As an avid cyclist, I’ve heard the semi-comical stereotypes. We’re self-righteous, have no personality, and wear ridiculous spandex clothes. But perhaps the most persistent stereotype is cyclists’ casual disdain for stop signs. Which, in fairness, is real. I’ve been bawled out several times for pulling an “Idaho stop” through a clearly posted stop sign—usually by a motorist who just rolled through the same intersection.
Consider, though, why cyclists might treat stops flippantly. First, we aren’t going particularly fast. Only elite cyclists, riding the most high-tech bicycles, can achieve the 35 MPH speed limit common on American residential roads, much less 45 on main roads or 65 on highways. We’re hardly caroming at breakneck speeds, as motorists often do. But the biggest reason is even simpler: once we’ve fully stopped, getting rolling again is serious work.
Stick-shift drivers know this feeling. Once the vehicle achieves a standing stop, nothing makes a bicycle go again except the cyclist’s bodily effort. While motorists heckle me from inside their hermetically sealed capsules, letting the engine do the work, I have only my limbs to make the bike move again. Only when I drove a stick-shift pickup, enacting the nuisance of constant upshifting, did I discover something comparable behind the wheel.
Of course, driving a car doesn’t make the effort of starting from a standing stop go away. The entitled motorist shouting from the comfort of his family sedan, with climate control and an automatic transmission, requires far more work to get that mass of metal rolling. However, where I invest the personal effort to move my bicycle, the motorist delegates the effort to the “other party,’ the car’s engine. The work still happens; somebody else just does it.
The more I look, the more I see this pattern recurring throughout society and history. The desire to offload tedious labor has dominated human development. I’ve read speculations that humans invented cooking, in part, to escape the relentless tedium of chewing raw food. Later, humans tamed horses because riding was easier than walking; our ancestors also invented sails because it was easier than rowing (and because water travel is easier than overland).
Early human technologies involved harnessing animal power. Ox-drawn carts and horse-drawn carriages eliminated the burden of walking large distances, an important advance in ages when twenty miles was a relentless slog. After hand tools replaced broadcasting seed in early agriculture, the next major breakthroughs involved animal-driven technology: Jethro Tull’s seed drill, and its immediate successor, John Deere’s steel plow, both drawn by draft animals.
Then there are attempts to harness the elements. Chinese and Greek inventors separately perfected the water wheel to grind grain; the technology, with fiddling changes, remains common in Amish and poor African communities. This technology wasn’t insignificant, either, as Jack Kelly describes the DuPont family harnessing it to manufacture America’s first commercial-grade gunpowder, inaugurating a chemical manufacturing legacy that persists today.
And, of course, slavery existed: the ultimate effort to offload boring labor.
The technologies of the Industrial Age and after, merely complement this process. Internal combustion engines overtook horses, and nuclear power may soon overtake coal, but the motivation remains unchanged. Then there are the more pessimistic manifestations. Generative AI basically promises to enable everybody to write books, paint portraits, and compose music, without the boredom of learning and perfecting the skills.
Never let anyone say I don’t understand the appeal of offloading labor. I love having central heat without having to bank the fire overnight; I enjoy bunking off on vacation without having to walk over hills and across rivers. But increased ease remains pricy. It’s impossible to have central heat without global warming, just as it’s impossible for me to vacation in Missouri without the soul-sucking ennui of the morning commute.
Also consider what losses we suffer. When I commute to work, or toddle off to Missouri along the Interstate, every drive becomes identical, dominated by repetitive buildings and dun-colored landscapes. On my bicycle, I see things drivers ignore, like subtle outbuildings, wide-eyed pedestrians, and—sadly—overlooked roadkill. Likewise, generative AI “artists” can mass-produce content, but they never develop their unique, inimitable style.
I certainly enjoy modern conveniences, like nutritionally diverse food, pharmaceuticals, and the internet. But when I bike to work, the experience is more complex and nuanced than when I drive. Does anybody really enjoy the feeling of road hypnosis? Is anybody particularly moved by an AI painting? Offloading tedious labor onto others makes life easier, certainly. But it also robs life of meaning.
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