this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
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Science Memes

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Plan Bee (mander.xyz)
submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 70 points 10 months ago (5 children)

This kinda pisses me off.

I don't think anyone in that conversation is advocating against "science." They're advocating to (or maybe just lamenting the fact that we can't for political reasons) do more to save real bees (and the environment in general) rather than replace bees with something robotic. And they're commenting on how starkly this article highlights how much we're fucking the planet.

Second, building robot bees isn't really science. It solidly qualifies as engineering, but not science. The reason I bring this up is that while it's arguable that there's no science that shouldn't be pursued (though certainly science ought to be done ethically), there's definitely engineering that would best be not done at all. We keep engineering new and ingenious ways to extract more oil from mostly-not-oil, but that's destroying the planet. Elon's Hyperloop was never a good idea, and it's fortunate it was never actually built and probably will never be built. A lot of geoengineering proposals that have been put forward are risky on the basis that we don't understand the ecosystems involved well enough to know what the side effects might be (and that's likely not something science will be able to solve any time soon.)

Some engineering is beneficial. But some isn't. And you can imagine Elon or the oil industry or some reckless geoengineering startup railing against detractors calling them "anti-science" just as a PR stunt to sway public opinion in favor of their fucked-up money-making scheme.

Comparing building robot bees to measuring fly genitalia further illustrates how the poster is conflating science and engineering.

The thing about "less strain on bees" seems directly out of someone's ass. I can't guess their line of reasoning.

Now, being realistic, we're so fucked that I doubt we can save the bees. And I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to make robot bees. But it's pretty fucked that we have to. Which is all they were saying in that conversation.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The "less strain on bees due to monoculture crops" thing is doubly silly. Monoculture has a lot of real problems, no need to make any up. Increasing crop diversity reduces the need for fertilizers, poisons, and reduces risk of plant diseases running rampant. Reducing our usage of chemicals for agriculture would help save the actual bees!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

That was my biggest gripe of the text, "bees do poorly" translates directly to "it's unnatural because it's unbalanced".

People: we can have progress, and a beautiful world of living companions on this blue spaceship as well. There is no other place like it! I say that as an engineer who enjoys the hell out of his job!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

At the same time. This is a clear "why not both?" situation.

Let's care for bees. Of course. But engineering even for it's own sake is beneficial.

Some AI problems (or really NN problems) are stupidly difficult. Recognizing individual flower parts from a remotely driven camera on a small copter for one has applicability to about every journal even adjacent to aerospace, control systems, and probably distributed control and consensus. That shit drives science too. Physics informed loss function reduction (for PINNs) are super cutting edge and is at the intersection of science and engineering.

My aero research lab that worked on military systems and airports precipitated a cool as hell line of research into the spread of feline diseases using overlapping principles.

It's all good stuff. As long as those copters don't run on ground up bees, I think it's cool someone is getting 6 or 7 figures for a group to research it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Well, we don't tend to do well with a "Why not both?" situation. We tend to select for the bare minimum, egoistic solution. Not having the egoistic solution available could genuinely help us, i.e. force us, to be less stupid about this...

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

I've heard it said that you catch more bees with honey than vinegar.

Okay so nobody ever says that, but I just did so it still counts! :-P

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

We keep engineering new and ingenious ways to extract more oil from mostly-not-oil, but that’s destroying the planet.

Before we were doing that we were destroying the planet by killing whales and burning coal. We haven't quit burning coal though, but we have managed to cut back on killing whales.

Elon’s Hyperloop was never a good idea, and it’s fortunate it was never actually built and probably will never be built.

It actually looks like China is going to give it a shot: https://twitter.com/PDChina/status/1746449572325638166

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago

I noticed that for the most part, the things they claim it advanced, are advanced regardless and it's only BECAUSE they reached the level that they are now that this can even be done. It wasn't the other way around. We aren't working to make robotic bees and THAT tech is what furthers everything else.

It really just came off poorly as a whole.