…a fact this guy might have wanted to keep in mind…
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They say that Louis XIV had the inscription Ultima Ratio Regum cast into all the cannon of the French Army. It means “The Ultimate Argument of Kings,” and that always struck me as one of the most honest and up-front things any ruler or would-be ruler ever said. “We can dress it up prettier than this, but when it comes down to the unvarnished truth this is what it’s about: You’ll do as I say or I’ll send my goons to kill you.”
I thought about that for a long time. If there’s an ultimate argument, it seems only logical that there must be an ultimate answer. For years I thought the ultimate answer must be the bullets in my rifle, but it never seemed quite right. I’ve got bullets – he’s got frigging Cannon Balls. I mean, if there were three hundred million rifles throwing bullets at him, then maybe. But we all know that’s not going to happen. So if there’s an ultimate answer to his ultimate argument, it sure as hell ain’t bullets.
It finally came to me – and that’s when I abandoned the city and most of my stuff, and gave all that was behind me a good stiff Randian Shrug.
The ultimate answer to kings is not a bullet, but a belly laugh.
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Something deep inside my sould bristles at the sift of anyone kicking a dog…. even a robotic facsimile of a dog
apparently I cannot type, SIGHT not sift
It’s not malice, it’s a demonstration of the machine’s ability to maintain balance. And the seed of the robot uprising. We’re definitely whistling while walking through the uncanny valley. To me, the video of Big Dog is even creepier.
A smart dog is only going to let itself get kicked once. After that it will move out of the way. You can kick a dog that’s tied up, of course, but probably not for very long without getting bitten – even if it is a stupid dog.
Robots? I don’t know. Do they feel anything? I’d think that would be the key. My vacuum cleaner doesn’t seem to care how much I kick it. Of course, it doesn’t look like dog either. 🙂
Oh, and why do they want to make robots look like dogs anyway? Or that thing that looks like a combination of a horse, a model T and a bucking bull machine from a bar…
Things that walk can go places things that roll can’t. The resemblance to dogs (or mules, or any other quadruped, is purely coincidental).
I suspect they’ll end up looking more like centaurs anyway. That way they can pickup their own cargo, and carry guns too!:-)
Isaac Asimov and his Three Rules of Robotics never anticipated this.
Well … maybe he did.
But I refer you to the 1954 SF Short Story: “Fondly Fahrenheit” by Alfred Bester.
Even Robots have their little .. quirks.
http://www.editoreric.com/greatlit/books/Fondly-Fahrenheit.html