Wow that is actually pretty cool.
Keep it in mind next time your local Repulican fucknozzle says that the lumber company is bringing jobs to town. Itās really just the guy driving the harvester and the guy driving the truck and thatās it.
Am I the only one who objects to calling them ārobotsā when thereās clearly a human in control?
I mean, I see things like that TV show Robot Wars and I think, āSweet! Autonomous battle droids fight!ā and then it turns out to be a couple of worthless RC cars with chainsaws strapped on top. Boring!
I think the proper term is āmachine.ā Or if it walks on two legs, āmecha.ā
I think deforestation is coming along nicely, with or without robotic harvesters.
That said, the Onceler would be happy to pick up a fewā¦
And that is a good thing. When you canāt push more logging = more jobs, then you will only get the logging that is financially viable.
well you kind of have a point but until we have hard AI, itāll always be humans controlling the machines, by mechanical input as in this case and as in Robot Wars, or by programming as with a lot of manufacturing robots. So really youāre just arguing for the level of immediacy between human input to distinguish āmachineā from ārobotā which Iām not sure I agree with.
Iām okay with sustainable forestry. Itās a lot better than plastic, where an option exists for using both. Sometimes forests are no longer useful for harvesting, and Iāve seen this result in them getting clear-cut and turned into golf courses or gated communities.
If a robotic harvester means more sustainable forestry because of lower costs, that means more forests. Iām okay with that. Iām sure this results in a lot less injured lumberjacks, too.
Interesting idea: In many fairy tales a woodsman is sent into the forest with the prince/princess/stepdaughter, to kill them. Can you imagine the doomed child gripped in the claw of that thing?
It reminds me of the logging machine from Fern Gully.
Itās not a robot. Itās just a piece of human operated equipment. Stop with the āscare titlesā
The Wump World!
āAttachmentā is probably the most accurate description.
āDroneā is the term I canāt stand, itās an RC copterā¦ but I digressā¦
Oh come on. Itās not a proper robot unless itās not only autonomous, but also human-grade sentient? Now thatās silly.
Robots that control themselves exist, and the programming is the cool part. Itās also the hard part, which is why so many lazy people just add a few RC bits and pretend itās a robot. Meh.
Itās already scary enough. Wouldnāt make much difference to me if it -was- a robot. That thing is elegant in its horror. Kind of like Gigerās alien.
Not all tree-chopping is bad. Tree farms also have trees. By peeling the tree in place and leaving the brush, good things happen to the soil.
Just a point - clearly this is a high-end logging company who will then go back and replant trees (unless this is being cleared to build something on). In general, logging in the US and Canada is sustainable.
The worst deforestation is poor farmers trying to eek out a living, or 3rd world countries exploiting their resources with out replenishing it. You can see a stark contrast between Haiti and the Dominican Republic as an extreme example.
What makes deforestation too easy is supply/demand curves not accounting for sustainability.
Scary mecha lumberjacks are just a symptom of the illness of capital, daaaaaaaaaaaawg.
(Theyāre probably a good idea - lumberjacking is dangerous work! - though Iām disappointed that this metal monstrosity will never don suspenders and a bra)
Havenāt these machines been around for 20+ years?
well thatās certainly not my position but you were indicating that if a human is controlling the thing then itās not a robot. I donāt think that is a valid distinction, since all machines, even ones that operate independently without immediate human interaction or supervision, are still just following their programming which is just a different way for humans to control the machine.
Or even press wild flowersā¦
