This seems sort of great. Except I want to weaponize the roaches and bet on fights between them.
We might someday be able to make you think it's the nineties. Would that work?
Roaches have not changed in 60 million years.
I eagerly await the inevitable remote-controlled roach army versus quadcopter battle.
I see no way in which creating cyborg super-roaches could possibly go wrong.
The RoboRoach kit is so, so fucked up.
Weirdly, I would feel less bad about it if it were being done to a sheep, because sheep are less gross. My ethics may not be the greatest.
So I'm a bad person if I don't see the problem. Is it that the kit makes it too easy?
8: For me, it's the "kids as young as 10" part. Kids just seem likelier to inflict unnecessary harm on the cockroaches, as compared to, say, an adult researcher in a lab setting. Not to mention they'd probably spill ketchup everywhere.
A home optogenetics kit is probably not in the cards.
But yeah this is cool. Maybe Zardoz wants one!
When I read the "kids as young as ten" my thought was, "I wonder if the price will go down in two years."
I just recently ordered a kid, not my own, to not use a rock to hold a toad in place over night so he could get it in the morning. I'm certain that kids will inflict unnecessary harm on the roaches compared to adult in the lab, but I doubt giving kids a single bug is going to noticeably increase the amount of animal harm in the world.
15: You're not a cockroach, dude. Haven't you noticed yet that you have wings?
17: Oh right, I guess those are two separate complaints. I had in mind the Nabokov thing where with his usual modesty he said:
Curiously enough, Gregor the beetle never found out that he had wings under the hard covering of his back. (This is a very nice observation on my part to be treasured all your lives. Some Gregors, some Joes and Janes, do not know that they have wings.)
I just recently ordered a kid
Good luck. The warranty is practically useless ("normal wear and tear" my ass--those shoulder joints are defective, I tell you) and restocking fees on returns are astronomical.
I'm not actually worried about the ethics of torturing roaches -- I figure they don't have any experience of pain I'd recognize. It's more the weirdness of it all: "Mom, is it okay if I control a living organism's brain with my iPhone?"
"Is your homework done?"
Considering most of human interaction with roaches involves mass extermination with chemical weapons, I'm inclined to dismiss any ethical argument over robotic control.
There's also individualized killing with shoes and newspapers.
Yes, my main ethical objection is that this involves getting too up close and personal with a roach, when roaches are best kept at a distance or flattened under a heavy old shoe.
More liberal demonization of traditional hunting culture. Some of us eat what we kill.
It would be a privacy issue, if somebody starts putting cameras on the bugs.
When was the last time Giant Mutant Cockroach commented here? That's probably your team captain.
This does mean that children as young as ten will be led into unbelievably pointless and irritating debates about animal rights, which is unethical.
I seem to have no opinion about the actual experiments, although the "we do nothing but kill them normally" justification doesn't seem super-duper robust (killing roaches in your apartment is more or less self-defense). I'm not entirely joking in the previous paragraph, though.
There is a great opportunity for a rewrite of Clarice Lispector's Passion According to G.H. here, though.
There's also individualized killing with shoes and newspapers.
Newspapers? You've never actually tried to kill a cockroach, have you?
I think she means rolling up the newspaper and swatting the roach, not bigoted editorials or anything.
The part I would object to would be my 10 year old handling a fucking roach.
Ick.
I suppose we can't robocontrol cute little white mice because that's too cruel, tho.
What about butterflies? No, dragonflies would be cooler.
There are several 10-yr-olds in my acquaintance that could use some robotic control implants of their own.
I would draw the line at stinkbugs and mosquitoes. Open season on those motherfuckers.
The other week, I started smashing stinkbugs because people say the stink attracts more and I wanted a swarm. I didn't notice that they landed any faster after I'd smashed 100 than when I started.
One might say that iphones are already equipped to control the kind of cockroaches who buy them - but of course that's the way that mobiles of any sort are marketed to advertising agencies.
(have you seen the ipad edition of the ugnadiar? It's really great. all the cool roaches have one. No, no, what are pals for? Here, let me sand that rough patch on your thorax for you. I sand your thorax, you sand mine. )
Kids just seem likelier to inflict unnecessary harm on the cockroaches, as compared to, say, an adult researcher in a lab setting.
Most 10-year-olds of my acquaintance would do this to each other without batting an eyelid, let alone a roach.
Ukfoggedatarians, I have a if not hot then reasonably warm ticket to unload. You'll have to impersonate me but surely getting in Harrowell-drag is all part of the fun: http://www.harrowell.org.uk/blog/2013/10/13/an-opportunity-that-may-never-come-again/
Also there are roaches and there are palmetto bugs which have wings and USE THEM TO FUCKING FLY. Guhhhhhhh.
In a world full of blattodea, only some want to fly. Isn't that crazy.
In parts of tropical Africa there are roaches two inches long which fly all over the place. Just thought I'd mention it, in case you were having dinner or something.
For related reasons, I won't live anywhere without a hard freeze.
Someone's never heard of the ice roaches.
Coming this winter from Discovery Channel: Ice Roach Truckers
42: also in tropical parts of my exotic backyard.
42, 47: Are weird, huge bugs part of the European stereotype for life in the southern US? Because they should be. They are about as authentically Southern as sweet tea and short stories that feature dead mules.
My high school had roaches. One time, after swim practice, I started to put on my sweat pants and there in the leg was a big old ugly crawly roach. Two inches seems about right.
When I first moved to Baltimore from a northern outpost in Soviet Canuckistan, I was truly horrified by the matter-of-fact attitude toward roaches. What?! don't you realize these little vermin pose a public health threat?! Yeah, whatever, Canada Girl. I got used to it. It's a question of climate, after all.
48. The European stereotype for life in the Southern US starts and finishes with strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. Exceptions are made for New Orleans and Disneyland.
White houses, white dresses, iced tea, food with funny names, y'all, chivalry/racism .... no, no giant bugs. Have added them to mental inventory of The South.
The iced tea has about twice as much sugar as a soda. You need to order "unsweet" or you can get diabetes standing next to the cup.
(killing roaches in your apartment is more or less self-defense)
Aren't they basically harmless?
The words of one who's never had one chew its way through his ear canal.
55: no, that's the earwigs. http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-439