Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

[dragoongfa]

Space Rifles and humans in personal combat will always be used as long as this basic military maxim is in effect:

Nothing is secure without boots on the ground.

In short, without a reliable martial presence to oversee and deny access no location is considered 'secure' by military thinkers. This most basic of realities isn't expected to be bypassed with any foreseeable technology.

[icekatze]

hi hi

Over the last ten years, I've been seeing science and technology knocking down obstacles that people said they'd never accomplish, one after the other. "Computers can beat someone at chess, but they'll never beat someone at go. Machines can lay pavement, but they'll never be able to build a building. Machines can do pre-programmed things, but they'll never be able to improvise or create a work of art."

The complexity of the human mind may not be proof against hacking for much longer either, with the way neuroscience is advancing, not to mention that in a lot of security systems, humans end up being the weakest link via social engineering.

That being said, I do like the world that Outsider is set in. The reasons for it are well thought out enough, and honestly, I was pretty skeptical myself about the advance of automation back when the comic first started.

We'll see soon enough where these rapid advances in technology lead, and hopefully we'll see where the story in Outsider goes too.

[Arioch]

The complexity of the human mind may not be proof against hacking for much longer either, with the way neuroscience is advancing, not to mention that in a lot of security systems, humans end up being the weakest link via social engineering.

I would never say that it's impossible, but vertebrate brains don't have a central data bus or an external point of access; there is no mechanism for ad hoc data exchange. Even if you graft on some kind of brain-machine interface, that brain's neural net will have to train hard to be able to manipulate it with any effectiveness (which is, I think, the thumb in the pie of those who wish for a cyberpunk future), and it would only be able to do pretty basic things. For a brain to be able to process external data (in the way it currently processes vision or hearing) would, I believe, require more substantial changes to brain function than training or surgery can provide; it would require evolutionary development.

Brain processing is chemical rather than electronic; to "flip a bit" so to speak, you have physically change the matter in someone's head. Even if you can do that, both data and processing are distributed in the brain, and so attempts at data manipulation are not at all straightforward.

There are technological ways to overcome all of these barriers, but they're way up the tech ladder. Also, all measures have countermeasures.

Computers are designed to be externally controlled, so hacking one can be as simple as providing the correct codes. There is no analogue to this kind of basic vulnerability in human brains (so far as we know).

[thicket]

[Computers are designed to be externally controlled, so hacking one can be as simple as providing the correct codes. There is no analogue to this kind of basic vulnerability in human brains (so far as we know).

[thicket]

Space Rifles and humans in personal combat will always be used as long as this basic military maxim is in effect:

Nothing is secure without boots on the ground.

In short, without a reliable martial presence to oversee and deny access no location is considered 'secure' by military thinkers. This most basic of realities isn't expected to be bypassed with any foreseeable technology.

yup, hard to collect taxes from a planet after you glass it

[Absalom]

hi hi

Over the last ten years, I've been seeing science and technology knocking down obstacles that people said they'd never accomplish, one after the other. "Computers can beat someone at chess, but they'll never beat someone at go. Machines can lay pavement, but they'll never be able to build a building. Machines can do pre-programmed things, but they'll never be able to improvise or create a work of art."

Computers can never replace the boots-on-the-ground, because then they are the boots on the ground, and thus instead of replacing the boots, you just got new boots. Robot boots are still boots.

Boots on the ground can only be replaced by changes in tactics & strategy (e.g. an all-terrorism strategy).

[harlequin2262]

hi hi

Over the last ten years, I've been seeing science and technology knocking down obstacles that people said they'd never accomplish, one after the other. "Computers can beat someone at chess, but they'll never beat someone at go. Machines can lay pavement, but they'll never be able to build a building. Machines can do pre-programmed things, but they'll never be able to improvise or create a work of art."

The complexity of the human mind may not be proof against hacking for much longer either, with the way neuroscience is advancing, not to mention that in a lot of security systems, humans end up being the weakest link via social engineering.

That being said, I do like the world that Outsider is set in. The reasons for it are well thought out enough, and honestly, I was pretty skeptical myself about the advance of automation back when the comic first started.

We'll see soon enough where these rapid advances in technology lead, and hopefully we'll see where the story in Outsider goes too.

Yeah, and our hover boards, clinical immortality, and moon cities are just around the corner. We made some progress, and some previously held populist truisms were proven wrong, therefore all truisms are wrong, and our rate of development must be exponential in all fields!

[Arioch]

I was thinking more along the lines of jetpacks and flying cars and household robots, but yes... moon cities too.

(assertion that people are television-controlled puppets)

That fact that the people who control television universally hate the current President, and universally predicted he would not be elected, and who did their level best to prevent him from being elected (and failed), and who can't stop railing against him (to no effect), should lead you to question your assertion that television controls people.

[dragoongfa]

Space Rifles and humans in personal combat will always be used as long as this basic military maxim is in effect:

Nothing is secure without boots on the ground.

In short, without a reliable martial presence to oversee and deny access no location is considered 'secure' by military thinkers. This most basic of realities isn't expected to be bypassed with any foreseeable technology.

yup, hard to collect taxes from a planet after you glass it

Unless you don't want to exploit said planet for the foreseeable future then glassing it is not on the table. The alternatives require classic manpower tactics and solutions.

[orion1836]

It's probably a good thing that this particular ability didn't quite make it into the Loroi's arsenal.

Of course, that might have provided an alternative to genocide.

That fact that the people who control television universally hate the current President, and universally predicted he would not be elected, and who did their level best to prevent him from being elected (and failed), and who can't stop railing against him (to no effect), should lead you to question your assertion that television controls people.

If this were Reddit, I would be smashing the upvote button with the fury of a thousand angry suns.

[harlequin2262]

God that was a broken ability. Man, if the Elerians didn't have godawful civics, they'd be unstoppable. Mind control and qmniesent...

[icekatze]

hi hi

Yeah, and our hover boards, clinical immortality, and moon cities are just around the corner. We made some progress, and some previously held populist truisms were proven wrong, therefore all truisms are wrong, and our rate of development must be exponential in all fields!

It's an interesting strawman argument, but it actually helps to prove my point. People tend to think things are more likely when they want them to happen, and they think things are less likely to happen when they don't.

Every time some bit of science news comes up that even vaguely hints at something involving FTL travel, you get all sorts of people jumping up and down, absolutely convinced that it proves relativity is wrong, and that we'll have FTL travel for sure. In spite of all of the very hard evidence that suggests it will never happen.

On the other hand, when some piece of science news comes up saying that computers/machines have surpassed humans at something, people tend to break down into two crowds either marginalizing it or exalting it. And I find usually the division pretty well follows the division of people who think it is worrisome or cool.

But unlike FTL travel, we have over 7 billion examples of systems that can do the things that humans can do, namely humans. In my mind, it is not even a question whether or not duplicating something that already exists is possible. And just like the competition between birds and airplanes, or horses and automobiles, there are good reasons to believe that dedicated engineering will be able to surpass the naturally occurring in some metrics that are useful.

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As for vertebrate brains, at the most basic military level, all they need to do is hit an off switch. There are already a number of crude electromagnetic weapons that blind, disorient, cause unbearable pain, induce vomiting, etc. In terms of actually hacking into a computer and extracting information, I agree that without some kind of super-science it would be very difficult to do remotely.

Robots don't need to be built with radios though. And conversely, human soldiers are definitely weakened without access to radio communications. The challenge required to spoof radio commands, or even person to person commands, is at least on par with the challenge of spoofing radio commands for machines. (Einheit Stielau comes to mind readily.)

---

At the risk of weakening my argument, I suppose I should disclose that I am definitely not in the 'happy futurist, technology will fix everything,' camp. I personally think that the cavalier attitude towards some scientific advancements borders on recklessness at times. (Talking to my friends who work in genetics, I know enough about CRISPR to know it will be big, for better or worse.)

[harlequin2262]

there are good reasons to believe that dedicated engineering will be able to surpass the naturally occurring in some metrics that are useful.

While true, that's also such a broad truism that's it's next to useless for actual discussion.

The challenge required to spoof radio commands, or even person to person commands, is at least on par with the challenge of spoofing radio commands for machines.

On the contrary. It's not that hard to jam say, missile guidance, or other highly structured commands (such as those used to control mechanical devices like drones and hypothetical robot soldiers), but it's quite hard to make a human believe that the thing on the other end of the line is not only another human, but also one with plausible alternative orders.

Unless you're talking about robots that don't need such control, but that's fantastically out of reach in the next decade or so. Particularly with the hypothetical starting situation of human soldiers being replaced by robots.

[raistlin34]

there are good reasons to believe that dedicated engineering will be able to surpass the naturally occurring in some metrics that are useful.

While true, that's also such a broad truism that's it's next to useless for actual discussion.

The challenge required to spoof radio commands, or even person to person commands, is at least on par with the challenge of spoofing radio commands for machines.

On the contrary. It's not that hard to jam say, missile guidance, or other highly structured commands (such as those used to control mechanical devices like drones and hypothetical robot soldiers), but it's quite hard to make a human believe that the thing on the other end of the line is not only another human, but also one with plausible alternative orders.

Unless you're talking about robots that don't need such control, but that's fantastically out of reach in the next decade or so. Particularly with the hypothetical starting situation of human soldiers being replaced by robots.

In Horizon: Zero Dawn , one of the many mistakes of Ted Faro was to make his combat robots unhackeable and without backdoors (you know, just in case they malfunctioned). Guess why that was a bad idea.

[icekatze]

hi hi

Some of our most critical military systems already use machines to determine whether orders are authentic or not, since the people on the other end can't be expected to make the determination themselves.

But I digress, this has kind of gone off the topic of Loroi questions and answers. I'm content to see how my predictions play out in real time, in any case.

Speaking of the Loroi, I wonder if there is any telepathic power that Mizol might use to impersonate another individual. It sounds like that would be a tremendously difficult thing to do, the way telepathy works, but maybe not entirely impossible?

[Arioch]

Speaking of the Loroi, I wonder if there is any telepathic power that Mizol might use to impersonate another individual. It sounds like that would be a tremendously difficult thing to do, the way telepathy works, but maybe not entirely impossible?

I wouldn't say it's impossible, but it's not a capability I envisioned.

[orion1836]

Here's a random question that just popped into my head:

Do the Loroi have ventriloquists? Given how little a role spoken language has in their society, I wonder if even the idea of such a skill has ever occurred to them.

[Arioch]

Here's a random question that just popped into my head:

Do the Loroi have ventriloquists? Given how little a role spoken language has in their society, I wonder if even the idea of such a skill has ever occurred to them.

There might be people who practice mimicry (especially of animals, etc.) who could develop similar skills, but I don't imagine it being used for entertainment.

[Hālian]

Telepathic ventriloquism. You know you want to.

Er, I mean, who is the empress (or emperor) of Zaral? Also, what sort of government does Arran have?

[boldilocks]

Here's a random question that just popped into my head:

Do the Loroi have ventriloquists? Given how little a role spoken language has in their society, I wonder if even the idea of such a skill has ever occurred to them.

There might be people who practice mimicry (especially of animals, etc.) who could develop similar skills, but I don't imagine it being used for entertainment.

Ahah! Finally, humans have something of value to trade. A bunch of dummies. And their puppets, too.