Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Labor camp

4 (20%)

List of choices (would you like to be killed by woodchipper, firing squad, gascambers...)

8 (40%)

Choose how to die (with restrictions, or course, no "I want to be nuked in the dining hall")

6 (30%)

Generic Lethal injection

1 (5%)

Electroshock

0 (0%)

Life in prison

0 (0%)

Other (Specify)

1 (5%)

No opinion

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 20

[TopHat]

Autopilot can't improvise AT ALL. I'm just saying that we should have pilots mainly, and maybe autopilot as a backup. I thought we were crashing the GPS satellites anyway.
Take the following situation: autopilot ****s up. Not autopilot's fault, the person who set it's fault.
WHO CARES. It's still a fault. Everyone dies.
Another scenario:

The craft starts spinning.

and everyone dies. Really?
As for the examples, you're talking about a COMPUTER. An autopilot just flies in a pre-designated course. Meteor in the way? Quickest course: straight ahead. Autopilot flies through it.
Has anyone tested autopilots in space?

[10ebbor10]

Autopilot can't improvise AT ALL. I'm just saying that we should have pilots mainly, and maybe autopilot as a backup. I thought we were crashing the GPS satellites anyway.
Take the following situation: autopilot ****s up. Not autopilot's fault, the person who set it's fault.
WHO CARES. It's still a fault. Everyone dies.
Another scenario:

The craft starts spinning.

and everyone dies. Really?
As for the examples, you're talking about a COMPUTER. An autopilot just flies in a pre-designated course. Meteor in the way? Quickest course: straight ahead. Autopilot flies through it.
Has anyone tested autopilots in space?

- Nope, pilots are not good. Humans have a way larger margin of error, can't react fast enough, and can be bribed.
- If you tell the autopilot to drive your plane straight in the ground, then it will do so. Not a fault of the autopilot. There have been autopilot failures, but way fewer than human errors.
- I meant during reentry. If your craft starts spinning during reentry, only an autopilot can get it right before it plummets into the ground. Humans can't because they are having problems scraping themselves from the walls.
- We're talking about a program. It doesn't fly a predesignated course(In space, that's pointless, it's just firing the engines and wait). It can evade. Btw, you don't get how big or clear space is. Asteroids and  planetoids can be seen for years ahead, and then the automated anticollision protocol kicks in. A human will:
   A: not see it coming, as he can't predict paths for things fast enough
   B: Waste way to much thrust. The autopilot can exactly predict the collision course, and move away in time. Humans, less so.

Also, a meteor is the visible trace when a planetoid/asteroid/meteoroid enters the athmosphere.
As for testing autopilots in space. What do you think all spaceprograms are running? No spacecraft is humancontrolled anymore. The last one was the spaceshuttle, and that was only during the last stage of the landing, and even then only for PR.  It's all automatic. Manual control only happens in the extremely rare occurence that the sensors fail.

Even in airflight more than 90% of the flight is automatic, and the last 10% are only so because most of the AI soft and hardware is heavily outdated.

[brainfreez]

why do we need humans at all , if the autopilot is so good , why don't we make robots and send them instead of us .

i agree that autopilot cannot improvise , it only follows to what the programmer has programmed in it , unlike human it cannot think more than it has programmed and if it gets something really unexpected (a thing that the programmer didn't think of) like black hole in its path , it might say there is unidentified object , but it has no idea what to do .

[miauw62]

We could simply make the autopilot a simple AI so it advoids obstacles.
I say we use an autopilot as main pilot, and a human pilot to take over in case shit goes wrong.

[brainfreez]

humans are natural super computers .

[miauw62]

And thats exactly why my super AI is using upgraded human brains.
I'm trying to make you guys agree here. Humans can at any time take over from the autopilot.

[Helgoland]

BEGIN MESSAGE
How would the sciences fall into this? I'm fine with some regulation or guidance, but I'll be rather angry if my mad science gets shut down for any reason other than safety!
END MESSAGE

-------------begin message-------------

To: GreatWyrmGold
Subject: Mad science

I'll be rather angry if my mad science gets shut down for any reason, including safety!

Science will be a vital part of government activity; as we do not yet need to support a welfare state, I belive we can devote about a third to one half of our budget toward mathematics, natural sciences, engineering and informatics. Basically all funds that are not needed for security, expansion or sustaining ourselves may be put to use in that area.

-------------end message-------------

And yeah, a 5% casualty rate is within acceptable limits. The size of our mission however will need to be increased.
It also is my opinion that a sufficiently AI is preferrable to human control. Still an override should exist for cases of hard-or software failure, including AI faults resulting from human mistakes. Mybe a poll would be in order?
On the asteroid bit: 10ebbor10, I do not know much about flying through space, but it seems to me that you underestimate the speed of these rocks. Maybe a sort of cannon for the disintegration/deflection of asteroids would be more efficient than continuous evasive actions.

Anyone mind if I draft a constitution for after our independence?

[miauw62]

a 5% casuality rate is too high with our current population.

Also, the space rocks are very, VERY far apart. Its not like you're flying into a swarm of oversized bees or something.

[Slayerhero90]

Easy, we make a rule that their execution can not involve the death of anyone but themselves.

"I want to die of old age."
I suggest we just give 'em a list of options.

Just throw them into the speed-grow chamber.

[brainfreez]

"i want to die by falling on pluto with platinum space ship that menaces with spikes of gold and thermonuclear mustard biscuits"

"i want to die in a black hole"

"i want to die in the dining hall by exploding to millions of pieces"

"i want to die from booze"

"i want to die on a planet that is billion kilometres away from here"

"i want to die from drug addiction"

"i want to die from very low doses of cyanide in the nuclear powerplant control room"

"i want to die from high doses of radiation in the public dining hall"

[Helgoland]

Then just impose a cost limit! Or have a board of approval.
(Not to be confused with the board of approval that will be mentioned in the constitution and shall have to be present for a law to be passed.)

[brainfreez]

.... or just throw them at the "little Japan"(sun) .

"i want to die on a nuke that is falling on earth"

"i want to get killed by the president while his children are watching"

"i want to die in the presidents bed with his wife from low doses of booze intoxication"

the system has huge holes and i bet a clever prisoner will find a way to hurt others .

[TopHat]

I vote we give them a drop-down list. Pick:
a) death by.....
b) death by.....
Etc.

I know space is big, but we should prepare for the worst.
I'm not saying autopilot is rubbish and we shouldn't use it, but that we should have an off switch and at least 1 pilot per ship, for emergencies, take off, and landing.

[miauw62]

Thats what i am saying too tophat.

I agree with the approval thingy. Prisoner suggests way to die, is approved by certain people, if rejected prisoner has to choose new way to die.

[brainfreez]

this way prisoner could get time until someone is trying to get him out or he is planning a way to escape .

i suggest we send all the hackers to a needlessly long trip to the little Japan in a robot controlled space ship .