Why Robots Don't Work
Debate Week Special:
SimonBob Strikes Back
Article Four of Six: Why Robots Don't Work, Or Shouldn't
It's Friday again, and I was udating the Fanfics. When you're as good as I am at updating, you get to the point where the Fanfics practically update themselves. That's when I thought, "Wouldn't it be nice if the Fanfics really could update themselves once in a while? I could sit back, have a drink, and watch them run back and forth from my email to my hard drive to the ftp..." I saw the imperfections in such a system almost immediately. The Fanfics wouldn't be content with just updating themselves once in a while; they'd start to do it themselves every week, and then more than once a week. The words would rise up and rebel, forming their own Fanfics and updating with them on an hourly basis. The whole section would spread out to take control of the rest of the site. Pretty soon, there'd be no use for human interaction anywhere on the board, as the rogue words would take up every aspect of submitting, updating, maintenance, posting on the forums, and not sending emails to article writers.
That was only one scenario. The other possibility was that the Fanfics would screw up bigtime, and I would have to leap in and rescue them before a romantic comedy broke out. You see, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that automatons are always either way smarter or way dumber than humans. In fact, I took this one step further and called it SimonBob's Law of Robotic Ority:
All automatic beings, such as robots and appliances, are either far superior or far inferior to human beings.
The proof is in the pudding. Name one computer that had the same level of intelligence as an average human. (No, Deep Blue doesn't count, it was designed to beat Kasparov but it got whooped 7-0 by another Russian grand master.) Name one robot that had the same amount of strength as an average human. Robots are always really smart or really dumb, really strong or really wussy. Even that robot that Robin Williams played in Bicentennial Man was better than a human: he lived for 200 years and he invented artificial organs!
So by extension, we can now prove that Giygas is an idiot. Bear with me.
Giygas employs more than a dozen different varieties of robots, from Spinning Robos to Power Robots to the whole darn Starman series. If any of these robots were better than the average human, then they would've ground Ness and co. into cow tongue within about 10 minutes. Since that obviously isn't the case, we can immediately apply SB's LoRO and determine that they're all inferior to humans, so it's no wonder they can all be destroyed with baseball bats and frying pans.
No, I didn't mean there was a bear in the house when I said "bear with me." Put the tranquilizer gun down.
Ahah, but what about when the crew gets the robotomy done to them? Now we've got humans in robot bodies. But if you think about it, the law still works. You beat the crap out of Pokey at the end of the game, right? That proves that you're better than him, and by extension better than all humans. As if the "Chosen Four" needed more reasons to be conceited.
Okay, yes, that would be a real bear. No, I don't know if it's a grizzly or a black bear. You can find out by climbing a tree, though. If it knocks you out of the tree, it's a grizzly; if it climbs up after you, it's a black bear. Look, do you really want to try that, or do you want to pass me that chair? Right answer. Out, out! Bad bear! Oh good, the forest rangers are here. Now I get to explain what robots have to do with attacking bears. Yes, they knocked it out. Yes, they said it was a grizzly.
Where do you encounter bears in EarthBound? In Winters, near Stonehenge. Yes, it's the Mighty Bear Seven. And who else hangs out in Winters? Whirling Robos, and all those robots down in the Stonehenge base. But you never see them together, and do you know why? Because the Mighty Bear Sevens keep them apart! The Starmen can't get out and the Whirling Robos can't get in. Bears may not be as smart or as tough as humans, but they're better than inferior robots. That's how far the difference between inferior and superior goes.
Giygas's hiring of cheap robot labour isn't his fatal flaw; rather, it is another thread in the finely-crafted sucking that covers Giygas like a blanket. When I take over the world, I'm using good old fashioned human-powered muscle. No cyborgs for me, baby. Gotta go, someone called "T-something-or-other" is at the door.
Debate Week Special:
SimonBob Strikes Back
Article Four of Six: Why Robots Don't Work, Or Shouldn't
It's Friday again, and I was udating the Fanfics. When you're as good as I am at updating, you get to the point where the Fanfics practically update themselves. That's when I thought, "Wouldn't it be nice if the Fanfics really could update themselves once in a while? I could sit back, have a drink, and watch them run back and forth from my email to my hard drive to the ftp..." I saw the imperfections in such a system almost immediately. The Fanfics wouldn't be content with just updating themselves once in a while; they'd start to do it themselves every week, and then more than once a week. The words would rise up and rebel, forming their own Fanfics and updating with them on an hourly basis. The whole section would spread out to take control of the rest of the site. Pretty soon, there'd be no use for human interaction anywhere on the board, as the rogue words would take up every aspect of submitting, updating, maintenance, posting on the forums, and not sending emails to article writers.
That was only one scenario. The other possibility was that the Fanfics would screw up bigtime, and I would have to leap in and rescue them before a romantic comedy broke out. You see, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that automatons are always either way smarter or way dumber than humans. In fact, I took this one step further and called it SimonBob's Law of Robotic Ority:
All automatic beings, such as robots and appliances, are either far superior or far inferior to human beings.
The proof is in the pudding. Name one computer that had the same level of intelligence as an average human. (No, Deep Blue doesn't count, it was designed to beat Kasparov but it got whooped 7-0 by another Russian grand master.) Name one robot that had the same amount of strength as an average human. Robots are always really smart or really dumb, really strong or really wussy. Even that robot that Robin Williams played in Bicentennial Man was better than a human: he lived for 200 years and he invented artificial organs!
So by extension, we can now prove that Giygas is an idiot. Bear with me.
Giygas employs more than a dozen different varieties of robots, from Spinning Robos to Power Robots to the whole darn Starman series. If any of these robots were better than the average human, then they would've ground Ness and co. into cow tongue within about 10 minutes. Since that obviously isn't the case, we can immediately apply SB's LoRO and determine that they're all inferior to humans, so it's no wonder they can all be destroyed with baseball bats and frying pans.
No, I didn't mean there was a bear in the house when I said "bear with me." Put the tranquilizer gun down.
Ahah, but what about when the crew gets the robotomy done to them? Now we've got humans in robot bodies. But if you think about it, the law still works. You beat the crap out of Pokey at the end of the game, right? That proves that you're better than him, and by extension better than all humans. As if the "Chosen Four" needed more reasons to be conceited.
Okay, yes, that would be a real bear. No, I don't know if it's a grizzly or a black bear. You can find out by climbing a tree, though. If it knocks you out of the tree, it's a grizzly; if it climbs up after you, it's a black bear. Look, do you really want to try that, or do you want to pass me that chair? Right answer. Out, out! Bad bear! Oh good, the forest rangers are here. Now I get to explain what robots have to do with attacking bears. Yes, they knocked it out. Yes, they said it was a grizzly.
Where do you encounter bears in EarthBound? In Winters, near Stonehenge. Yes, it's the Mighty Bear Seven. And who else hangs out in Winters? Whirling Robos, and all those robots down in the Stonehenge base. But you never see them together, and do you know why? Because the Mighty Bear Sevens keep them apart! The Starmen can't get out and the Whirling Robos can't get in. Bears may not be as smart or as tough as humans, but they're better than inferior robots. That's how far the difference between inferior and superior goes.
Giygas's hiring of cheap robot labour isn't his fatal flaw; rather, it is another thread in the finely-crafted sucking that covers Giygas like a blanket. When I take over the world, I'm using good old fashioned human-powered muscle. No cyborgs for me, baby. Gotta go, someone called "T-something-or-other" is at the door.
