Slashdot Mirror
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."
I don't think /. missed the rat-story, I even recall it was a dupe!
Martin
I am Mickey of Borg.
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.
"Moderate drinking can help prevent amputated limbs" -- Abigail Zuger, NYTimes, 12/31/02
sorry I tried not saying it, but I couldn't do it
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Sex - Find It
Now, if we could wire Michael up with this kind of thing and send him a signal to stop squatting on the censorware.org domain, that wouldn't be ethical either - but it would definitely be cool.
Nope, no cruelty at all. Aside from drilling holes in the rat's skull, attaching wires into his brain, and mounting a control box permanently behind his head.
The brain has no pain receptors. Human patients have been drilled into and probed without any pain whatsoever.
I saw that as one of their ideas.... wasnt that a simpsons episode with homer's brother??
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
that if somebody held you down and drilled holes in your skull without your consent, you would not consider this an act of cruelty? What time can we schedule your appointment? :P
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
Time and again, a sizable portion of Slashdot posters seems to stick up for animal research, no matter how cruel and no matter how pointless.
I'm just happy my angioplasty was "cruelly and pointlessly" tested on dogs before it was tried on me.
But I suppose you forego most drugs and medical procedures so as not to benefit from animal testing.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
There's a simple reason why...
- Google isn't evil.
Meaning, in this case, they obey the(Some time ago I posted a comment ranting about the /. search sucking, that they denied Google via the robots.txt file, and some hopeful solutions... but I can't seem to find it. How's that for irony?)
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
While you also ignore a few facts of your own...
Neurological experiments absolutely cannot be performed on anything other than a living biological organism. The idea here isn't just to create remote controlled rats, but to discover how we can advance new technologies related to the brain. Modern probes that can monitor the firing patterns of 4 individual neurons simultaneously? The idea that we can now partially enable the blind to see? Do you think that the experiments required to pull this off were performed on neurons in a petri dish? Of course not, and it wouldn't even be possible. Perhaps one day in the future if, heaven forbid!, you are ever tragically paralyzed in an accident, you will perhaps thank the researchers who come up with remote control technology. I know if it were to happen to me, I'd be very glad to have a way to communicate with my family, or take care of myself instead of being a complete burden.
Especially since there's no critical look at whether full-fledged robots could be developed to perform these functions.
Many researchers devote their time to developing small-scale robotics, but nothing is close to being anywhere near as agile as a biological organism. But again, the research isn't just about controlling rats; it's also a way to figure out how to interface with the brain. Given the paralysis scenario, what good would a robotic "supplemental" body be if you couldn't control the damn thing? When that kind of technology comes about for general use, you'll have researchers, rats, and monkeys to thank for it.
The sad thing is that I'm probably going to be modded down for raising these concerns.
Well, I've got one point left, but I chose to reply instead. Besides, I don't mod down. ;)
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
- 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.
Not only that, but it spends its life getting human-induced orgasms just for crawling around a little. :-p
FFS, give it up.
The Slashdot editors, when they added the no reg-required sites policy, specifically stated that NYTimes is exempted due to the large amounts of interesting articles in the NYT.
It takes 30 seconds to sign up, and you can provide completely fake info. If you're too lazy / thickheaded / fucking stubborn to do that, then use one of the random login generators or wait for a Karma Whore to post the contents.
I, for one, don't mind giving the NYTimes a little info for their content. If you do, put up and shut up - find a different way to get the content and stop whining about it.
Wow.
Damn.
Would you look at that.
If I were talking about electronics, I'd call that a 'sneak circuit.' All the subdirectories the /. editors didn't include in the robots.txt file are indexed by Google.
(At least, I figure they overlooked this... give it a few days, then check for an updated exclusion list.)
On the other hand, I still can't seem to dig up my old comment... and not for lack of trying, either. I suggested a donation fund for a Google Search Appliance, archives on CD for /. subscribers so you could grep the database... that kind of thing. If anyone else manages to dig it up, I'd sure like to know how you found it!
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
You are aware during brain surgeries on humans they are kept awake and required to continue talking?
Just checking.
I live in a giant bucket.
Then you'll see how fun it is to be injected with cancer and grow tumors the size of a baseball. I wonder if the fact that the scientists aren't laughing at you will be some comfort to you then?
I'm not completely against animal testing, but your in the wrong here trying to brush off the topic of ethics when discussing animal testing. There are ethics involved and they are not "bullshit".
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
The real question you're asking is do the ends justify the means?
Well, sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't. It depends on what the ends are and what the means are.
For instance, if we could cure AIDS or cancer tomorrow by sacrificing just ONE monkey to an experiment, would that be worth it? I would say so. I would NOT, however, advocate brutally torturing every chimpanzee in existence for hours on end just to end navel lint.
Both of those positions are ludicrous extremes, obviously. We have to be able to strike a balance between the ends (enriching human life) and the means (experimentation on animals). I think, in general, we do a good job of this.
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
I remember reading Ringworld by Larry Niven. I talks about a character being a "Wire Head," someone who is addicted on electronic pleasure. In their society, it is considered socially unacceptable to have such an implant. Some alien races have even developed a remote device that can do the same thing from afar - which have been baned by treaty.
It's a great book that every Good Geek must have in their library
This is a boring sig
What if by providing just enough food to survive, squalor for sleeping quarters, and no particular pay, but lots of "pushing the pleasure button" they were to get a group of people willing to work for free?
Would it be cruel? You talk to these people, and they are smiling, happy, and working 16 hour days in relatively dangerous conditions, with their "happy button" being pressed anytime their output increases some small amount.
How long before our "free market" makes this a reality? How many people would sign up, knowing that they will be forever "happy"?
How many people are willing to do this using drugs, to get the same effect, despite the risks?
This is not something that's possible, it's inevitable, as there is a clear financial reward. Making it illegal won't prevent it.
Where do we draw the line? As somebody who's frequently rather sure I have the answer, I have to say this one baffles me.
Toto, we aren't in Kansas anymore!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
(See subject)
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Score 3? For what? Being wrong, at length? - smirkleton
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.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I'd think it should be obvious that most habitues of slashdot are already master botters.
Let me put this to you in the most blunt fashion I can. I would kill you and eat your carcass to survive, that's what living is for. You are weak, and will be eaten, figuratively or literally. Think about it. Sad but true.
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama