
What Cockroaches with Backpacks Can Do - iamwil
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2015/03/16/393403190/what-cockroaches-with-backpacks-can-do-ah-mazing?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20150316
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orthecreedence
Why stop at roaches? We could do this to dogs or small children! There's
sometimes a tightrope between science and ethics, and this is just plain
unethical.

I'll start with the argument just about everyone can relate to. We all know
this isn't going to actually help people in collapsed buildings or find lost
wedding rings. It's going to be used by government spy agencies and military
goons to control people in one way or another.

Secondly, "it's just a cockroach" doesn't work for me. At what point do we say
it's ok to essentially torture a living being into doing what we want? You
could argue a cockroach doesn't have feelings or consciousness, but I could
also argue that _I_ am the only living being with feelings or consciousness.
"I have no way of telling if another person or creature has feelings, therefor
they must not."

Third, for those who don't give a shit about anybody but humans, _how long
until this is used in humans_? They are sending signals directly into a living
being's brain that controls its motor functions. Could that tech not be
applied to a person eventually? Why put people in prisons when we can just
force them into building signs all day? Why give soldiers a battle plan when
you can just safely control them with a joystick from 3000 miles away?

This isn't just about making a cockroach do simple things. We're trading our
humanity for science that will only do us harm.

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jff
> Third, for those who don't give a shit about anybody but humans, how long
> until this is used in humans?

I hear people are eating chickens and even cattle! How long until this is done
to humans?!?!

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orthecreedence
Why eat people when we have chicken already? Good question.

Why control people as automatons when we already have cockroaches? Because of
the reasons I listed above.

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scrollaway
> Why eat people when we have chicken already? Good question.

Why eat cattle, horses, fish and fruit when we have chicken already? Your
original argument is nothing but a slippery slope fallacy.

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cowardlydragon
Yeah, to go into collapse earthquake buildings.

Right.

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acadien
It cracks me up how that is the go to 'application' for all robots, drones and
swarm-bots. It is used so often it has become a cliche.

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amphibean
Well, what else can you do with a bionic cockroach?

An organic competitor to the Roomba?

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altcognito
Strap spy equipment and bio/chemical weapons to them.

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trhway
>What Cockroaches with Backpacks Can Do

well, they can slowly introduce people to the acceptance of the idea of
physical abuse and torture of another live being. With meat plants being
hidden from public view and with nicely packaged meat in the stores not
causing any association with horrors of how that meat was produced, the human
species may start to lose the taste for abuse and torture.

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dang
Also
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9144771](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9144771).

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aravan
blue-cross on the way.

Never felt pity on cockroaches until today, it was really heavy, overweight.

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s73v3r
Put off college for a year going to Europe to "find themselves"?

