Rise of the Carborgs

In the third hour of a recent road trip, my friend Jay, who lives in Manhattan, brought up his Carborg Theory.
“The car and the human together are a cyborg,” he said from the back seat. “It’s a single entity, with its own intentionality and purposes, separate from the individual human or the intention-less car — a carborg. When the car almost runs you down when you’re crossing the street, you can’t think of the driver individually as just a jerk” — I’m paraphrasing — “or a bad driver or not paying attention. You have to treat the two together as a black box and ask yourself, if I watch how cars operate, as if they were independent organisms, what is the nature of their behavior? From that perspective, you’d have to conclude (especially in Manhattan) that cars are actively trying to kill people.”
At this point, I need to explain that Jay is the type of person who can relate the lack of public restrooms in Manhattan to “Das Kapital.” Hours one and two of the four-hour drive were spent on congestion pricing.
He went on about his Carborg Theory: “I suppose another argument you could make if you look at the carborg this way is that it is competing with humans for resources. First, it’s going to consume all the oil, which we need for electricity and other purposes. Now its going to consume all the food (via ethanol). People will starve, while cars are getting fat on corn and sugar.”