Examples of Machines Becoming More Important
Take a need like transportation in snowy areas. The Eskimos solved part of the
transportation problems that they had by training sled dogs and making sleds for them to
pull. This was an organic solution to their transportation problem. Nobody bribed them to do
things that way, they just did it because it was a common sense solution to a problem arising
from a need.
At present, most Eskimos use snowmobiles to solve similar transportation problems. Again,
nobody had to bribe them to do it, they did it because they could see that it was practical. Let
us compare the capabilities of the sled dog to the snowmobile. The organic system requires
feeding and rest to recuperate. The dogs need to be bred, born, raised, trained and replaced
when they die. Snowmobiles do not have to be bred or trained to do their jobs. If you have
two drivers for the snowmobile, you can have one drive for 6 hours while the second one
sleeps for 6 hours and then switch drivers. The snowmobile need not take a rest like the
sled dogs must. Once you have developed an inorganic system that replaces an organic
system, the only use for the organic system is as pets or for racing “like we did in the good
old days.” Once you have evolved a snowmobile that has fuel injection, you don’t have much
trouble starting it. Remember how many problems with jump starting automobiles in the
winter we had in the 1960s? Remember how unreliable fuel injection was when it first came
out and took a large PC board to control? New snowmobiles can go into reverse simply by
electronically changing the timing of the spark and the fuel injection. This saves about 27
pounds of weight (out of about 500 pounds) from the old mechanical method of providing
reverse. The snowmobile continues to evolve and has really replaced the organic system for
practical usage.
All I am asking is a simple acknowledgement that the evolution of the machine is replacing
one work animal after another and will eventually replace hamburger flippers and floor
sweepers. Once I have a $30,000 robot that can flip hamburgers 24 hours per day with just a
little maintenance, the human hamburger flipper will be replaced just as certainly as the
sled dog has been replaced. Once I have trained one human hamburger flipper and it
decides to go back to college, I have to train another hamburger flipper which then decides
that it wants to become a manager at Arby’s. The next hamburger flipper is chronically late
for work and I get tired of managing people. But once I have trained a robot hamburger
flipper, I can place that training software on a DVD-ROM and load it into the next robotic
hamburger flipper. Training is minimal. No health insurance. No withholding FICA. No
lawsuit if it slips and falls on a wet floor. If the interest rate on the money to purchase the
robot is 6%, the robot is costing me $1800.00 per year plus maintenance. Do you actually
seriously think that you can compete with me by own a franchise in which you use human
hamburger flippers rather than robots? In addition, I will make glass walls so that the kids
can line up and watch my robot (dressed up like some animal cartoon character) flip
hamburgers. Eventually the robot will do the cooking and then place it in the bun, add
condiments, wrap it up, place it in a bag and hand it to the kid. Your franchise will be out of
business in short order if you run it the old fashioned way.
I am not talking wild and crazy ideas here. I am simply talking common sense.
Can’t you see the trend? Do you really want to bet against this trend?
The Robots are Coming
Next
Take a need like transportation in snowy areas. The Eskimos solved part of the
transportation problems that they had by training sled dogs and making sleds for them to
pull. This was an organic solution to their transportation problem. Nobody bribed them to do
things that way, they just did it because it was a common sense solution to a problem arising
from a need.
At present, most Eskimos use snowmobiles to solve similar transportation problems. Again,
nobody had to bribe them to do it, they did it because they could see that it was practical. Let
us compare the capabilities of the sled dog to the snowmobile. The organic system requires
feeding and rest to recuperate. The dogs need to be bred, born, raised, trained and replaced
when they die. Snowmobiles do not have to be bred or trained to do their jobs. If you have
two drivers for the snowmobile, you can have one drive for 6 hours while the second one
sleeps for 6 hours and then switch drivers. The snowmobile need not take a rest like the
sled dogs must. Once you have developed an inorganic system that replaces an organic
system, the only use for the organic system is as pets or for racing “like we did in the good
old days.” Once you have evolved a snowmobile that has fuel injection, you don’t have much
trouble starting it. Remember how many problems with jump starting automobiles in the
winter we had in the 1960s? Remember how unreliable fuel injection was when it first came
out and took a large PC board to control? New snowmobiles can go into reverse simply by
electronically changing the timing of the spark and the fuel injection. This saves about 27
pounds of weight (out of about 500 pounds) from the old mechanical method of providing
reverse. The snowmobile continues to evolve and has really replaced the organic system for
practical usage.
All I am asking is a simple acknowledgement that the evolution of the machine is replacing
one work animal after another and will eventually replace hamburger flippers and floor
sweepers. Once I have a $30,000 robot that can flip hamburgers 24 hours per day with just a
little maintenance, the human hamburger flipper will be replaced just as certainly as the
sled dog has been replaced. Once I have trained one human hamburger flipper and it
decides to go back to college, I have to train another hamburger flipper which then decides
that it wants to become a manager at Arby’s. The next hamburger flipper is chronically late
for work and I get tired of managing people. But once I have trained a robot hamburger
flipper, I can place that training software on a DVD-ROM and load it into the next robotic
hamburger flipper. Training is minimal. No health insurance. No withholding FICA. No
lawsuit if it slips and falls on a wet floor. If the interest rate on the money to purchase the
robot is 6%, the robot is costing me $1800.00 per year plus maintenance. Do you actually
seriously think that you can compete with me by own a franchise in which you use human
hamburger flippers rather than robots? In addition, I will make glass walls so that the kids
can line up and watch my robot (dressed up like some animal cartoon character) flip
hamburgers. Eventually the robot will do the cooking and then place it in the bun, add
condiments, wrap it up, place it in a bag and hand it to the kid. Your franchise will be out of
business in short order if you run it the old fashioned way.
I am not talking wild and crazy ideas here. I am simply talking common sense.
Can’t you see the trend? Do you really want to bet against this trend?
The Robots are Coming
Next
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