The ‘Pokemon Go Will Get People Killed’ piece will kill exponentially more people
In a write-up earlier this week Ariel Verber posits that the videogame, Pokemon Go, will definitely kill people:
It makes me realize that if the players won’t be killed by their impatient girlfriends or wives, they’ll probably die because of car accidents. Playing Pokemon Go while driving is much worse than texting while driving.
Ariel is of course right. Pokemon Go will kill people. And Nintendo will be going to jail.
When we drive we concentrate on a number of things. The road, signs, traffic, the shrill screams of our impatient wives or girlfriends, just to name a few. All of these separate tasks, performed in concert, create a significant cognitive load for our brains. That load, for now, is not overwhelming. It allows us to drive our cars to within acceptable safety tolerances.
But what if we add more cognitive load? Using our smartphones to zap Japanese aliens into robot balls for example? Ariel doesn’t cite any statistics, but that all sounds pretty complicated so I think we can safely say that at this point we have, at best, a 50/50 chance of getting out of that car alive.
There is a small chance that our brains might survive that sensory onslaught. That we might be able to wrest control of the wheel back from our ballooning hypnosis. Oh happy days! We survived our commute.
But then along comes Ariel, with his bag of coffin nails.
“What’s my speed?” “When is my next meeting?” “How many Porygons will I need to battle a Zorpleclanger?” “Why won’t my wife or girlfriend stop shrieking about the cost of frilly dresses?” “Should I be playing videogames while driving?” “Will I die?” “Is there a god?” “Is there an afterlife?” “Who will provide for my family after I’m gone?”
So many questions.
Our brains, you see, are much like a house of cards. They can only cope with so many ideas before the whole thing collapses. And when our house of brains comes tumbling down, our bodies go to sleep.
You can imagine the effect this might have on a speeding vehicle.
It takes a special kind of monster to see a serious auto-sociological problem like this and recklessly burden people’s brains further by compelling them to think more thoughts.
Perhaps forced Pokemoning while driving will get people killed. But thinking about that? Considering the implications of our behaviour? Prolonged self-examination? Imagining ourselves atop a mountain of skeletons? All while driving!
How many lives will that cost?
10 million.
