Robots

In the last blog thing I wrote, I talked pretty highly of our steel-girded friends known as robots. I was saying that robots are gonna take over politicians jobs and it'll be really cool in like the 3000s .... but people shouldn't take that statement out of context.

The crux of the pudding of the last article was like to cheer people up because the political scene is getting all wonky lately. I re-read it just now and it's pretty dark at some parts for a cheer-up article ... like the kool-aid stuff and whatnot ... but the end was like a humorous sort of pick-me-up along the lines of "Don't worry gang ... robots will be our presidents soon ... so chin up y'all!"

A Robot

I don't want people to think I'm some sort of dirty robot-lover though. I actually in all personal-honesty don't even really like those cold-steel synthetic sons-of-whores and of bitches. I mean, those robots are stealing everyone's jobs with their cold uncaring robotic hands!

I guess I don't really hate robots though, I just wanted to clarify the last article where it probably came across (assuming anyone actually read it) as if I was looking forward to the collapse of humanity and the rise of the Ungodly Era of Murderous Machina ... which I'm not. I don't ever want humans to die ... I love humans.

I don't even hate all sorts of robots either just the dumb ones. Okie-doke, let's define some types of robots now.


Term Define
 
1. Automaton: These are fake humans that are just like puppets ... they can't like do stuff or think about stuff but they are made to look like real-ass humans. Sometimes they can achieve Uncanny Valley where they look so real that when real people look at them they get really freaked out.

The only time in my life I ever felt the effects of "uncanny valley" wasn't for a robot though, the only time I ever felt this was over a cat. I was delivering something, like a couch or something, to a house and they had this cat on the couch .... and I was looking at it and something was up with it .... I kept looking at it and then slightly approached it but it didn't budge or make eye movements .... then the customer told me it's a stuffed animal .... and I was like "it is?" .... and they said it was from a company that makes life-like replicas of people's departed pets and boy-oh-boy was it life-like ... like really life-like.

As my mind was transported in that moment to the Valley of the UnCanny ... I really thought to myself ... "Gee whiz, that cat is TOO life-like!"

So yeah, automatons are just like gimmick puppets ... they can't hurt nobody so who really cares about them?

Yes, Worker 8 was a faithless killing machine ... but he was also my friend.

2. Machines: Machines aren't really robots they are just serieses of mechanical components that can execute procedures. They can't think, feel, love, hate, or be alive ... they are just cold lifeless drones. The Russian word for "Work" is something like "Robota" .... to work is to robot and to robot is to work. I'm not Russian though ... and I don't think robots are work-machines ... to me robots are the fun friends from movies and video games who not only can execute procedures in an orderly fashion .... but who can also become your Best Friend. Those are only in the fictions though ... real life machines have no rhyme or reason and are just faithless steel giants.

Machines are super dangerous because they can be programmed by humans to execute a variety of pre-conceived functions ...  and as we all know ... humans can think up some really really fucked up shit for machines to do .... from killing to very badly killing to very very very badly killing like everything.

Oh no, not MORE ANDROIDS!?!?!

3. Androids: These are just fiction these ones. They are synthetic humans. Like say someone somehow thought up a way to re-create a human from scratch out of common shit on earth (i.e. not frankensteining other humans together or altering an existing human) ... as of right now we can make skin-like polymers and shit in real life, bone like shit, hair like shit and other shit .... but there's one thing that science hasn't even come close to creating from scratch yet and that's the human-ass BRAIN. The brain is so intricate and took layers and strata of millennia to achieve. Those millions upon million of years of evolution can't be re-created from scratch by anyone at this juncture. Even a chicken's brain is more intricate than any synthetic brain out there.

Are Androids dangerous? No, you silly goose, they don't even exist and won't for a few thousands of years so who cares about them?

(Frequently Asked Question: Is Frankenstein an android because he's a synthetic human? No, Frankenstein/Frankenstein's Monster is a MONSTER cobbled together from various parts of other humans ... he's like a Hybrid Human ... but more specifically Frankenstein is a big scary Monster and not a robot.)



4. Humanoid Robots: These are cool ones from fiction who look like tin cans or barrels but under those shabby tin cans they call bodies lies the caring and beautiful heart of a genuine human being. The Tin Man from Wizard of Oz is like the proto-type for this character trope ... the Tin Man literally didn't have a heart but by the end he learned that a heart doesn't come from some store or some shopping mall .... it was inside of him this whole entire time.

I love some of these robots, I cannot tell a lie, I really do. Pee Wee Herman had that Konky 5000, I have great respect for the Konkster, he brought joy and screaming to the Playhouse each and every Saturday. One time, Konky broke down and couldn't print out Today's Secret Word and Pee Wee had to call Jimmy Smits (before he was famous) to come fix Konky 5000 .... I was so happy that Saturday morn when Konky re-booted up as his old self thanks to Jimmy Smits's timely repairsmanship.

I like that swell-hearted Johnny Number Five as well from "Short Circuit" and "Short Circuit II" .... but my favorite humanoid robot is the main man himself .....

.... Robo.

Robo.... respect, brother. You're more than just a tin can, you're the best.

5. Cyborgs: Cyborgs are cool. They are regular-ass humans like me and you but with upgrades and decals and stuff. Unlike Androids these things exist. Like, do you have a grandpa with a pace-maker? Your grandpa is a fricken CYBORG. His heart is beating thanks to a machine implanted into his chest .... that's literally cool. 

Who says the legless can't have a foot race?

You ever watch those Para-Lympics where like dudes and chicks are cruising around the racing tracks with like bouncing-blades for legs? Man that's cool looking. In a sense, those paralympians are Cyborgs if you think about it. They had their legs replaced with the miracle of science's equivalent to legs. Those guys are amazing.

 Anyways, man I love Cyborgs .... they are so cool. One of my favorites is RoboCop. My heart gets filled with so much emotion and joy whenever I think of RoboCop. People think RoboCop was a Humanoid Robot or an Android but no .... RC was a Cyborg. 

RoboCop

I don't recall chronologically every piece of the RoboCop continuum but if memory serves me right, RoboCop was a Man until the dad (Red Foreman) from The 70s Show repeatedly shot him with a shotgun until he almost died .... but RoboCop didn't die .... he just got really badly shooted.

So what they did was, they put RoboCop's brain into the chassis of an elite crime fighting humanoid machine built for protecting and serving Detroit society. So, yes RoboCop was mostly Machine ... BUT .... the one component science can't create is the complex-as-shit human-ass BRAIN .... so RoboCop was still a Man. He was a Man with severe upgrades and decals made to his body but he still had his brain ... so RoboCop is 100% a Cyborg.

If you need proof that RoboCop is still a Man, look no further than the scene in RoboCop 2 (or is it 3?) where a gang of drug addicts and some 12 year old kid beat RoboCop with clubs and then jack-hammer him apart with a jack hammer. The remains of RoboCop are refurbished back at the precinct following the defeat .... and they install a new thinking program into RoboCop to make him a newer more better RoboCop 2.0 .... a RoboCop that is polite and nice and follows protocol to a tee .... and the audience is led to believe that the Man inside RoboCop was no more. Or was it?

RoboCop briefly regains control of his dying human side and walks to an electric transformer near the police precinct, tears it open, grabs the insides of the transformer with his bare robotic cop hands, lets a gajillion megawatts of power surge through his robotic veins .... and BAM .... RoboCop breaks free from his shackles of programming and regains control of his halcyon Human-Self and re-begins his mission to capture the elusive drug-dealing bandit known as Kain.

What a powerful film that RoboCop 2 (or maybe 3) was. Powerful film. I heard the RoboCop statue that will grace Detroit is coming along nicely. Building a monument to RoboCop .... outstanding. That's the smartest thing someone in Detroit has done since the Tigers drafted Jack Morris in 1976.

Ow! Ora Mantane! SUUUUU-PER! OW!

The Cyborgs portion is going on long but there's one more Cyborg I like pretty well and that's Franky from One Piece. He's a shipwright/leader-of-a-street-gang/rock-n-roll-singer/pirate who rules. His Japanese voice actor is soooo good (I can't in good faith say the English voice actor captures the uniqueness of the JPN voice actor in the english dub) ... the JPN voice actor inserts a lot of James Brown "Ows!" into the shtick that just fits so well. Most of what the Japanese voice actor says as Franky is English but like busted-up James-Browned-Up Engrish. Like, I would describe Mr. Kazuki Yao's voice as Franky along the lines of if the Godfather of Soul Mr. James Brown flew to Japan and drank all of the sake wine and then learned some Japanese to impress some Japanese chicks but only a bit of the language .... and it winds up sounding like this:

OOOOW! RITE REFF RITE REFF RITE REFF! PSYCHO!!!

I don't think I'll ever write on the subject of Japan and James Brown in the same breadth ever again so let's jam this in here while we'll charting down this obtuse course:

 YA! OW! SCREAM ABOUT THOSE NOOODLES JAMES!!! Good GOD! OW!

Anyways, in the English version of One Piece, The ENG voice actor plays the role as some drunkard ruffian. It's not even comparable to the original ... not even close. Comparing Franky's JPN voice to Franky's ENG voice is like comparing Sushi to ANUS.

We're charting way off course here in the section but, look, guys look, Franky is not some common thug drunkard bozo ... ok? Franky's voice is what you'd get if the Hardest Working Man in Show Business took a bath in a boiling roiling HOT TUB of MISO Noodle SOUP and soaked in there for a good solid week. How in the name of everything did the ENG voice actor come up with something not-even-remotely in the same ballpark as that awesomery? Who knows.

Let's get back to Cyborgory for a bit .... Franky's a Cyborg that's why he's in this section. He got hit by a train but then painstakingly rebuilt himself from shit lying around the crash scene... which is so badass. Looks-wise he's very reminiscent of Teddy from Mother (for the NES) who is another character I've always found very fascinating as well. 

If your character is like if Teddy from Mother 1 got hit by a train and self-rebuilt himself like MacGyver into Inspector Gadget and is voiced by a guy talking like a heavily sake-soaked James Brown ... you are speaking my language Japan ... you are speakin' my language, baby. Ow!

Man, both RoboCop and Franky fill my heart with a powerful zest for life. Yet, if I had a choice to become a Cyborg and you asked me to choose between being RoboCop or Franky ... I'd choose Franky. Why? Because he still has his dick.

Yes, it is demonstrably proven in One Piece that Franky's genitals are still his human-born dick-and-balls. There's a scene where his street gang steals his speedo and are playing monkey-in-the-middle to keep it from him when the sexy lady Nico Robin takes the opportunity to grab and clutch onto Franky's nards ... of to which Franky cries in terror and his two Square-Afro Groupies/Girlfriends cry along with him. He's got his full on dick .... it's not like a Robot Dick.

If I was to become a Cyborg .... there's only two human pieces I need in tact. My Brain, and my Weiner (oh and my balls of course). Franky is the ideal cyborg as his whole body is SUPER souped-up but he retains the humanity of his brain and his balls and his dick.

Where Am I Going With This?

I don't really know, but you know, sometimes though, like .... I think technology is moving too fast. I know this blog always promotes science, technology, etc .... but there's another side to every coin.

One hundred years ago do you think people were trying to figure out all the different kinds of real and theoretical robots of planet earth? Do you think people were signing petitions to ban killer robots 100 years ago?

(See: Elon Musk and 116 Experts Call for Ban on Killer Robots via The Guardian) 

Tech experts want to pre-emptively enforce a ban on killer robots hedged on fears that Robo Cops and Metal Gears of the future will go haywire and put the raw death on all our stinky asses? Well Son of Santo Domingo 'aint that some shit?

It's not just robots though ... all of technology is growing at a pace that I don't think humans really have the time to learn, grasp, and come to an understanding of. Is technology evolving at a pace that is outpacing us?

I wrote early on in this blog about the show The Prisoner starring the great Patrick McGoohan. That article explored the theme of Individual vs. Society which was the main focus of the Prisoner but another theme of the show was that technology was out-pacing humans. The end credits showed a wheel become a bicycle and then a bicycle becoming a flying bicycle .... in the old days people thought that was fast pace tech .... The Wheel to Flying Bike. Man, imagine if McGoohan was still alive .... he'd be freakin' out loose! And maybe we all should be?

No one had a name in the Prisoner .... they were all numbers. Number 6 tried and tried and tried to win his humanity back whilst on the Prison Island and in the end many still question if he did. Maybe he should have grasped onto an open electric transformer to win his humanity back .... it worked for RoboCop at least.

Conclusion

I don't know, I see the best of both sides of the coin I think. I still want to be an individual human with a cool zillion-years-of-wicked-evolutionary Brain ... and my weiner too.

But ...

I wouldn't mind having some Cyborg components. Like, shitting for example. That's so stupid and disgusting. Can't like we invent something where the shit tubes in the body output the shit to like a bio-plastic replaceable orb and you can open a component in like your buttock, remove the shit-filled orb, throw it in the toilet bio-degradable orb-and-all ... wouldn't that be so much better than actually shitting? Like I drink coffee often man .... I HATE SHITTING SO MUCH IT'S SO GROSS. Like, the first Cyborg component I'd be looking at if I was a MacGyver type person would be an alternate bowel expulsion method ... I mean .... the current method is honest-to-betsy and heavens-to-murgatroyd DISGUSTING AS HELL.

Spinal cords too ... we need more better cords, baby.

Okay let's Summarize: I want to be an individual person not a cold robotic number - but I want to move my bowels with a bio-orb implant component system and I want a more better souped-up spine cord.

That's what I'm all about.

A Tuesday Comparison: Comparin' the Writings of Tommy Malthus to Child Psychology

Wanna do a comparison? Okay, I'm down. Let's compare the opinions of Tommy Malthus to child psychology for a change. It's not like I have anything better to do today.

The Writings of Tommy Malthus 

Tommy Malthus was a guy from the 1800s who wrote about population and resources. He firmly believed that the current resources of the earth could and would not satisfy the rate at which humans were re-producing. He wrote that the future will inevitably be a bleak one of famine and ultimately will lead to the death of humans.

People have taken his writings very seriously over the last 200 years or so and nations have been attempting to get their hands on the supposed dwindling global resources so that their nation will make it through the great famine which will apparently spell the end for them.

Basically he was saying that there's not enough food, water, energy on this earth for everyone and we must fight over who gets to have their hands on it and make it through the "great catastrophe" which awaits us in the future.


Child Psychology

Next off, let's rap loose about some child psychology...

I'm not huge on psychology, in many aspects I think it's a jabroni-laden field of silliness, yet I read a lot of child studies because they are interesting (Bobo clown study and others). One study that I found interesting was children were given toys to play with and then simply observed by the psychologists. What they noticed in many cases was the children would behave very differently when they entered the room full of toys. Some of the children would take a toy and go to a corner of their own and play with it (shy kids), other kids would take toys and play a game with other kids (outgoing kids), then the last type of kid would steal toys from the other kids.

At first they thought, "oh that child must have liked that toy and his/her reason for stealing it was to satisfy a want," and that may have been true in some cases yet the psychologists started to notice in many cases once the child successfully stole the other child's toy...he/she would get bored of it in a few seconds and then go steal some other kid's toy. He or she wasn't stealing for the want or need to have the toy they were observing another kid playing with...they simply wanted to steal because that other kid had it and it compelled them to take it from them. It was the act of taking something from someone else that interested the children who stole toys in most cases.

In the adult world, a good example of this phenomenon is the long-known fact that wearing a wedding ring into a singles bar will attract A LOT of attention. A lot of people wonder why that is but child psychology explains this rather easily...a lot of singles will hit on a "taken" member of the opposite sex for the sole reason of "taking" something away from someone. These lascivious howlers are the same as the kids who stole toys for no reason in the study...they don't even really want to bang the person who is married...what they want is the feeling of taking something from someone and that gives them a thrill or a warm feeling inside.

How Does this Nonsense Tie Together, You Ask?

According to the followers of Malthus, there are a limited amount of resources on this earth and they will only wind up in the hands of those who take them. They only wind up in the hands of the takers. The lonely kids who play with one toy? Fuck 'em they won't survive. The outgoing kids who work together and play with the toys together? No chance, they won't survive. Only the kids who take will survive. Take, take, take, take, take,take, TAKE.

TAKE !!

Take, take, take...

Finder's keepers! Losers weepers! First come! First serve! Take! Take! Take!

There's only so much food, water, energy, and precious resources on this earth! TAKE THEM BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE DOES! TAKE IT ALL FOR YOURSELF! TOO MUCH IS NEVER ENOUGH! YOU CAN NEVER TAKE ENOUGH! TAKE IT ALL! TAKE EVERYTHING THAT ISN'T NAILED DOWN! IT'S DOG EAT DOG OUT HERE! KILL THEM ALL! TAKE ALL THEIR STUFF! THEY DON'T NEED IT...YOU NEED IT!

It's either you or me! No offense but if boils down to you or me...believe you me...I'm picking ME! Now gimme all your stuff! It's Mine! All Mine!

It's mass hysteria out here! Buy a gun! Get ready! It's Mass Hysteria Out HERE!

Does it Have to Be This Way?

Is the population really spiraling out of control? Doesn't seem so. Please let my homeboy, the master statistician, Hans Rosling rap a little loose on this subject...

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTznEIZRkLg)

It looks like we are gonna recover from the post-war baby booms which over-saturated the population and numbers will level out. Statiscally, if you are educated and live comfortably...you have about 1 or 2 babies per woman. If you are an uneducated and poor family you have 6 or 7 children. It seems people over-breed when people are dying too often. If a war breaks out and 2 million people die...families will in turn try to balance it out by breeding like crazy. If child mortality rates are high in a region then families will over compensate by trying to make babies like crazy to replace the ones that die.

Those are the facts. It seems the main problem in over-population is simply some regions are experiencing so much death that they are over compensating birth rates. All we have to do is get good hygiene, vaccines, food, clean water, and education to the poorest regions of earth to level out the breeding cycle and it's not as hard as you think. Science and technology is on the case and when they are on the case things tend to get done.

Conclusion

Yes there is 7+ billion people in the world, yet with our technology and science we can feed, clothe, house, and provide energy for all of these people. Once everyone on earth is living comfortably we can level off the breeding cycle and throw Malthus out the window for good.

Forget Amish/Organic farming and let science produce maximum yields. Forget resource based energy production and think about renewable energy production. Vaccinate your fucking kids. That's the type of things that will make a brighter future...not resource wars.

It's not a world for the takers. Not at all. This world is a world for thinkers. This is a world for problem solvers. This is a world for intelligent folks who get the job done. This is NOT a world for takers. In fact, the wars over resources is the real catastrophe and the irony is that they are fighting these wars apparently to avoid the catastrophe predicted by Malthus. It's kinda nuts if you think about it.

Statistician and prognosticator Tommy Malthus' writings have been the opinion of the majority of the world for about 200 years now. Is it time to listen to a new statistician and prognosticator for a change? I mean 200 years was a long time ago, maybe it's time to let guys like Hans Rosling take the helm of the stats/prog scene for a coupla hundred years or so? No?

On the Duality of Individuality and Harmony...as explored by the final episode of "The Prisoner"

On one side you want to be a good little worker bee and produce for your society and live in complete harmony with the human race...yet on the other side you want to live free and at ease and do whatever you feel like doing. Part of you wants to work hard and play your role yet the other part of you wants to yell, dance, go bunjee jumping and have fun. We live with this duality everyday and it is pretty interesting.

How shaky is this balance? Can we be too stingy and adhere to rules too much at times, and similarly can we be too selfish and just do what pleases our own selves at times? Both statements are true, and it's not hard to lose the precious balance at all.

One of the best shows ever made, that great show "The Prisoner" takes this into account in its final episode "Fallout." The Prisoner starred Patrick McGoohan as a former James Bond-esque spy who every morning wakes up on a beautiful prison colony island yet doesn't know how he got there or why. The island has no names, it only has numbers, and you are referred to by your number (The Prisoner was assigned the number 6 for instance). He spends his days attempting to escape the island and trying to figure out who's in charge of it. All he knows is the leader's name is Number 1 but no one has ever seen this person.

The Island frowns upon individuality and exists only for harmony. They preach that "Questions are a burden to others; answers a prison for oneself" and that a "a still tongue makes a happy life.” Do your assigned task and shutup is basically what the motto was there. Yet to the Prisoner this motto is a little too hard to swallow, as he refuses to adopt this lifestyle, letting it be known by stating "I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own."

48: Da Bones is YOURS!!

In the final (and best) episode the big wigs of the Island put 2 individuals on trial for the crime of being an individual and expressing their individuality and a third on trial for failing to do his tasks. The first prisoner on trial Number 48, lives life out loud as he sings and dances and talks back to the authority figure, he is meant according to McGoohan to represent youthful rebellion. A great line from this scene is while 48 is doing his flashy resistance they pan to Number 6 who says, "Don't knock yourself out...young...man." Rebelling and arguing with authority really does wear you down, and 6 is right, there's gotta be a better and more creative way to challenge the status quo.

Number 6 then takes a 180 and completely goes against what he preaches and picks up a machine gun and starts killing the guards while Beatles music plays in the background. This probably represents violent opposition to authority. Why this complete 180 reversal of opinion? Do we think one way one day and another the next?

The show ends with The Prisoner meeting number 1...and (sorry to spoil it) but after #1 takes off all his deceptive masks it's The Prisoner's own face looking back at him. I guess he's trying to say that we live in this delicate duality every day, with our thoughts and opinions taking 180s and going in circles at whim. This whole delicate balance of wanting to do your role for society yet at the same time wanting to be free and at ease... makes you your own worst enemy.