Will Driverless Cars Succeed In Roadless Third World Countries?

One day, perhaps very soon, companies will attempt to test driverless cars in Nepali roads and in other third world countries with rough roads. What will be tested is not the performance of the car's engine, but rather the software in the car which seeks to replace the human driver. This test-drive of the driverless car is a big leap, because it threatens to make unemployed the professional human drivers of taxis, buses and such.

Given the possibility of many people becoming unemployed, it is therefore right to expect attempted disruption of the driverless car experiment, a disruption at the highest political level in Nepal, a disruption which in fact may already be occurring, for the lengthy supposed maintenance/construction-work going on in roads of Nepal could be meant precisely to stall the possible test-drive and subsequent introduction of driverless cars in Nepal, by making it increasingly difficult to locate smooth, 'normal' roads for test-drives, by making Nepal increasingly 'roadless.'

If driverless cars do come into operation everywhere however, the romantic-emotional attachment to a road that a human driver feels while driving home from work to his/her family at night will slowly fade because the human driver will see the road as being a path between compounds of megafactories that span the length and width of whole cities, as around him driverless cars will be making long errands between those megafactory compounds without accident or exhaustion; and so, the human driver, with megafactory spaces all around him even in his drive home, will never actually leave work behind during his/her drive, he/she will always be “surrounded by work,” and will find no roadside attractions like restaurants for truckers or museums for a quick break. Similarly, the weekend drives taken with family members will in all likelihood be considered too strange with the driverless car's "voice" as an unwanted companion; and so, driverless cars will ultimately be used as cars for going to work and not for vacations or long exploratory road-trips.

From Neutral Territory to No-Man's-Land: Nepal's Involvement In “War-Tourism” Through Trenches

We know that it was possible for certain small countries to remain neutral during World-War 1 and World-War 2. In more recent times however, the closest thing to being neutral during a major war is to be a “No-Man's-Land,” which is to be uninvolved in the battle but not exempt from being on the line of fire. Whereas the ultimate decision-makers of a nation's neutrality were the citizens of that nation itself, in the decision to make a nation a No-Man's-Land, external more powerful nations are in-charge. So in one sense the transformation of a nation from neutral to No-Man's-Land has to do with the loss of the ability of its citizens from taking and implementing firm decisions regarding the situation and significance of their own territory.

In the case of Nepal, which would greatly benefit from being neutral in any war, its quite recent experience with war will be emphasized by more powerful nations to suggest that it can cope with or handle the event of a major international war. However, the violent recent history of Nepal will not be emphasized too much, because too much emphasis on that violent history will encourage Nepal to participate in major war by choosing one side, when in fact Nepal is most important in the major war context only as a No-Man's-Land.

The conversion of Nepal into a No-Man's-Land is evident in the many road construction projects ongoing in Nepal. What Nepali citizens believe to be improvements on their roads are rather the construction of World-War-esque trenches, for possible trench warfare between more powerful nations which could begin at any time. International war that occurs these days will be dislocated from disputed territories, in a kind of “war-tourism” when a nation advertises its trenches as ideal for foreign armies to conduct warfare. But the fate of Nepalis is to suffer collateral damage, as bullets meant to hurt a non-Nepali will fly dangerously through Nepali territory.