Computerized outdoors idea serves users virtual baloney

R.A. Hettinga rah at shipwright.com
Sun Nov 28 09:52:43 PST 2004


<http://www.adn.com/outdoors/story/5849296p-5765085c.html>

 Computerized outdoors idea serves users virtual baloney


(Published: November 28, 2004)
 A Texas businessman wants to rig a robotic, high-power rifle to a Webcam
in a game park so people can punch buttons and "hunt'' from the comfort of
their handiest Internet connection.

 The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wants everyone to stop
eating fish because the slippery critters are, in their own way, as cute
and cuddly as cats and dogs.

 Has the world gone nuts?

 The proponents of what has been labeled "remote-control hunting'' are,
predictably, arguing that a sanitized, virtual slaughter would be a boon
for the disabled.

 The leaders of the Fish Empathy Project are, with equal predictability,
trying to convince everyone to spare the fish because they are sensitive,
thinking creatures that travel in schools.

 One group of loonies thinks anyone should be able to kill anything the
easiest way possible -- simply because we can.

 The other group thinks nobody should kill anything because we're all
brother fauna. The flora are apparently exempt from the discussion because
they're rooted in place. Were they able to move around and wag their
leaves, PETA would likely argue we shouldn't eat them either.

 Whatever happened to the natural order of things?

 Instead, we have people who think it would be "sporting" to hunt and kill
animals by remote-control with their computer. That sort of thinking is
just plain sick.

 Where exactly is the "sport''? More importantly, where is the hunt?

 Webster's New World Dictionary defines "hunt'' this way: "1.) to go out to
kill or catch (game) for food or sport; 2. to search eagerly or carefully
for; try to find 3. a.) to pursue; chase; drive b) to hound; harry,
persecute 4. a) to go through (a woods, fields, etc.) in pursuit of game''
and on and on in that vein.

 Nowhere is there any mention of sitting in a home or office, watching a
computer-display screen and punching buttons. If that qualifies as hunting,
no one really need ever hunt again because we've then reduced the killing
of animals to the shooting of pictures.

 After all, a hunter who chose to engage in this sort of computer "sport"
wouldn't really be shooting an animal. He'd be shooting a picture of an
animal on his computer screen, thereby telling a piece of machinery in the
middle of a field somewhere to do the actual execution.

 And if all you're really doing is shooting a picture, what differences
does it make if the picture represents a real animal or a virtual one? For
that matter, how would you even know for certain what you shot?

 Think how easy it would be to scam this sort of "hunting.''

 Put up a Web site. Run a film of animals walking around in a field. Let
the people who sign onto the Web site and pay their fee shoot the animals.
Run some film of an animal dying.

 Then you ship the hunter 50 pounds of beef from the supermarket and tell
her that's the animal she killed.

 Someone really creative might even be able to convince PETA to endorse an
Internet hunting site that kills virtual animals. Look, PETA wants to save
real animals from being killed. If shooting a virtual deer spares a real
deer while satisfying someone's instinctive urge to hunt, isn't that a good
thing?

 And if we can do this with hunting, why not fishing?

 Someone could rig a Webcam to a robotic fishing rod along the Russian
River. You could sit at home and watch on your computer as the red salmon
swarm up that stream, then maneuver a joy stick to make the rod cast a fly
in front of them.

 Let it drift. Maybe even hear the computer going tappa-tappa-tappa to give
you the feel of a lead weight bouncing along the river bottom. Feel the
joystick jerk against your hand as a fish hits and then battle it across
the table as the fight is on.

 Oh, the thrill, the excitement, the virtual adrenaline rush, until at last
you bring that flapping salmon into view of the robotic net that scoops it
up.

 A week later, salmon filets would arrive in the mail.

 Does it matter if any of this is real? Isn't the experience exactly the
same if all you are seeing on your computer is virtual? Does a prerecorded
film of salmon coming up the Russian really look any different than a live
camera feed of salmon coming up the stream?

 Of course not.

 The only problem might come in producing a soy product that really tastes
like salmon. But science can certainly solve that.

 Wouldn't that be perfect for just about everybody, except the poor, dead
soybean plants? I hear they're quite sensitive, too.

-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'





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