Chambers schrieb:

> Did you know that Isaac Asimov thought robots *should* enslave humanity, 
> and perform ritual sacrifice of all female babies?  It's coming out in a 
> movie next week!  And it's really cool, because it's based on his actual 
> writings!

Uhm... Asimov wrote a /lot/ of speculations about "robotic societies"; 
you definitely have to distinguish between...

- how the societies in his stories worked
- what any individual story argued in favor of
- what Asimov personally expected future society to be like
- what Asimov personally believed best

If you examine Asimov's works carefully, I guess you'll find that as a 
whole they appear to be an attempt to /discuss/ this topic, rather than 
advocate one particular result.

For instance, some stories paint a negative picture of robots enslaving 
humanity "for their own best" - a motif that the movie "I, Robot" picked 
up pretty well.

Other stories paint a basically positive picture of robots "conspiring" 
to secretly rule mankind, but discuss the difficulty those robots would 
have to decide what really is best for mankind - both regarding the 
structure of society, as well as how to direct mankind towards this goal.

I personally believe that just like the robots in his stories, Asimov 
himself was searching for the "0th law" (the one that would place the 
well-being of humanity above that of individual persons), and how to 
balance it with the "1st law" (the one that places the well-being of 
individuals above orders), while being well aware that he was far from 
an answer; I think it is no coincidence that in his stories, he set the 
discovery of an answer to this question in the far future, and portrayed 
it as a collaborative efforts across generations.


... uh, wait - your posting was ironic, right?

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