Who built this Uncanny Valley here?

[lotus0kid]

Had an off-putting experience after I made it to the beach yesterday. I had just gotten in (after an extra hour sitting in traffic DX), and I wandered into the kitchen while my mom was outside doing something, and sitting on the counter I noticed a glass jar with a butterfly inside. The butterfly was small-ish and kind of monarch-colored, and it

Comments

[visiblemarket]

Okay, going beyond the Uncanny Valley thing, what on earth is the point of this? I mean this has to qualify for some Cracked.com article about "The 5 Most Pointless Uses of Robotic Technology" or something. Like I can get why you'd buy such a thing, theoretically, but why would you come up with the idea for it, design it, get some produced for five cents each in some Chinese factory, and then market it as a "Fascinating, beautiful nature toy."? I'm just utterly perplexed.

Although I'm kind of amused at the idea of kind-hearted people trying to free the poor trapped robot butterfly.

[lotus0kid]

You're right. I'm just thinking of the scientists spending hours and hours studying the movements and behavior of butterflies so they can mimic it with.. whatever tech's in that toy. It only costs $11.99 too, at least where my folks got it.

I find it genuinely upsetting to see the poor little thing batting itself against the glass, then dropping to the side, trembling, no doubt confused and frightened by this strange, translucent, utterly inescapable environment. Though it helps when it's quiet- a moment ago I said something I never expected to say: "I can hear the engine on the butterfly now."

[visiblemarket]

I don't know if that's more or less insulting, that it's so cheap. Like yaaay, the average person can afford to have an unholy imitation of natural beauty in an cruelly enclosed environment all their very own...The whole thing kind of reminds me about that story, The Emperor and the Nightingale, actually. For $11.99.

"I can hear the engine on the butterfly now."

That's borderline creepy Isaac Asimov stuff right there, you know.

[lotus0kid]

Heh, well, if it helps, let's just say the robot butterfly loves its home and finds sublime pleasure in flapping around the glass.

*snort* If only I'd read Asimov...