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Submariners are a glimpse of what humans will become in space. Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not

Submariners are a glimpse of what humans will become in space. Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime: the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity. Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough For Love Alternative: https://m.warhistoryonline.com/featured/u-1206-sub-sunk-dump-on-toilet.html https://m.warhistoryonline.com/featured/u-1206-sub-sunk-dump...

pjmorris 9y ago
It wouldn't surprise me if the sub community's saying came from a Heinlein reader somewhere in its past, similar to his popularizing TANSTAAFL ('There ain't no such thing as a free lunch') from 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.'
- gozur88 9y ago
  The causality arrow might go the other way. Heinlein was a naval officer before he was discharged on a medical. He never served on a sub, but he did serve on a destroyer, so he would have been familiar with their weaknesses.
narrator 9y ago
If you watched Elon's BFR Mars presentation, you'll notice that a lot of it depends on fully automated docking and piloting of all spacecraft. Manual control is just too dangerous and screw ups are catastrophically expensive in those situations.
- jandrese 9y ago
  It seems like an area where automated systems should be really good. We already have automated systems that an land planes without human intervention and that's a far more difficult problem.
  - lwansbrough 9y ago
    And yet we don't because humans are immeasurably better at dealing with edge cases than any automated system. That being said, I do expect those systems developed by SpaceX to be automated. But I'd hesitate to call it "an area where automated systems should be really good."
    - thelittleone 9y ago
      Would there not be an equal or a greater number of edge cases for self driving cars?
      - lwansbrough 9y ago
        Absolutely. Which is why I'd never trust my car to drive itself -- not for years anyway. Most testing and training I've seen from companies has been done in ideal conditions with "non-ideal" conditions being considered some sort of edge case? Maybe it's because all the self driving startups are operating in sunny California. What a nightmare a self driving car would be on uneven, icy, dark roads. I'm certain it would turn itself off and ask a human to drive then. And that'll be the case for a while. Or in cities in asia where rules of the road are more like suggestions, and driving is completely reactionary. No, driverless cars today aren't ready for reality.
        cc81 9y ago
        I think it will be a gradual change, both to gradually improve the technology and to get users used to it. I drove the new Volvo V90 for a couple of weeks a while ago and it of course have the adaptive cruise control and those things you are used to these days but it also can drive itself similar to a Tesla autopilot. At first it was a pretty weird feeling that the car controlled the steering wheel (you still need to hold it otherwise it will beep at you) but gradually I got used to it and started to trust it more and more. At least when driving on the highway and after a while it became a really nice feature to have. Truly autonomous cars are of course far away and the problems with snow storms etc. also needs to be solved but I do think more and more car manufacturers will keep adding one feature after another until we suddenly are there. And at that point it won't be that big of a leap for us mentally.
- awakeasleep 9y ago
  I wonder what calculus decided automated systems built by humans are going to be better than humans themselves. Obviously computers have a lot of advantages, and machines can be precise. But that only applies to certain domains, and I can't imagine anything that provides certainty about which.
  - bryondowd 9y ago
    I'd imagine computers are more consistent. If the situation is one the automation can handle, it will handle it pretty much every time, assuming it's in good maintenance. Whereas a human's capability varies widely based on a multitude of factors from fatigue to distractions to medical issues to plain old overconfidence. Ultimately, it's probably easier to quantify the likelihood of an failure in automation than it is to quantify the likelihood of a human error.
    - jonsen 9y ago
      There must be considerable unscertainty in calculating the human error rate after eight months of interplanetary travel.
  - irl_zebra 9y ago
    The same calculus that lets me deploy thousands of servers with terraform and puppet without a mistake. Sure there are problems, but you fix them once (in dev hopefully) and never have to worry about them again. Humans otoh have the potential to make the same mistakes over and over.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - 7952 9y ago
    Computers can integrate data from numerous sources and sensors and respond very rapidly. Humans are optimised for a limited set of sensory inputs. When those senses can be utilized a person can be ridiculously effective. But space ships do not readily conform to this.
greggman 9y ago
My step father was on sub duty for 25 years. He said he signed up because it was the closest thing to being on a space ship.

pjmorris 9y ago

It wouldn't surprise me if the sub community's saying came from a Heinlein reader somewhere in its past, similar to his popularizing TANSTAAFL ('There ain't no such thing as a free lunch') from 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.'

gozur88 9y ago
The causality arrow might go the other way. Heinlein was a naval officer before he was discharged on a medical. He never served on a sub, but he did serve on a destroyer, so he would have been familiar with their weaknesses.

narrator 9y ago

If you watched Elon's BFR Mars presentation, you'll notice that a lot of it depends on fully automated docking and piloting of all spacecraft. Manual control is just too dangerous and screw ups are catastrophically expensive in those situations.

jandrese 9y ago
It seems like an area where automated systems should be really good. We already have automated systems that an land planes without human intervention and that's a far more difficult problem.
- lwansbrough 9y ago
  And yet we don't because humans are immeasurably better at dealing with edge cases than any automated system. That being said, I do expect those systems developed by SpaceX to be automated. But I'd hesitate to call it "an area where automated systems should be really good."
  - thelittleone 9y ago
    Would there not be an equal or a greater number of edge cases for self driving cars?
    - lwansbrough 9y ago
      Absolutely. Which is why I'd never trust my car to drive itself -- not for years anyway. Most testing and training I've seen from companies has been done in ideal conditions with "non-ideal" conditions being considered some sort of edge case? Maybe it's because all the self driving startups are operating in sunny California. What a nightmare a self driving car would be on uneven, icy, dark roads. I'm certain it would turn itself off and ask a human to drive then. And that'll be the case for a while. Or in cities in asia where rules of the road are more like suggestions, and driving is completely reactionary. No, driverless cars today aren't ready for reality.
      - cc81 9y ago
        I think it will be a gradual change, both to gradually improve the technology and to get users used to it. I drove the new Volvo V90 for a couple of weeks a while ago and it of course have the adaptive cruise control and those things you are used to these days but it also can drive itself similar to a Tesla autopilot. At first it was a pretty weird feeling that the car controlled the steering wheel (you still need to hold it otherwise it will beep at you) but gradually I got used to it and started to trust it more and more. At least when driving on the highway and after a while it became a really nice feature to have. Truly autonomous cars are of course far away and the problems with snow storms etc. also needs to be solved but I do think more and more car manufacturers will keep adding one feature after another until we suddenly are there. And at that point it won't be that big of a leap for us mentally.
awakeasleep 9y ago
I wonder what calculus decided automated systems built by humans are going to be better than humans themselves. Obviously computers have a lot of advantages, and machines can be precise. But that only applies to certain domains, and I can't imagine anything that provides certainty about which.
- bryondowd 9y ago
  I'd imagine computers are more consistent. If the situation is one the automation can handle, it will handle it pretty much every time, assuming it's in good maintenance. Whereas a human's capability varies widely based on a multitude of factors from fatigue to distractions to medical issues to plain old overconfidence. Ultimately, it's probably easier to quantify the likelihood of an failure in automation than it is to quantify the likelihood of a human error.
  - jonsen 9y ago
    There must be considerable unscertainty in calculating the human error rate after eight months of interplanetary travel.
- irl_zebra 9y ago
  The same calculus that lets me deploy thousands of servers with terraform and puppet without a mistake. Sure there are problems, but you fix them once (in dev hopefully) and never have to worry about them again. Humans otoh have the potential to make the same mistakes over and over.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- 7952 9y ago
  Computers can integrate data from numerous sources and sensors and respond very rapidly. Humans are optimised for a limited set of sensory inputs. When those senses can be utilized a person can be ridiculously effective. But space ships do not readily conform to this.

greggman 9y ago

My step father was on sub duty for 25 years. He said he signed up because it was the closest thing to being on a space ship.