Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!uunet!decwrl!netcomsv!seer!tomk
From: tomk@seer.gentoo.com (Tom Kunich)
Subject: Re: MIT Insect Robots
Message-ID: <1992Jun23.171102.517@seer.gentoo.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1992 17:11:02 GMT
References: <1992Jun16.065514.2629@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <1992Jun18.175623.15359@seer.gentoo.com> <1992Jun20.015635.29593@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>
Organization: Brad Lanam,  Walnut Creek, CA
Lines: 56

In article <1992Jun20.015635.29593@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au> awfuchs@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au (A.W. Fuchs) writes:
>
>The possible lessons are many. One may be that it is often
>necessary to make large research investments to eliminate
>certain avenues of investigation, allowing people to turn 
>their focus elsewhere.

Oh, I agree with this. What I don't agree with is the attendant
PR hype that tells us that this money is being spent in the highest
possible ethical consideration. Most research turns up essentially
nothing. It reiterates known facts almost endlessly. There is very 
little new under the sun and if you doubt that just try and file
a patent sometime. Invariably someone else has patented your idea
50 years ago but your patent will be allowed because the wording
and claims are completely different.
>
>Beware of making statements like "man will never fly", "man
>will never fly under his own power", "the sound barrier will
>never be broken" and so on. In 1975 a Powerbook 170 with wire-
>less LAN etc. etc. was really science fiction. Cellular phones?
>Need I go on? 

Andy, of course it is possible to make too conservative a claim.
But what we have is too grand claims on the other hand. Funding
for the superconducting super collider has been cut. The claims 
for this project have included some pretty irresponsible things.

Big science is only big science. While it is nice for you and
I to know the origins and fundamental properties of the universe,
it doesn't really amount to a hill of beans to the average person.

To most people it seems pretty radical to be spending billions on
a project of such academic interest when there are so many immediate
needs.

I say that interstellar space exploration is so unlikely as to be
a virtual impossibility. Yet there are those who want to belive in
this subject so much that they will completely ignore the economic
essentials of such a project. So I am stuck simply saying that while
interstellar space exploration is _possible_ in a very academic sort
of way, it is so unlikely as to be a virtual impossibility.

Robots are another of these ideas. While there will always be a small
market for robotics of one sort or another, the development funds for
real robotics seems pretty vulnerable when human labor is so cheap
and available.

We must also face the fact that fossil fuel is limited and rapidly failing.
The green revolution and, hence, more than 75% of the world's food 
production is endangered by the failure of this energy source. The
impact this will have upon civilization is pretty difficult to
assess accurately, but we can assume that it will be traumatic.

So with a violently decreased population and energy shortages I can
hardly believe that robotics is a financial priority.

