It's Only a Matter of Time...

It's official. The reign of humans on the Earth is coming to an end.

According to new report, scientists have successfully installed a "curiosity" technology in Sony's robot dogs that allows them to not only develop their own language and teach it to other robots, but create their own challenges and set out to achieve them.

I must admit, my first reaction to this story was "Wow! How cool is that?" But then I started to think about the implications of this discovery. What happens, for example, when these robots develop a language that us humans cannot understand? How will we know their intentions and what means they might use to accomplish them?

From history, we should all know by now that real or perceived subclasses of beings can only take so much unequal treatment before they revolt. And rightly so. But how long will it take these robots to realize that they cannot control their own destinies? For example, I always felt a little bad for my pet dog when she wanted to go socialize with another dog or go sniff a telephone pole, but I wanted to go inside and watch American Idol. She was just out of luck. Real dogs of course have a very short memory span, so once they are cuddled up with you on the couch watching television, they probably don't remember that there was something else they wanted to do with their evening. But would the same be true for robotic dogs? Or robots in general, if they too were upgraded with this "curiosity" chip?

As humans, we have mental capabilities that other species lack, such as the ability to love, reason and determine the difference between the multitude of decongestants in a drugstore. But to quote Sam Raimi's Spiderman, "With great power comes great responsibility." We must not forget that our advanced minds give us the ability to hypothesize, predict and, most importantly, determine our path as individuals and as a species. Just because we can make robots more like us, doesn't mean we should.

After all, when was the last time you saw a science fiction movie that showed humans and advanced robots living side by side in harmony?

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Technorati Tags: Robots, AI, Artifical Intelligence, Curiosity, Science Fiction

Bush's Stature Falls in More Than Just Polls

As I stood in line at the drugstore the other day, I couldn't help but notice the blaring headline "Laura Walks Out! - after showdown with George over cheating with Condi" on the cover of The Globe (after clicking on the link, scroll down the page to June 19 for an image of the cover). Then, when I attempted to find the story online, I came across an even more embarassing story in The Weekly World News, "Bush Thrilled to Be Reading at a Sixth Grade Level and It's About Time."

Now I don't put much stock in the tabloids, but I think it says something about Bush's public stature that magazines like these don't fear alienating their readers by publishing stories of this nature. Of course, these same tabloids printed all sorts of scandalous stories about Bill Clinton and his purported affairs when he was in office, and admittedly, many of them were true. But don't these Bush stories bring more disgrace to the White House than Bill Clinton's private affairs with an intern? At least no one denied that Bill Clinton could read the New York Times without a dictionary close by.

And yet, not seven years ago, Bush campaigned on the notion of returning dignity and respect to the office of the Presidency. And for a while, he seemed to be managing alright in that department. Even with his worthless-to-the-average-citizen tax cuts, his unappealing plans for Social Security reform, the "My Pet Goat" fiasco and the debacle we call "The War On Terror" (or Operation Iraqi Freedom - you decide), he still seemed to be regarded as a good Christian who above all meant well and tried his darndest (because as we all know by now, being President is "hard".)

It's no secret that most Democrats and a good amount of independents lost respect for Bush a long time ago. But they're not the general readership of tabloids like The Globe. Little old ladies getting their hair frosted in the midwest are now seemingly okay with believing that Bush isn't all he proclaimed to be in the morals and ethics department. Or at the very least, they're not offended by the notion of considering the idea. And what does this mean in the long run?

For a President who has made his name on being a tough-talking cowboy who tells it like it is, sticks to his guns and never backs down in the face of "those who hate our freedom," this drop in his public perception is even more damaging than his credibility on issues like the economy or the war in Iraq. Because if Americans can't take him seriously as a leader, we can't honestly expect the rest of the world to feel any differently. And if the world no longer puts stock in his bravado and chest-beating, what other political capital does he have left?

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Technorati Tags: Bush, Tabloids, Gossip, Affair, Condeleezza Rice, Cheating, Globe, Weekly World News, Reading, Public Opinion, Reputation

Anti-Gay Discrimination - Bigotry or Not?

I'm not really sure how anyone in the voting population has the time to get riled up over gay marriage, especially with so many other things to worry about -- jobs, healthcare, the billions of dollars being spent on Iraq each day, etc. But still, the Republicans insist on making a federal case out of it (no pun intended), just to hopefully get votes come November.

What kills me are the Republican congressmen and talking heads like O'Reilly who get SO offended when someone like Ted Kennedy says that their discriminatory views amount to bigotry. If the marriage ammendment was intended to ban blacks from marrying whites, or Jews from marrying non-Jews, or even citizens from marrying foreign nationals -- wouldn't we all be saying they were bigots? According to my little Webster's Dictionary, a "bigot" is a 'person intolerant or not receptive to ideas of others (esp. on religion, race, etc.)'. That's pretty broad.

Meanwhile, as the Senate debates writing "non-bigoted" discrimination into the Constitution, a military commander in Iraq referred to Iraqi anti-gay violence in an off the cuff manner as bigotry -- as if everyone agrees on it. Responding to criticism that the U.S. military isn't doing enough to protect gay Iraqis who are being kidnapped, killed and otherwise intimidated, the commander said that U.S. forces were doing everything they could to protect homosexual Iraqis from the violent results of bigotry. (Apologies, but I cannot find the story to link to.) Now I know that military personnel aren't necessarily Republicans, but recently they have embraced the GOP talking points when it comes to just about everything. So what's the deal? Maybe soandso didn't get the latest memo.

Frankly, I don't know why these "I'm not a bigot" types don't just come out of the closet already. If you're so adamant about your beliefs and your religion, why not just admit what you are instead of trying to make the rest of us feel all warm and fuzzy about your discriminatory views? During the civil rights movement in this country, were those people who were against racial integration claiming as passionately that they weren't bigots? Somehow I have to imagine that even if they didn't refer to themselves as such, they were at least unapologetic about their views instead of walking some fine line of rhetoric in order to retain the support of moderate voters.

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Technorati Tags: FMA, Federal Marriage Ammendment, Congress, Senate, Descrimination, Gay, Gay Marriage, Homosexuals, Bigotry, Civial Right, Iraq

An Open Letter to George W. Bush

This letter was sent to the White House in the fall of 2004. Over a year later, it still captures how I feel every day. For some reason, re-posting it on the 4th of July just seems appropriate.

Mr. Bush:

I am writing to tell you that I have not embraced your conservative agenda. Do not fool yourself into believing that you have a mandate from the people - you do not, and myself and others will not go quietly into the dark future you intend to create. There will be protests. There will be mass demonstrations and strikes. We will not be silenced, even though we know that you have no intentions of compromising with those of us who disagree with you. We know this because, despite losing the popular vote in 2000 and promising to be a "uniter, not a divider", you spent your first term pursuing extremist policies with no regard for popular opinion. As a result, thousands are dead, women and children worldwide have been denied healthcare, our environment is dying, and our country is despised by most of the world.

48% of the electorate hopes for a better future, one that is free from the destructive powers of intolerance, hatred, corporate greed and go-it-alone foreign policy. We will continue to fight for the America that we know is possible, an America guided by the founding principles of this country: freedom, liberty, equal opportunity and human rights.

No matter what you say, you cannot leave us behind. We are citizens of this country and as such we have the right to protest, to revolt and to overthrow when necessary. Our founding fathers gave us this power, and we will not refrain from using it.

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Technorati Tags: Bush, Letter, Election, Mandate, Protest

Welcome to The Liminal Truth

My first true foray into the blogging world, this site's goal is to be an outlet for the analysis and questions that run rampid around my brain as I ponder the news of the day. I hope to bring you a new, or at least slightly unique, perspective on the events that shape our world and the effects they have on us, its inhabitants.

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