06-14-2016, 04:56 PM
(06-14-2016, 04:31 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Let's talk appropriate automation. Here's a use case.
Our little shack, on a canyon wall. Out front it's essentially almost 3 stories of exposure in places due to the grade. Now let's look at cleaning out the gutters.
Currently, choice one is me going up there. If I fall, I may die or become crippled. Major bad mojo for long term financial health of we the couple.
Other choice is to hire some pendejo to go up there. Reminds me of slavery - send the brown man to do the dangerous work.
Both kind of suck. No joke I'm going to check iRobot's website this year to see if they have something I can use instead of a human.
Bottom line - dangerous work, prefer the robot. Others? Much lower priority for automation. Automation to make humans' lives high quality and to take certain dangerous tasks off the table.
You have a good one there. Technology as a means of making life safer makes eminent sense. I would have no problem with drones fighting fires. If a drone crashes and burns, then nobody needs to send a letter of condolence or arrange for a funeral. If a wind changes direction and blows lethal heat into a gang of firefighters who die...
Human nature has changed little from antiquity. People can still relate to the Iliad and the Odyssey; some people can still organize their lives around the teachings of the Torah down to the dietary restrictions. Those of us familiar with Oedipus the King can relate to it. Because human nature does not change, the classics that people learned from in antiquity remain valid learning.
Must we allow technology to become our masters, or even the tools of oppression that elites use against us? We could end up in different communities that define themselves heavily on the technologies that people deem appropriate. Maybe some people will insist upon some hand-sewing. Some will selectively reject certain modes of electronic entertainment.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.