NYTimes Year in Ideas

jonbrewer writes "The New York Times is back again with their "Year in Ideas" and one that Slashdot missed this year was the RatBot. As featured in the BBC and Business 2.0 earlier this year, these critters are trained to navigate mazes based on remote stimuli. Ethical? Doubtful. Cool? Yes."

Comments

Hmm..

[RaboKrabekian]

Ethical? Doubtful. Cool? Yes.

How is this any more unethical than the thousands of other experiments performed on rats and mice? Would it be unethical to remote control a human in this manner? Of course. Would it be unethical to perform any number of experiments on a human? Yes - which is why we do it on rats and mice.

Re:Hmm..

[kypper]

I think we need to get past this 'ethical' bullshit on animals. So long as they aren't screaming in absolute agony and we're sitting there laughing at it, of course... but this image of cruel scientists performing sadistic acts on animals, then doing the actual research to ensure funding remains intact is crap. Psychologists and Biologists, in most animal-testing cases, are simply trying to test hypotheses in order to improve our understanding of the world around us. Is that so fucking hard to understand??

Crying baby translator...

[doormat]

I saw that as one of their ideas.... wasnt that a simpsons episode with homer's brother??

You Can't Stop The Ratbots

[USC-MBA]

One common theme (aside from terrorism, of course) clearly stands out from among the NYT's long list of ideas. What do all these have in common?

• Botox Parties
• Featherless Chickens
• Ratbots
• Genetically Modified Saliva
• Cooling Atheletes From The Inside Out

The answer is they are all about using technology to enhance or modify biology. There is a human impulse to go above and beyond the constraints of biological limitations. This is because the imagination will always overflow and escape the boundaries of our bones, nerves, and muscle.

This impulse to strive, excel, and improve is at the heart of what makes us human. The striving imperative motivates everything from mountain climbers to astronauts, to the market economy itself. To stifle this urge would be to stunt our very humanity.

As a libertarian I strongly support any efforts by striving, creative individuals to transcend the forces that constrain humanity. "Ratbots" may seem creepy to timid animal rights fundamentalists, but I prefer to see these kinds of experiments as an exciting beginning, as one tiny step on the part of humankind into a new world of freedom and possibility.

Murder rates most interesting

[Goonie]

On my quick browse through, perhaps the most interesting idea was the one on murder rates.

Basically, murder rates have remained essentially static over the past few decades, while other types of crime such as assaults have become more common. Why are murders different?

The hypothesis is that improvements in medical treatment have meant that people who would otherwise have died of injuries are now surviving, and thus the murder rate has gone down. Evidence includes the fact there was a decline in the murder rate in the years after the Vietnam War, where improvements in trauma surgery made their way back into the civilian health system.

I don't know if it's true or not, but it's certainly an interesting, plausible, and quite disturbing idea.