Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Undersea fizzle
James Cameron has returned from his undersea record-breaking voyage with nothing much.
I can't complain about the mission; he's using his own money to satisfy his own ego, and not hurting anyone in the process. That's the way ego is supposed to work! You're not supposed to start Civil Wars or create vast useless tax-supported projects purely for your own fetish fun.
Good for Cameron! He's doing it the right way.
Nevertheless, the expedition shows the pointlessness of manned exploration in extreme places like space and deep ocean. This is one task that robots unquestionably do better. They don't need to carry oxygen and toilets and food; they can be built exclusively for the task with minimum weight and energy usage. Robots can stay in the extreme environment as long as needed to gather the data, and they don't even need to come home.
Ironic, isn't it? We happily replace ordinary people with robots, often doing tasks where humans are superior. But we ferociously insist on using humans for these few extraordinary jobs where humans are wildly impractical. ¶ 4:33 AM
I can't complain about the mission; he's using his own money to satisfy his own ego, and not hurting anyone in the process. That's the way ego is supposed to work! You're not supposed to start Civil Wars or create vast useless tax-supported projects purely for your own fetish fun.
Good for Cameron! He's doing it the right way.
Nevertheless, the expedition shows the pointlessness of manned exploration in extreme places like space and deep ocean. This is one task that robots unquestionably do better. They don't need to carry oxygen and toilets and food; they can be built exclusively for the task with minimum weight and energy usage. Robots can stay in the extreme environment as long as needed to gather the data, and they don't even need to come home.
Ironic, isn't it? We happily replace ordinary people with robots, often doing tasks where humans are superior. But we ferociously insist on using humans for these few extraordinary jobs where humans are wildly impractical. ¶ 4:33 AM
