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Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Last week, I asked for your thoughts on self-driving cars.

Replies have been edited for length and clarity.

Kathryn is bullish and looks forward to shedding the responsibility of driving:

Yes, driverless cars are the future, at least for people alive today. I’m sure there will be some later innovation in transportation we can’t even imagine yet. Cities should allow them to be tested on the street now, assuming the vehicle has passed something analogous to the driving test humans take to receive a driver’s license. I’d love to have these vehicles in my neighborhood. I live in an urban area and use our sidewalks and crosswalks as my primary mode of transportation. Given all the close calls I’ve had over the years with human drivers, I’d welcome anything that is safer. Driverless cars don’t need to be even close to perfect to be an improvement on the status quo.

I don’t like driving, although I have a license and access to a car and I drive a few times a month. What I like least about driving is that I could make one wrong move and possibly kill someone, including myself, or destroy my family’s financial stability. I appreciate that I can commute by bus and avoid facing that responsibility on a daily basis. I also enjoy relaxing on the bus. I can read and write for work or fun, listen to music and podcasts, and watch the world go by. I wonder if today’s drivers will start to value the decrease in legal liability and the increase in downtime that driverless cars can provide.

Mike is bearish:

Driverless vehicles of any type should be banned in any setting where they will have to interact with vehicles controlled by humans. They shouldn’t be allowed to be tested, and the technology should not be pursued. Where every vehicle is autonomous, there is in theory nothing wrong with them, but on the public roads, that environment will never exist, at least not in our lifetimes. I, for one, will never get in a vehicle that does not have a human driver.

Chris points out that innovation is rarely, if ever, stopped by its critics or regulators acting on their behalf:

Driverless cars will flood the streets regardless of whether they are ready for prime time. There will be accidents, injuries, and deaths. Victims and their lawyers will haggle with and sue multiple parties––and compensation will be slow in coming while everyone is still figuring out who is actually responsible for an accident (the vehicle maker, the software company, third-party technology, the passenger somehow, etc.).

Due to the intricacies of multiple-party liability, insurance companies covering driverless vehicles may be very slow to compensate victims, leaving the latter in medical and financial purgatory. The business of America is business, and driverless cars and trucks represent a business opportunity. The consumer and his or her safety is always an afterthought.

Leigh anticipates safer roads:

I live in New Orleans, where just in the past five days of driving my kids to school, I have experienced drivers blowing through stoplights; drivers who were clearly watching their phones and not the road; drivers doing 50 in a 20 mph school zone, and not worried about getting caught because they have no tag on their car. Driverless cars will end all this. They will be programmed to obey traffic laws. This will make life easier and more predictable for pedestrians, cyclists, and other drivers. Plus, Baby Boomers are getting older, and it would be great to have a driverless car take them to their doctor appointments instead of them continuing to drive past the point of safety. And how great would it be to sleep in a driverless car on your way to your travel destination? You could wake up refreshed, having traveled at night when the roads aren’t busy.

Cameron is skeptical of anything tech companies touch:

I think the discussion around autonomous vehicles—and their viability as a mode of transportation in the not-so-distant future—encapsulates bigger questions that The Atlantic has covered surrounding different elements of American social and political life. The oft-discussed degradation of civil society in the U.S., combined with a legacy of automobile-centric infrastructure development and noxious residential zoning regulations, has resulted in starved public transportation networks (where they even exist) and urban and suburban layouts that aren’t terribly traversable on foot to begin with.

Now, I realize that tackling these issues will require a significant amount of effort, investment, and political willpower, but I find myself increasingly disheartened whenever Silicon Valley—who are not accountable to the public outside of “market forces”—get the opportunity to treat the U.S. as a playground while our civic institutions convulse.

Maureen is betting on old-fashioned car culture:

Our century-long love affair with all things automotive dooms the driverless concept to a niche market: people whose physical condition precludes driving and those who prefer to be driven.

The vast majority of us regard driving as a birthright, obtaining a license as a rite of passage, and operating a vehicle as an expression of control––and as much fun as you can have while fully dressed. In short, we love control and speed. The less mature among us love road games like Cut You Off and Tailgate. An astonishing number love to work on cars, restore cars, race cars, and watch others race. Driverless cars will have their place, when they iron out the kinks, but it is not on the roads of this vast and beautiful nation.

Alan makes the case for human drivers:

A couple years ago, I was heading west on I-66 in the late afternoon. The road was under construction, recently repaved and with no lines yet painted. It had just finished raining, so the new asphalt was wet, but the sun was coming out, very low on the horizon and reflecting off the wet asphalt. I was effectively blinded, as were all the other drivers. Visor pulled low, I could focus on the car in front and make judgments on where to be. Stay in my unmarked “lane,” keep a reasonable distance, and just drive. But what would a computer do? Would it have the “intuition” to adopt a defensive driving mode and guesstimate where the lanes should be? Or would it just freak out and stop? And how would a computer drive a car on the snow-covered roadways of Buffalo or Bismarck in February? No lane markings to follow, just human understanding of how we navigate difficult conditions.

Richard offers additional examples of nonstandard road conditions:

Construction reduces a two-lane road to one lane. Some flag man in a high-visibility vest is holding a pole with a small sign that says “SLOW,” which means you can enter the opposite lane. Then he flips it to the other side, which says “STOP.” Will self-driving cars figure this out?

Stuck behind a postal delivery vehicle stopping at every house on a two-lane road with double yellow lines. Does the self-driving vehicle know it can pass the mailman? Ditto for the garbage truck, UPS, FedEx.

A car accident requires a police officer to take control of an intersection. Humans recognize the presence of a police officer and know to obey his hand signals and ignore the traffic light. Will a self-driving vehicle recognize the man as a police officer and understand his hand signals for “go” and “stop”?

A power outage causes nonworking traffic lights at intersections. Humans know to treat this intersection as a four-way stop. How does a self-driving vehicle interpret this situation? Does it even recognize that there is a nonworking traffic light?

A school bus is stopped on the other side of the road. In Ohio, if it is three lanes or fewer, traffic must stop on both sides. If it is four lanes or more, traffic on the opposite side can keep moving. Does a self-driving vehicle know this? Does a self-driving vehicle recognize a school bus?

I could go on in that vein, but you get the drift.

Steve contends with one of the Northeast’s most hazardous road conditions: Massachusetts drivers. He writes:

Living near Boston, I can tell you that, within 10 minutes of every drive, I run into a scenario that would be nearly impossible for a driverless car to navigate. Beyond the nearly unnavigable cow paths we call roads, there are so many times that eye contact with the driver, pedestrian, or pet is the only real way to avoid calamity. Not to mention the average Boston driver seems to find new ways every day to do something irrational. It will take decades to master that and even longer for Bostonians to trust any software to solve that. Instead, car companies should focus on two things: First, make driver-assist technologies amazing. Imagine a windshield that enhances everything (especially at night) and highlights potential risks, 360 cameras that help see issues and then accident-avoidance technologies that give 80-year-olds the reflexes of a teenager. Said simply, keep the person at the wheel, but make them awesome drivers.

Second, situational autopilot: Designated areas where driverless cars move on preprogrammed routes (think shuttles in airport lots or parts of Rome filled with driverless vehicles). Also, why not special lanes on highways (repurpose HOV lanes) that allow cars to link up, form a dance line of sorts, and speed down the highway?  Instead of focusing on an unreasonable goal not reachable for 20 years or more, why not take the remarkable technologies we’ve developed and get us to a much safer place than we are now?

Leo suggests that we shouldn’t count on driverless cars winning the day politically, even if they perform better than humans:

This debate may play out differently in other countries and cultures, but in America, freedom will trump safety in the end. There are, of course, any number of laws and regulations in our society, but the underlying ethos, the dominant paradigm, is that we live in the land of the free. Laws, regulations, and limitations are not prized as arbiters of a functional society so much as endured as necessary evils. And any person, community, or movement that pushes too hard for too many restrictions will pay a heavy price.

What politician or political party is going to sign their own death warrant by limiting or, god forbid, outlawing our right to drive our own cars? Even the limitations that already exist (such as speed limits) are flouted so regularly that in many cases it’s unclear why they exist at all (other than to raise money for local governments through ticket citations). The decades-long effort to stigmatize and heavily fine drunk drivers has indeed yielded some results, but there are still drunk drivers, and there always will be. For better and for worse, Americans will only tolerate so many infringements on their individual liberty.

So driverless cars will likely be deployed to some extent. They will penetrate our society at some level. But they are not the future. At best, they are one aspect of the future.

Karen won’t be buying a self-driving car:

I enjoy driving a manual transmission. I have found that it forces me to pay attention only to driving. I feel engaged with the car. Power steering, power brakes, fine; but I still don’t mind winding my car windows up and down. Power seats? Entirely unnecessary. I don’t even like the whole touchscreen thing. Some cars force you to use the touchscreen to open the glovebox! Why? What’s the deal with putting the heating and AC controls on the touchscreen? Or the radio, for that matter. And I will decide what music I want to hear. No music apps! You now have to buy a used car to get a CD player. Yes, I’m old. But I like to drive—not be driven, even if the systems get better and more accurate.

Tanner writes that “autonomous cars are still cars,” which he sees as a bad thing:

We would be better off investing in low-tech, less car-centric ideas; designing our communities where car trips are less necessary, supporting robust public transportation, making streets safer for all users, dedicating less space to cars and more space to more community-oriented things. Some will argue that driverless cars will solve the issues above by reducing the need to own a car, reducing crashes (with cars at least), reducing congestion, etc.

Even if true (I have my doubts), do we really want to be even more dependent on giant tech companies than we are? How do I, as a pedestrian or a bicyclist, communicate with a machine about my intentions at an intersection (no more gadgets, please)? Is the future one where everyone and everything requires sensors and gadgets to work safely?

There is a place for driverless cars. But the future, for me, is a 30-year-old bicycle that I can take anywhere.

Smash Mouth has long been, as its guitarist, Greg Camp, once said, “a band that you can make fun of.” The pop-rock group’s signature hit, 1999’s “All Star,” combines the sounds of DJ scratches, glockenspiel, and a white dude rapping that he “ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed.” Fashionwise, the band tended to dress for a funky night at the bowling alley. And over nearly three decades, Smash Mouth has remained famous partly because of the flatulent cartoon ogre Shrek.

But the affection Smash Mouth commands is serious—the result of music so simultaneously pleasing and odd that it could rewire a young listener’s brain. In fact, the sad news of the death of original front man Steve Harwell at age 56 has me wondering if the band’s 1999 album, Astro Lounge, is the reason I’m a music critic. Most people can point to songs that hit them in early adolescence, when their ears were impressionable but their interest in other people’s judgment was still, blessedly, undeveloped. Smash Mouth’s second album, the one with “All Star,” came out when I was 11. Every goofy organ melody is still engraved in my mind, and today, the album holds up as an ingeniously crafted pleasure capsule.

Smash Mouth formed in California in the mid-1990s, and its music coalesced motley phenomena of the era: ska, hip-hop, surf culture, 1950s nostalgia, aliens. Harwell, the son of a UPS truck driver, had first pursued a career as a rapper. But when watching a performance by MC Hammer—a hitmaker whom many people considered to be a punch line—something inside him told him to move toward rock. He joined up with Camp, the drummer Kevin Coleman, and the bassist Paul De Lisle, and picked a band name from a football term for making an all-out charge to victory.

Smash Mouth’s creative dynamic was shaped by the dichotomy between Harwell and Camp, the band’s primary songwriter. Harwell wielded an abrasive charisma: His voice contained gravel and rasp, but also the sassiness of a schoolyard troublemaker. Camp was a pop-and-punk historian, gifted at fusing the classic and the modern. Smash Mouth’s breakout 1997 hit, “Walkin’ on the Sun,” from its debut album, Fush Yu Mang, revived garage-rock noisiness and mod cool while Harwell asked, in a spoke-sung patter, where the peace-and-love ideals of the 1960s had gone. This misfit track worked nicely on pop-rock radio next to Third Eye Blind, Barenaked Ladies, and Chumbawamba: It was a golden age for catchy, wordy songs whose bright exterior belied angst and social commentary.

For the follow-up LP, Astro Lounge, Interscope Records wanted surefire hits, and Smash Mouth obliged with anthemic songwriting and crisp, punchy production. But polish didn’t dilute the band’s point of view—it sharpened it. The arrangements were eclectic: chunky riffs, sci-fi sound effects, flamenco guitars, tight yet woozy reggae rhythms (as well as some unfortunate Jamaican-accent work). Camp’s wry lyrics and Harwell’s ornery voice conjured the persona of lovably sleazy slacker poet. “I’m getting stoned, and what’s wrong with that?” one song asked. “The president seems to be just fine.”

[Read: Why did we all have the same childhood?]

As a kid, I was drawn to the candied sound of Astro Lounge, but I also distinctly remember feeling a sense of mystery about it: I listened and relistened to decode what the heck was going on. The explosive opener, “Who’s There,” had a herky-jerky drum pattern (I now know it’s called the “Be My Baby” rhythm, derived from the Ronettes song) and a spooky synth (I would now identify that as a theremin). The album’s lyrics about dangerous chicks and relaxation almost made sense, but they were littered with words I didn’t understand (“tragedian,” from “Then the Morning Comes”). Today, I still want this combination from music: accessibility with weirdness, inviting obsession and love.

“All Star” epitomized that combo. It was both dumb and complex, cycling through disparate cadences and instrumental tones while maintaining puppylike bounce and extroversion. The lyrics were unwieldy—what does it mean to be “fed to the rules”?—but the message was clear. Here was a song about believing in yourself, but also believing in global warming, which means you should try to maximize pleasure while you can, including by unapologetically enjoying “All Star.”

This was a saleable message: The song, an immediate success, was in the soundtrack to two Hollywood films, Inspector Gadget and the superhero satire Mystery Men. A few years later, DreamWorks Animation wanted to reuse it in the opening scene of its slapstick fantasy movie Shrek. The band said no, but the studio hounded it for approval: No other song the filmmakers tried to use worked as well with test audiences. “It’s just irresistible to kids,” the track’s producer, Eric Valentine, told Rolling Stone in an oral history about the song. “They freak out for it.”

More recently, “All Star” has become an all-purpose meme. The song has been rendered in the voices of Bill O’Reilly and various Star Wars characters. The YouTube user Jon Sudano became a sensation by singing the words to “All Star” over other songs—the Village People’s “YMCA,” John Lennon’s “Imagine”—to bizarre yet listenable effect. The punch line of “All Star” memes is mostly about how deeply this song has imprinted on all of us, like some chaotic Lord’s Prayer. “Steve just walks out on stage and says the word ‘Some,’ and the crowd will finish the song for you,” Camp told Rolling Stone. “My hair still stands up when that happens.”

After Astro Lounge, the band landed a smattering of hits in the form of cover songs, while Harwell struggled with personal tragedy (the death of his son, in 2001) as well as alcoholism. He was mostly proud of his music’s resurgence in the internet era—though he did sometimes feel disrespected by the joking about “All Star.” But when people covered the song in earnest, treating it as music in addition to comedy, it felt like “a really cool thank you,” he told Rolling Stone. He understood, it seemed, the gratitude listeners can have for that which breaks the mold.

The DJ scales back his afternoon shows from five days a week to one, saying he's "a bit knackered".