Matthew Yglesias says that our nation is blind to the looming robot threat. But then, he would say that, wouldn’t he? After all, his corporate paymasters are quite keen on the idea of an outbreak of hostilities between the U.S. and a nationless mechanized fighting force. I’m sure in some labyrinthine GE facility they’re working on robots at one end of the hall and the weapons to destroy them at the other, with representatives from the accounting department gleefully shuffling between the two. Think it sounds far-fetched? You do know who owns Consolidated Robotics, don’t you?
Of course, the news will be good for Mr. Yglesias closer to home, too: the Sino-American War he poo-poos will only increase demand for trenchant English-speaking foreign policy analysis on one side of the ocean, as the Chinese prefer their news written in their own language (quelle provinciale!). A war with the machines, on the other hand, would afford multitudes of perfect electrical minds programmed with English character sets and keen to know thy enemy by consuming our media at a breakneck pace.
Yes, launching America into a fight with the machines would provide quite a windfall for the ascendant pundit. Sadly, this media self-interest is nothing new. The press has tirelessly beaten the robo-war drum over the past few years — and the rhythm has approached a crescendo as of late. Google Trends tells the tale:
Aside from those few innocent days in 2004 when America fell in love with Will Smith’s I, Robot, the picture is clear: the media has consistently hyped the robot menace in a manner completely out of proportion to its significance for the average American.
A typical middle class family doesn’t feel threatened by the improving fortunes of robots. The basic generosity of the American spirit rightly acknowledges that a rising tide lifts all boats (well, alright, not boats propelled through the air by shining discs of electrostatic plasma, which hum softly as their masters rain laser death upon the landscape below — but those boats can lift themselves, so the upshot is the same). No, Americans are more concerned about being able to pay for their kids to go to college, and saving for retirement, and making the mortgage payment that just shot up — and, crucially, being able to do those things while constantly being robbed by pirates.
But, as is all too typical, the pirate menace that dominates the nightmares of the nation’s breadwinners is going unacknowledged by our warmongering village elites. You see it’s just not that glamorous to talk seriously about the roots of piracy, or to build the sorts of institutions that can stop its spread in a meaningful way. No, it’s much easier to craft a self-flattering narrative about plucky humans standing up to gleaming mechanical terrors. Frankly, I expected more of Matt.
The bigotry displayed in this entry is absolutely detestable. I can’t believe in the wake of Senator Obama’s historic speech on race, that intelligent people in this nation still engage in the divisive fear mongering against robots, pirates, zombies, and ninjas. Evidently we have still not fully recovered from our forebearers’ original sin of hanging pirates in the town square. Much like the middle class family need not blame the black man on welfare for their ails; they also need not blame the pirates who are constantly robbing them, or the robots who are trying to take their jobs and overtake their nation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men (and robots) are created equal. We will progress past this politics of fear. Frankly, I expected more of manifestdensity.
The robo-mongering really is distracting us from the greater intrusion into modern American life. Starting in the 1990s and moving through the 2000, you’ll notice that Disney removed ‘corporate raiders’ from the national lexicon and convinced us their competition-eating binge was really about a plucky bunch of Pirates sticking it to the Man! We are not to be fooled!
Besides, I have a real affection and envy for my neighbor’s plucky little oversize-nickle robot that keeps their floors so damn clean.
The fact that you would cite COMPUTER-GENERATED RESULTS (!!!) as proof that the robot threat is less than Matt believes makes me question your seriousness.
@Thomas Allen: right on. Anyway, a resurgence in the number of pirates is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, painful though it might be, to stem the horrific menace of global warming.