XKCD: It's more than a comic

Dead Unicorn Trope?

Edited by Twiddler on Nov 13th 2018 at 12:43:01 PM

Milhouse Is Not A Meme?

Herostratus' Fame?

The Streisand Effect? Though that one's more "Complaining about it draws more attention to the thing being complained about than keeping silent", I suppose.

Arguably a major factor in Herostratus's fame.

Ive never heard of Herostratus before. What do you know.

The Streisand Effect is trying to hide something makes it more noticed. I think that Dead Unicorn Trope fits best. It doesn't say that the trope never exists, but at least it was never as prevalent as the parodies (or in this case, complaints) make us think.

Edited by petersohn on Nov 13th 2018 at 8:25:25 PM

Evaluating Tech Things

AKA "Exploring Consequences vs. Rule of Cool", or as the alt-text put it, "The Black Mirror-Mythbusters Scale".

What's the harm of flying a drone into a tornado? Sounds like it's just a write off of some expensive equipment for a cool video.

Well, as an individual act it's not a big deal, but I guess it's an indication of wastefulness and a lack of appreciation for human advancement.

How do you even get the drone IN there? Tornadoes are part of huge storm systems. Just getting to the actual funnel would be quite a feat for a drone.

Ah, true. I guess it's like those people that break their legs trying to get a good selfie while hiking or whatever.

Now I'm just thinking if it would be possible to specially design a drone for this exact task

I think it would be a ringing endorsement for human advancement to fly a drone for a cool video. That's something we haven't done until recently. And destroying a drone isn't the same as a human getting injured. The point of a drone is that it's more expendable than a human.

brb calling the drone rights protection society

got some serious hate speech going on here

I think at that point you might as well ask to design a helicopter or plane that can survive flying into a hurricane.

Edited by Redmess on Nov 14th 2018 at 12:29:09 PM

Why? Helicopters and planes are bigger and more expensive. And if the drone does need to be big and expensive to survive the tornado, the only difference is that it's remote-controlled, which is still enough of a positive for the drone to be the better option.

I really don't get this comic. It's acting like there's something morally wrong with flying a drone into a tornado, when it's merely expensive. I'm sure there's plenty of valuable scientific data we could gather by flying any sort of recording device into the middle of a tornado. Maybe not quite enough to be worth the expense, but that's up for debate.

Truthfully, I read it less as a condemnation, and more a "society is changing, maybe at an accelerated pace, due to these technologies". Of course, there's prior art for civilians flying drones into tornadoes.

We are regularly throwing away huge rockets (and spacecraft into other planets) For Science!. What's wasteful about building a drone for the specific purpose of flying into a tornado once and possibly gets destroyed in the process?

I believe the motive behind the act is the key.

Throwing away multi-million dollar equipment for an act that would potentially result in the benefit for the whole humanity is not the same as destroying a thousand dollar drone just for lulz.

Which, admittedly, is not that wasteful, especially compared to other forms of entertainment.

Edited by Millership on Nov 16th 2018 at 2:35:17 AM

If the drone gathers valuable scientific data while flying the drone to a tornado, it is hardly wasted money. Even if it's done only for entertainment, people have been wasting much more on that even without the use of cutting edge technology than a single drone. Think of sports events.

I think rockets and satelites being crashed into other planets and moons is a bit different though, since those have reached the end of their life cycle and mission, and they have no option for being returned home in one piece (if they were, that would be even more expensive). The alternative would be to have those satelites deactivate and just drift aimlessly through space, where they can form a potential hazard to other satelites (which is the OTHER reason they are routinely destroyed like that).

In this case, the purpose of the drone is to crash into the tornado. Either that, or make a tornado-proof drone, whichever is more expensive.

You mean less expensive?

As a resident of Tornado Alley, gathering scientific data on tornadoes may not be as sexy as crashing probes on other planets, but has more immediate significance to folks like me.

Scientific study of tornadic activity is still young. Flying a drone into an active tornado could give us all kinds of new data.