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Robot Round-Up

Use of robots for distasteful tasks is going to be a thing. People may have qualms and get all guilty/moralistic. Robots don't. They'll happily gun humans down.

Welcome to the future.
 
Cant see why it would bother me, first thing would be to
work out what use I could make of it, can it charge a mobi
it has to have uses not thought of by it's owners.
 
No robots in this but I'm pretty shocked by the amount of homeless people in my part of N.London. There's definitely more in the past year or so. Under the railway bridge near the train station there's now a small encampment. It's a grotty place on a main road with pigeons roosting above & people walking by, but drier than outside.

What's especially shocking is the increase in quite young people on the streets. There's a girl of about 20 regularly in the bridge encampment. I had a brief chat with a lad of about 16 - 19 begging outside Tesco on a bitterly cold night. He had no income & couldn't claim benefits without an address & was trying to raise £12.50 for a night in the YMCA. Said he'd been sleeping in the park the last few nights. He said someone had dangled a tenner in front of him then when he'd gone to take it, the guy snatched it away & called him a dirty cunt.

He seemed to have a bleak future. Nowhere to live, no chance of finding somewhere with no money. All he can do is beg & hope to get enough for a room for the night or try to find a squat somewhere if he hasn't got family or friends to help. There's another guy in the same predicament probably late 20s early 30s who begs regularly outside where I work to get enough for shelter for the night. I've seen him go downhill in about a year. These truly are desperate times for those people who slip through the net.
 
I can well believe all of the above. Apart from the notion that there is any net to slip through.
 
Last edited:
JamesWhitehead said:
I can well believe all of the above. Apart from the notion that there is any net to slip through.
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I think you've totally hit the nail on the head there.

As a long term disabled person, I have noticed this slow erosion over the years.

Just as an example, my oven stopped working a couple of weeks ago. Years and years ago, you used to be able to get a grant for things like that. Then everything changed to loans, so you have to pay it back (which is fair enough, of course!), with the money being taken out of your benefits before they're paid for you, but you could still get a 'crisis loan', which would pay out very quickly.

Now the DWP don't do crisis loans, they only do budgeting loans, which take about 30 days to clear. The crisis loan 'business' has been passed along to local councils, but they're allowed to decide what that budget is spent on, so our council will only do crisis loans for housing costs, and nothing else.

Add that to the restrictions on housing benefits, the 'bedroom tax' etc, etc, I don't feel there is a safety net for people like us any more :(

(Sorry if that sounds like whinge :/)
 
In general I am skeptical towards 'slippery slope' arguments, but they're not even required here. We should not be using robots to corral the homeless because they are humans, not detritus--it's nothing to do with what future evil this could lead to, this is now a current evil.

Although I have a few qualms about employing robots in society, they promise to be a great boon, but dealing with the fallout from our political and social structures is a moral problem and such problems should never be automated and dehumanised--people are ends, not means to ends.
 
Fluttermoth said:
I think you've totally hit the nail on the head there.

As a long term disabled person, I have noticed this slow erosion over the years.

Just as an example, my oven stopped working a couple of weeks ago. Years and years ago, you used to be able to get a grant for things like that. Then everything changed to loans, so you have to pay it back (which is fair enough, of course!), with the money being taken out of your benefits before they're paid for you, but you could still get a 'crisis loan', which would pay out very quickly.

Now the DWP don't do crisis loans, they only do budgeting loans, which take about 30 days to clear. The crisis loan 'business' has been passed along to local councils, but they're allowed to decide what that budget is spent on, so our council will only do crisis loans for housing costs, and nothing else.

Add that to the restrictions on housing benefits, the 'bedroom tax' etc, etc, I don't feel there is a safety net for people like us any more :(

(Sorry if that sounds like whinge :/)
Click to expand...

So you're expected to live on takeaways or maybe microwaved meals for a month at least, & pay the extra cost whilst on benefits you can barely survive on anyway. It speaks volumes when cooking facilities aren't considered to be high priority. Just be grateful you've got a roof over your head you pleb.

The policymakers must have a good idea of the outcome & clearly aren't bothered too much by hardship caused. Government depts can pass it on to councils whose budgets have been slashed.

I can only see the homelessness situation getting worse when cuts start to bite more. Then the robots could appear.
 
I can only imagine they genuinely think we'll all go, "Well, I've had enough of this, I'm going to get a job and make something of myself instead".

And, I am actually very grateful; I do have a roof over my head (although I have to pay for my spare room, and have no chance of moving, even though I'd like to) and I have the internet and running water, which is more than lot of people have, so it could be worse.

But there is, nowadays, just this constant feeling of dread in the background, that never goes away. The safety net the welfare system used to provide just isn't there any more, IMHO. Everything is pared to the bone, and you're not treated with any dignity or humanity; just as a scrounging annoyance that TPTB would like to be gone.
 
Steal/abduct the robots, take them apart for spare parts and sell those on .. problem solved, if Rey can get away with it in that Star Wars film, so can we .. Luddites with profit benefits, 2018 style .. :droid: .. aerosol spray paint over the video recording lens so you don't get caught then cut the power to the fuckers. Steal them, strip them down then make an earner, the GPS has to be severed ASAP.
 
Swifty said:
Steal/abduct the robots, take them apart for spare parts and sell those on .. problem solved, if Rey can get away with it in that Star Wars film, so can we .. Luddites with profit benefits, 2018 style .. :droid: .. aerosol spray paint over the video recording lens so you don't get caught then cut the power to the fuckers. Steal them, strip them down then make an earner, the GPS has to be severed ASAP.
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Cant fault that.
 
hunck said:
No robots in this but I'm pretty shocked by the amount of homeless people in my part of N.London. There's definitely more in the past year or so. Under the railway bridge near the train station there's now a small encampment. It's a grotty place on a main road with pigeons roosting above & people walking by, but drier than outside.

What's especially shocking is the increase in quite young people on the streets. There's a girl of about 20 regularly in the bridge encampment. I had a brief chat with a lad of about 16 - 19 begging outside Tesco on a bitterly cold night. He had no income & couldn't claim benefits without an address & was trying to raise £12.50 for a night in the YMCA. Said he'd been sleeping in the park the last few nights. He said someone had dangled a tenner in front of him then when he'd gone to take it, the guy snatched it away & called him a dirty cunt.

He seemed to have a bleak future. Nowhere to live, no chance of finding somewhere with no money. All he can do is beg & hope to get enough for a room for the night or try to find a squat somewhere if he hasn't got family or friends to help. There's another guy in the same predicament probably late 20s early 30s who begs regularly outside where I work to get enough for shelter for the night. I've seen him go downhill in about a year. These truly are desperate times for those people who slip through the net.
Click to expand...

I was equally shocked last time I visited my hometown. Had a chat with a couple of guys in their 20's who were camped in a shop doorway. Something's gone badly wrong.
 
I can't understand
What makes a man
Hate another man
Help me understand.

Robots are people so why should it be
You and I should get along so awfully...

:domo:
 
Na robots are organ donors for the next project.
look on it as rebirth.
 
Yeah, but would you let your daughter marry one ? ..
 
Robots are on their way to passing gym class.

The design of a new life-size bot named Kengoro closely resembles the anatomy of a teenage boy in body proportion, skeletal and muscular structure, and joint flexibility, researchers report online December 20 in Science Robotics. Compared with previous humanoid robots with more rigid, bulky bodies, Kengoro’s anatomically inspired design gives the bot a wide range of motion to perform humanlike, full-body exercises.

Constructed by Masayuki Inaba, an engineer at the University of Tokyo, and colleagues, Kengoro has a multi-jointed spine that allows the robot to curl into a sit-up or do back extensions. The bot’s arms are limber enough to execute various stretches or swing a badminton racket. And its artificial muscles are strong enough that Kengoro can stand on tiptoe or do push-ups. Batteries in each leg power Kengoro through about 20 minutes of exercise at a time, and water seeping from inside Kengoro’s metal skeleton like sweat keeps the motors of the artificial muscles cool while the bot works out.

Such a nimble robot that so closely imitates human movement and anatomy is “very unique,” says Luis Sentis, an engineer at the University of Texas at Austin not involved in the work. Building more humanlike robots could lead to the development of more sophisticated prosthetics or more realistic crash-test dummies that make humanlike reflexive movements during an accident.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/boy-robot-passes-agility-tests

Vid at link.
 
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Reactions: Jim
I wanted to see the smug little turd who made a fortune from bumfights get into one with a cage fighter. Not nice i know, but it would have been karma.
 
Cochise said:
I was equally shocked last time I visited my hometown. Had a chat with a couple of guys in their 20's who were camped in a shop doorway. Something's gone badly wrong.
Click to expand...

It's called a Tory government, and it will only get worse with Brexshit.
 
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