interchange a message and a response in fifteen seconds or less now - accounting for you opening your phone and looking at the message.
Visual interchange I've observed, when my wife does it, say "Jenny's across the room and wants you to help her. Looks like she's stuck with her iPad." i say 'OK' or something, the look is returned, 'We're coming,' or something, while Jenny is still engaged in conversation with someone else. Remove the remarkably sluggish and inefficient interchange that was speech: my wife having to verbally tell me, and me acknowledge, the visual probably took 2 to 3 seconds, a fifth or less the time you breakneck-speeding texters can text. But even at that, you are in a way, healed if you will or assisted, because of your ability to text and even read the text that fast. If my wife weren't there, my blindness would not have inconvenienced me, it would have inconvenienced a friend of ours who couldn't get away from the conversation she was in, but really did need my help.
If it were mere inconvenience only, there would be no accounting for us in the ADA, no Braille on elevators, no elevators that announced what floor they were on, no announcing of stops by a bus driver, no readers, no need for all this radically expensive retrofitting we all use now, in some part at least, at the expense of the population at large, without any perceivable market benefit to them.
But, since it is a hardware limitation which unmodified could exclude us from a lot of things, it is profoundly more than inconvenient. So, if an iPod or iPhone can now identify the box the daughter left out on the table, or a light probe can see if the kids left lights on all over before racing off to the next activity, or a reader can allow us to use a PC to work / shop / pay our expenses and care for those who depend on us, we are already getting some modicum of vision.
We can now read what we couldn't used to: and not being able to read that material for ourselves was way more than inconvenient: it kept some of us from being able to do some things that we now can do.
Not being able to drive - where I live right now - is radically inconvenient: not just for me but for my daughter who is near some of you guys' age, to say nothing of the inconvenience it is to my wife. You teenagers know how this is: you all are bouncing constantly from activity to activity, day in, day out, weekends, vacations, and all: this requires either a very expensive insurance coverage for a teenage driver, or a parent to chauffeur. Two parents don't trade off this responsibility in our house, only one must do it all. And while certainly I may do other things to semi-offset, being a chauffeur all the time is radically inconvenient for the parent tasked with doing it all. This is just one example.
Now, will Google's autopilot military-technology-based automobiles solve this? Very likely: and for some of us, much sooner than an optic nerve can be preserved. Instead of driving around a race track with a lot of contraptions on board, Google's cars have driven, unmanned, the streets of San Francisco. Aircraft, unmanned as well, have flown over Afghanistan for years.
I think we can expect robotic technologies to assist not only us, but those who may depend on us like kids, aging parents, a sick relative, etc.
If blindness were a mere inconvenience, the iPod I have which identified the frozen box of food the teenage grrlz grought home, left out, said 'Dad would you make this for us?' and subsequently went bouncing and squealing off to who knows what, would not be an amazing addition to my arsenal of tools: it would just be a slight convenience. Yes, without it, I could have opened the box, come semi-close to figuring out what it was, cooked it up: hell I cook by chemistry most the time, so figure weight / volume / makeup of what's probably in it, equals a set time and temperature, and if I'm not wrong, we're batting a thousand. If I am wrong, maybe the contents end up rubbery, or, not done yet, so I tell 'em to hold their pants on while it finishes.
But, instead, because of the tool that is the iPod plus a couple of apps, I see what the box is, I look up directions because of the Horizons for the Blind web site DirectionsForMe.org, and it's out of the oven when the young spazzes are ready to inhale.
Yes, I did all this long before technology. More slowly, yes. Yes, I wrote on lined checks with a typewriter, because that was the best we had: not because of some plattitude like your organizations claim, but because it was the best hammer for the job at the time. Nothing more, nothing less. But with any form of enhancement that speeds up performance and increases efficiency is a better hammer. If we were all content to stay the same, we would still be using flint tools, and attempting to distance-run a deer to death, because two-legged ambulation and flint-knapping would just be, as some plattitudinous ones call it, an inconvenience. Humans being what they are, said plattitude bearers probably existed at the dawn of toolmaking itself, or horse domestication, and will exist forever into the future.
However, innovation never happened because people held onto an ideal constructed out of necessity for a limited time.
Just don't bet on medical science alone: biology is sloppy, uncoordinated, and incredibly inefficient on so many levels. A digital processor housed in your iPod or a Google automobile, or a military fighter jet is far more efficient, and I'm betting on that area of engineering not so reliant on carbon, sodium and water, that will get us access to the 3-dimensional light-spectrum-filled visual space. And fast.
I think many of you should read the Singularity, and the older book The Age of Spiritual Machines, both by Ray Kurzweil, where he explores digitization.
We have already enhanced ourselves in profound ways as it is: five thousand years ago, using the written language, we enhanced memory.
And look at what you all do / we all do with our phones and devices? We use them to store data we can more quickly look up, thus saving our mental energy for a zillion other processes and things.
Now, we're enhancing our ability to see, if you will, having access to content unparalleled to anything we had before. My worst nightmare would be to be again restricted in access to content and materials as I was before the Internet. How profoundly limited I was as a human being in general! And, I was one who went to college, did all the activities expected of and embraced by us young 1980s middle American types. But I could not even so much as read the daily paper, let alone any scientific journals.
So, in effect, my biological constraints have been eclipsed by technology: not a doctor's medical technology, but technology nonetheless.
Yes, blindness does come with its limitations. I'll definitely admit that, but they really don't bother me. Would I take the chance if something ever did become available for us to see? Well, that would be something I'd have to think long and hard about. Either way, though, I'm not against it. Personally, I'd prefer something natural, like stem cell research over something artificial designed to rewire the brain and provide, well, basically artificial, computerized vision.
However, blindness also does present some other conveniences. for example, I can't count all the times I've been asked by a sighted person how it's possible for one to type without looking at the keyboard. Well, my answer is simply, "that's how I originally learned to type". Also, we don't have to be in front of the TV to "watch" our favourite shows. I'm sure there are others I'm just not thinking of at the moment, but those are a couple examples.
I agree with Leo, it is just a trait, yes it does have it's inconviences, but it is not that hard to live with for me at least, since I've been blind since birth. I posted this topic, just to see your opinions.
Matthew
Of corse. I'm vary happy. with the way. i am now! . i would not want anysight. restored. ...
ok. that's all 4 now.
Well, I've found a program that might could help a little, its at http://seeingwithsound.com and its called the vOICe. Its for windows, Simbian and Android. It takes immages from a webcam or immage file or something and turns them into "soundscapes" Y'all may want to read about it before trying it, as there is a lot to learn about vission.
What would be the social impact of such a thing. Think about it, you're eliminating blindness itself, providing most blind people would go for this. The blind people who would choose to be blind would become an even smaller minority, and would probably come under even more pressure to take this chance and become, for want of a better word, assimilated. If you think people's attitudes towards accessibility nowadays is haphazard, imagine what it'd be like if this were to happen. People would just shrug and say you're foolish for remaining blind and why the hell couldn't you just get normal like everyone else and stop inconveniencing people. Would you also, in a way, be telling the ignorant who think blindness is as bad as cancer or death that yes, being blind is tragic and you are glad that you're rid of it in your life. If you think people believe you a freak and an alien right here and now, imagine the attitudes towards the smaller minority and perhaps even people with other disabilities. Why accomodate or even be kind to the disabled when they can just be normalized.
well, the title was a little misleading certainly. I had a sudden image of some medieval or old school type of thread. I have been totally blind for about 12 years and still not interested in seeing again. I also don't mind the inconvenience, it doesn't bother me. and, besides the cost could be even more inconvent, or too much such as in to the cost of your life.
However, because I was able to see, while some things I suppose is a tat bit visual for me, in my brain at least I see colors when they are mentioned and shapes with colors sometimes if I really work on it I still wouldn't mind not being able to see. I wouldn't actually have to relearn everything because I once could see a tiny bit and know somewhat but I guess to some degree I would have to relearn. but, still, seeing is not as easy as everyone makes out. site is a learning process too, even if your eyes work and the vision center works in your body, you'd still have to completely scrap all your systems and reteach it how to see, which is a huge step taking a lot of time. you can't be just thrown out there and someone say, okay see you can see now, use it! it's not quite that simple. not only will your life drastically change, but you'd have to take so much time to learn how to see, it might not be worth it.
Also, the point that it most likely would be electronic or yes, modifying the brain which is really risky because of all the side effects or accidents that could happen. I rather be blind like one of the posters then be brain damaged. I study psychology and none of it sounds too fun, I am just greatful I am only blind, so I think I might just stcik with that. Also, with the computer part of it, which most likely might have to happen, I don't want a machine being able to modify my brain or work with it or something. Think about the risks if one could access it remotely and how say it fell in to the wrong hands. or the wrong types of people found out how to hack in to it or intercept. It would be very risky and no situation I want to be in. it could possibly make you think or see things if it fell in to the wrong hands. and, if it was wired in to your brain, and you wish to unplug it and not use it, imagine the work and the risk again to your brain of brain damage? not to mention the expense.
I've seen or at least heard of a number of movies that present this premise. Here's how they usually present it. So we're introduced to somebody with a disability, maybe deaf or blind or developmentally delayed. You're shown the particular difficulties they are going through in life according to the storyteller, then comes the miracle cure in some implant or other scientific thing. The person takes the chance and gets implanted and they start regaining whatever was lost according to the storyteller. Then once things are really good and they feel like a normal standard human, something breaks down and the story ends with the person back the way they were when we started. So, why do you think this particular sort of story gets told and retold and recast time and time again?
I have to agree. If they do come up with some way to give us vision, it needs to be natural. Stem cell research is looking pretty promising. But if it can't be as natural as that, then at least come up with something that doesn't require tech that must be working constantly in order for you to remain sighted. In other words, a surgery of some kind where once it's done, you're done, no matter what. That seems very doubtful at this point.
I was born blind myself, and as long as I'm here on this earth, I'm not going to let one doctor touch my eyes. Of course there are some limitations, as others have said, but they really don't bother me either. I can't wait to see what cars that Google or other tech companies come out with that will allow us to get around on our own, with out a bus pass, and without having to arrange transportation in advance just to make sure that you have a ride. Sometimes that can be a pain, and I'm sure others who have posted here can attest to that.
Mat, your title is completely legitimate. Several people on here have expressed that they wish to remain blind. Enlightening them by force would be wrong. However, it is no more right to say to us that our desire to see is unnatural or evidence of some serious character flaw or self-esteem issue.
Being that I once could see lots I'd except sight again, however, not if the process was expermental, or brain altering. It have to be something that would work, and work well, not just for a short time, then stop again.
I would agree that if you were blind your total life it really be mentally heavy to see even a little bit. I don't know if in that case I could except the change either.
All things being equal, meaning that if the process could be carried out with no ill effects, it would be irresponsible to not do it, in my opinion.
As it is now, if I ask for assistance on account of being blind, it is not a choice, it is because I have exhausted all other options or possibilities and what blocks me is the fact I can't see. Blind as an identity makes zero sense to me.
I knew polio survivors growing up who were rather heroic in their efforts against what they now call chronic pain and even crippling effects of the condition. And they are the ones I have known who are most outspoken against the anti-vaccination community, because they know what would happen to people. They don't say polio is an identity. That would be silly. And to me, while being blind doesn't cause te same problems, it has required that I ask a lot of other people at times, and if I could avoid that I would be irresponsible not to. Plus, as blind people, fair or not, we tend to earn significantly less than our sighted counterparts. Not like other groups who earn less because they take more days off or take more personal time: we just simply earn less, and many spout the ridiculous propaganda we should be grateful to have a job in the first place. That sort of grattitude is just legitimized slavery.
As to what it would do to the perceptions about blindness in other people? Not really my problem: My problem are those who depend on me for financial and other support, and if gaining sight would provide more opportunities (which we all know it would, propaganda aside), at the very least I'd owe it to them. to thenm: not to some elusive group of so-called observers, which currently enslaves many blind and other minority groups to a life of constant so-called education, like a bunch of soldiers during the Vietnam War who would take a hill only to lose it later and feel like a failure.
Those industries that produce this propaganda, or produce content or institutions designed to behaviorally modify the blind are based on failure anyway: unless we are all failures in one form or another, they cannot justify their existence. And because they are worthless and weak, and produce nothing at all, the only thing they can do is justify their existence by sapping your resources, keeping you enslaved and beholden as a failure, like hardcore drugs without the high. All they can do is beat, if you're young enough for that, and attempt to prattle and guilt-trip, if you're an adult, all in favor of a so-called education of everyone else, which is a figment of their imagination. Naturally, with that kind of racket going on, they wouldn't want any changes like this, just as they're not that friendly towards the truly self-reliant.
What I think is, people who are now making it, pulling themselves up by the bootstraps, or networking (which in and of itself could be deemed a survival tactic), will be the ones who make informed decisions when the technology and supporting infrastructures arrive to repair various eye conditions. Having no optic nerves, I'm probably near the end of the line for any sort of enhancements. But if or when they arrive, I can only say I'd be seeking to make the most informed, independent, thought-out, and responsible decision. Idealism of any sort has no real place in decision-making, in my opinion.
Well said, Leo. if there ever was a procedure that could restore even some of my vision, I would definitely consider it. It would be kind of silly not to, in my opinion.
Coming from a blind person who has been blind all his life, I can say that if people can't accept me as a blind person, then so be it. As long as I'm here on this earth, I will not let anyone force me into an eye procedure that I don't want to receive. I'm happy just the way I am, and nobody's going to change that. I honestly don't want to have eyesight, as some others have said already.
I don't see how people can have a problem with these procedures, so long as the possibility of complications is moderate to low. However, to say it's irresponsible not to get it done is going too far, in my opinion, especially if you're already doing well for yourself and/or your family.
The only way it is irresponsible not to, is in the area of access. We get access changes made for us, (when in fact they do happen), for only two reasons: First, we've exhausted all other options, and second, there is no other way, meaning we can't see to do what we should otherwise be doing. When it's downgraded from something we can't help to the area of choice, then only the rich and elite would have the ability to remain blind if they want to. Why ask people to assist when you could have otherwise assisted yourself and got it changed? And probably upped your earning potential as well as other factors that are particularly limiting, not to the young and unencumbered perhaps, but at least to those who have the responsibility to support other people.
It would be irresponsible, for example, for me to outfit my daughter or wife or nieces with outdated computer hardware, or a cheap bike, or something similar, all based on a so-called ideal about "Who they are", if I already had the means to outfit them well, so they had an advantage. Can people use less than optimal hardware? Sure. Can we for the most part get the job done? Sure.
And if you're too poor to buy the better hardware, and have nobody to get it for you, it's not your fault if you have some trouble being as competitive as you might otherwise on some things. And nobody would hold it against you from borrowing their newer better hardware. But if the opportunity were there, and you or I decided not to do it, I just think we would then also forfeit any of the few rights for access we might otherwise employ. The reason for that is any sort of access accomodations are not based on a choice: they're based on a person's ability or lack thereof. If I carry gear for a guy in a wheelchair, anybody would understand. But if I carry the same sixty-pound pack for a guy who could walk but is just sitting in a wheelchair, he would be called a fraud and I the ultimate fool for buying it.
You already basically live this out anyway, forgetting what people say about so-called 'who I am', and all that: we all of us use what they call accomodations as a last resort, after exhausting all other options anyway. That's never gonna change, it's just nature, what it is to be human and self-reliant, blind or otherwise. It's not real the magic show the idealists would have yu believe.
And I initially qualified it by saying only if the procedure(s) and or technology (which may well not even involve anything internal to us) was reliable. There will always be the bad-ass types who will take it in the early stages. Air travel and other developments, some of which some of you have participated in, began with bad-asses who were willing to give it a good run before it was fully tested out. But now any one of us will fly from one destination to another if duty, or even a vacation we can afford, calls for it.
Some of you were probably the first in your family to shop online, when readers just said 'button' in the mid 90s for most sites. And in part because of you, now everyone does it. Now it would be totally irresponsible, out of some sense of idealism, for me not to get something from Amazon that my daughter needed, in order for 'me to be me'. And yes, I do know people who don't want to be 'normalized' by using the web. And they cry boo-hoo victim when they're marginalized, and make up fancy magic show stories about how the rest of us are trying to conform them.
That's what I had meant.
I don't think at all that it's irresponsible to say that I'm scared to gain eyesight because the mind is just going to be overwhelmed with stuff that it has never been able to see or make contact with before. I think it'll be good for those who had eyesight at first, but just so happened to lose it later on in life. It's not the eyesight part that I'm scared of necessarily, but it's just how my brain is going to react that I'm concerned about.
I'm scared of it too. I've even read several accounts of people born blind who gained sight later and the struggles they faced, so I know it will be hard. But I've never found anything worth while in this world that is easy and takes no practice. Getting out of bed on time isn't even always easy. Ever since I was old enough to start asking questions I've had many questions which can't be answered. Having sight would put many of them to rest and provide me with closure. Hearing, smell, touch, and taste each provide me with rich and uniquely beautiful experiences, so it makes sense to assume that sight would provide its own set which cannot quite be paralelled by any other experience. Also, as Leo keeps pointing out, sightlings are often more efficient. I observe this on a daily basis and often wonder what it would be like to be aware of so much of the world before you reach it and to move through it almost care free. I'm not even talking about driving yet. Try running with both hands free. If you were born blind you'll likely find it quite hard. I only learned recently that each arm is suposed to move forward with its opposite leg. If we were all blind, how would we have figured out that the earth is round or that the sun revolves around the earth? How would we build towers and cathedrals? How would we appreciate architecture in the first place? I find it difficult since I can't experience a building as a whole. Some models of famous landmarks would be interesting. Or models of various clasifications of flying vehicles which, of course, sightlings build and fly. Just this week a friend of mine was talking about a plant I'd never heard of which follows the sun. He likes to watch it early in the morning. All this is sort of rambly and disjointed, I know, but I think it'll get the idea across.
In short, I like learning new and interesting random things. Sight would make learning more efficient. My curiosity about what it's like to see will never end until I see, and even then it will never end, because there's always more to learn.
I would be the first in line if the artificial retina was available. I can understand the people blind since birth would not want this but as a person who had site I would do it. I miss having my eye sight, I have missed out on so much: my daughter's face and all her pitures, her prom, graduation and so much of the everyday things. I don't sit home and dwell on my blindness but if something was out there, you bet I would do it in a heartbeat.
PS, I know (or at least I've been told but have been provided with no proof) that the earth revolves around the sun. By accidentally switching the two nouns I think I've just increased my idiot quotient on here by at least a thousand points. Sorry.
Every major change is going to take some getting used to. I would be scared of this, too, which is why, if such a thing were possible, I'd rather gain sight gradually, even if it would take years. Getting used to it probably wouldn't be so difficult that way.
Leo, my appologies. I do understand where you're coming from, now, and I do agree with you. I just don't understand how someone who is doing very well and can provide for others would be irresponsible to refuse this procedure. that's all. But to refuse it, then complain that accessibility is lacking is, without a doubt, irresponsible.
Personally, I do not see my blindness as a Condition which must be healed. As others have expressed, I may take the cnace if something comes available, but I wouldn't want to depend on something which may eventually fail (like the operation in FLowers For Algernon), though Leo's point about blind people earning less does kind of put things into perspective. Is it because some sighted people think that blind people are incapable of working harder/better than their sighted counterparts?
I have enjoyed reading this thread. I especially liked what post 29 had to say.
As for me, heck yeah, I'd go for it in a heartbeat. Having vision would allow for so much more freedom. For anyone to say that blindness is not confining, is delusional.
Are there allot of work-arounds? Sure there are but let's face it, there's no way to replace the freedom to be spontaneous, live wherever we want (provided we can afford it,) do the types of work we want, on and on and on.
Do I feel like my blindness is something that needs to be fixed? Nope, I'm perfectly fine just the way I am. Would I change it if I could? Absolutely! I'd also grow about 5 more inches too. lol
Wow, thanks. I just looked back at that post and remembered I was very emotional when I wrote it. I was taking things a little too personally and couldn't imagine why anyone would expect me NOT to want to see. I wasn't sure that post made much sense to anyone else.
Post 29 you have my support too.
I am not sure I would go for it because I would not like to experience what the guy in the movie At First Sight went through. I believe I was meant to be who I am blind or not.
The guy in the movie is only loosely based on a real person whose story appears in one of Dr. Oliver Sacks' collections. I wouldn't base a major life decision on that story.
I would most likely be verry wary of any opporation that they said that would give me back my eyesight because I lost my eyesight due to doctors trying to save it (long story). However, if I knew it would work, and I wouldn't have any ill-affects, I would do it in a heartbeat. I would love to see the stars, or sunrise, or a beautiful sunset, really, many things I'd love to see. But something that I don't know if I could do is trust a completely computerized car. I mean, one loose wire and your screwed, yes, I know that they would be built verry well, but it's just the thought of putting my life in the hands of something that can't really think for itself kinda scares me. Am I the only one that feels this way?
I couldn't agree more. I'd hate to have to reboot while going 80 on the interstate.
Nope, you're definitely not. I wouldn't trust that car, either. There would almost have to be backup systems in place so that you could pull over to the side of the road in an emergency, but you would probably have to have sight to take advantage of them. And, as soon as the technology failed and one of us got in an accident, that would be the end of blind people having drivers' licenses.
What most don't know is that cars now are full of computer-controlled systems. Systems that decide what you meant by pressing down hard on the gas, systems that control the breaks, etc.
But these are black boxes with peepholes, meaning they are one-off systems that do one thing and interconnect with each other, and communicate with the central brain, who only manages those systems. The reason for crashes in memory is that an unknown process took the memory assigned to another process and so the program literally has nothing to hold on to. This does not happen in closed environments, robotics controlled systems, fuel injection systems, and the like. The all-purpose computer has this happen because it is designed to allow the user to do pretty much anything on it. And by user, we're talking several levels of user: user being you who is typing or clicking the mouse, below you user meaning application using memory and processor time, and so on. It's not an accurate comparison to compare closed robotic or black box systems like cars, hospital equipment, stereos, factories, etc., with open systems like the personal computer.
Personal computers that are put into these closed environment first undergo a series of heavy restrictions, they're lobotomized if you will, so that no external influences can cause these problems.
System crashes, as I said, are generally caused by an unknown source taking memory that another program is using. This is especially problematic where we have user interfaces, the stuff you point and shoot at or hit enter on, or type into, and these closed systems have very minimalist user interfaces with limited choices. Its not elitist as some have acused, it's a way to make accidents a lot less likely.
Hope this sheds a bit of light on the car or robotic situation there.
LOL Leo, I knew you would most likely be the first to answer the previous post.