Does the USA have a cultural propensity towards violence? - Hitchbot destroyed in Philly

onenerdykid

onenerdykid

Active member
While there are many examples one could use to illustrate this topic, I stumbled across this article this morning:

http://www.iflscience.com/technology/hitchhiking-robot-manages-two-weeks-us-being-destroyed

If you're unfamiliar with the story, a group of Canadian researchers developed a robot whose goal it was to document a hitchhike across Canada, parts of Euroland, and across the USA. It would survive the trip solely relying on the benevolence of the people wanting to further its journey. More here

hitchbot_0.jpg


Hitchbot made it completely across Canada and Germany unharmed, but after only 2 weeks into its trip across the USA, he was destroyed in Philadelphia:

CLYCn5GXAAEzo5W.jpg


So America, what's the deal?

Are people here just so far gone that the only way they can express themselves is through violence?

Definitely a bummer, this was a cool experiment.
 
Can't wait for the "It's just easier to care about dead robots than dead people." thread.
 
Poorly timed travel plans. New terminator movie is in theaters, people ae more aware of the dangers of robots
 
topic:onenerdykid said:
after only 2 weeks into its trip across the USA, he was destroyed in Philadelphia:

So America, what's the deal? .
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Umm it's Philadelphia. If you had it go to anywhere else and avoid cities like Baltimore, New York, a few parts of New Jersey and stuck to rural areas the robot would still be fine.
 
Americans are pretty scared right now, but I think that it was just some fuckhead who thought it would be funny to mutilate a robot
 
13473365:.Hugo. said:
Because people out east suck ass
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I'll have you know, sir, I'm about as east as east can get, and I've never once destroyed a hitch-hiking robot.
 
13473361:C.Smith said:
Umm it's Philadelphia. If you had it go to anywhere else and avoid cities like Baltimore, New York, a few parts of New Jersey and stuck to rural areas the robot would still be fine.
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Which may be true, but the robot did travel to big cities in Canada (Vancouver, Toronto) and in Germany (Berlin, Munich, Cologne, Hamburg) too. It didn't stick to the safety of the countryside. Sure the US cities might be more dangerous, but that is the question/topic of this thread...
 
13473383:Watts said:
I'll have you know, sir, I'm about as east as east can get, and I've never once destroyed a hitch-hiking robot.
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Maybe not in the context of this event, but we all know you cant say the same thing about destroying a hitchhiking robot sexually
 
13473393:.Hugo. said:
Maybe not in the context of this event, but we all know you cant say the same thing about destroying a hitchhiking robot sexually
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Well, you've got me there.

Do people on the west coast not routinely sodomize robots? How odd.
 
13473403:Watts said:
Do people on the west coast not routinely sodomize robots? How odd.
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I mean, at least Hitchbot wasn't raped before he was decapitated. Philly's not exactly showing their good side on this one, but I don't think the citizens of Philadelphia would stoop that low. But, I could be wrong...
 
It doesn't help that one of the social norms in the US is to be scared of anything that the media doesn't deem to be ordinary and a foreign talking hitchhiking robot certainly goes against several norms while dealing with your problems through violence is quite normal in the US and this is a run-on sentence.
 
13473418:VinnieF said:
It doesn't help that one of the social norms in the US is to be scared of anything that the media doesn't deem to be ordinary and a foreign talking hitchhiking robot certainly goes against several norms while dealing with your problems through violence is quite normal in the US and this is a run-on sentence.
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What? Let me get this straight. You're suggesting the reason that hitchbot was destroyed is because American's were scared of it due to media?

The hitchbot was destroyed because some drunk asshole stumbled upon it one night in Philly. That's it. Is it dumb? Totally. A completely shitty thing to do. Unfortunately, there are drunk asshole everywhere. Not just in Philly, and not just in the US.
 
13473430:DockEllis said:
What? Let me get this straight. You're suggesting the reason that hitchbot was destroyed is because American's were scared of it due to media?

The hitchbot was destroyed because some drunk asshole stumbled upon it one night in Philly. That's it. Is it dumb? Totally. A completely shitty thing to do. Unfortunately, there are drunk asshole everywhere. Not just in Philly, and not just in the US.
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He just loves to hate on the us because he is jealous of us while he is stuck in canadia.
 
13473426:~Gotama~ said:
This was the action of an individual: not a city, cultural group, or nation.
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Probably would've happened in any other city in America it made it to anyway. You guys fuckin suck. This thing made it through fucking QUEBEC alive, it was destined for glory.
 
13473430:DockEllis said:
What? Let me get this straight. You're suggesting the reason that hitchbot was destroyed is because American's were scared of it due to media?

The hitchbot was destroyed because some drunk asshole stumbled upon it one night in Philly. That's it. Is it dumb? Totally. A completely shitty thing to do. Unfortunately, there are drunk asshole everywhere. Not just in Philly, and not just in the US.
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I'm saying it's more likely for a drunk idiot to destroy something abnormal in the US then in other similar countries around the world.
 
13473442:VinnieF said:
I'm saying it's more likely for a drunk idiot to destroy something abnormal in the US then in other similar countries around the world.
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And how does the US's social norm of being scared of the media play into that? Just trying to clarify.
 
13473446:DockEllis said:
And how does the US's social norm of being scared of the media play into that? Just trying to clarify.
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Not being scared of the media. Being scared because of the media. A good and relevant example is hitch hiking. Media pretty much killed hitchhiking by painting it in a poor light as being dangerous and done by criminals and weirdos.
 
1. All human beings have a propensity for violence as our frontal lobes are improperly developed. Blame evolution.

2. This is just some drunk dude from Philly (obviously it had to be Philly) doing something jerk-like and is not evidence of anything.
 
13473459:THEDIRTYBUBBLE said:
Why does the US tend to have more of these types of individuals
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Are you guys actually trying to make an argument or just expressing your opinions based on pure emotion?
 
13473426:~Gotama~ said:
This was the action of an individual: not a city, cultural group, or nation.
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13473442:VinnieF said:
I'm saying it's more likely for a drunk idiot to destroy something abnormal in the US then in other similar countries around the world.
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13473502:J.D. said:
1. All human beings have a propensity for violence as our frontal lobes are improperly developed. Blame evolution.

2. This is just some drunk dude from Philly (obviously it had to be Philly) doing something jerk-like and is not evidence of anything.
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Agreeing with JD in that we've all got the potential for this type of behavior, it is interesting that it survived all of those other cities, which for sure have drunk people stumbling around being obnoxious in their own way, much of the time far later into the night/morning than in the USA. Munich (home of Oktoberfest) isn't exactly a sober city, with lots of young people out partying until 8am...

This could very well be a case of simple "wrong place, wrong time" kind of thing but also obvious that people are saying "well yeah, it's Philly", that should indicate something about how Americans view the opportunity to destroy something and get away with it. For sure that same opportunity existed in Germany, yet no one took advantage of it...
 
i mean you've got to remember that its an incredibly small sample size, if you were to do this again with maybe 500 robots you would get a better picture, would be interesting to see what happens. As stated earlier there are bad parts of every country
 
13473392:onenerdykid said:
Which may be true, but the robot did travel to big cities in Canada (Vancouver, Toronto) and in Germany (Berlin, Munich, Cologne, Hamburg) too. It didn't stick to the safety of the countryside. Sure the US cities might be more dangerous, but that is the question/topic of this thread...
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You can't even come close to comparing the level of safety of our (Canada) major cities to the big US ones. We have so many social programs to support low-income families, and way less income inequality.

Canada just isn't as hard as the USA, plain and simple. I mean we hardly have handguns.... our criminals usually just engage in moose fights to settle their differences. :)
 
This thread largely appears to be evidence in the case that millenials have a tendency to draw sweeping conclusions from studies of n=1.
 
13473575:Mr.Bishop said:
You can't even come close to comparing the level of safety of our (Canada) major cities to the big US ones. We have so many social programs to support low-income families, and way less income inequality.

Canada just isn't as hard as the USA, plain and simple. I mean we hardly have handguns.... our criminals usually just engage in moose fights to settle their differences. :)
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No doubt, and you touch upon some points as to why it might be that way. I find it interesting and I think we need to ask "why is this considered normal/expected" and figure out the reasons why/behind the violence and desire to destroy things, because (as everyone is saying) it's not as rampant in some other cultures/countries. That many people's reaction is "duh, this is normal" hopefully triggers the next question of "well, why do we consider it normal here but not in some other areas?". And for sure, it is way worse in some other places too. I just think there is something deeper here that needs examination, questioning, and answering.
 
13473608:cobra_commander said:
This thread largely appears to be evidence in the case that millenials have a tendency to draw sweeping conclusions from studies of n=1.
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I love dropping the N=1 on people. Well played good sir.
 
some of you are thinking way too deep into this, which is fine. but its really just some drunk asshole from philly (wow, surprise surprise) that was responsible, not some commentary on the state of society and how humans interact with each other or something.

its an interesting take but its really just drunk bullshit we should just forgive and forget about
 
As a Philly native, I find this hilarious because it IS a typical Philly thing to do. That said, it would happen in dozens of other cities across the country, so it's not just "a Philly thing." It was one drunk guy, that's it.

And the feel good side of the story is that a couple philly guys (surprise surprise) started a Kickstarter to raise the funds to rebuild it and get him back on his journey.

So how 'bout a round of applause for the good side of Philly?
 
The robot definitely had it coming. It was out past curfew by itself. Obviously this robot was 13 years and under and shouldn't be on the streets after 9PM
 
13473821:johnnyBuz said:
As a Philly native, I find this hilarious because it IS a typical Philly thing to do. That said, it would happen in dozens of other cities across the country, so it's not just "a Philly thing." It was one drunk guy, that's it.

And the feel good side of the story is that a couple philly guys (surprise surprise) started a Kickstarter to raise the funds to rebuild it and get him back on his journey.

So how 'bout a round of applause for the good side of Philly?
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first the scum of philly destroys a robot, next they start a kickstarter to take other peoples money to rebuild it? philly gives america a bad name. both violent AND entitled. pay for it yourself philadelphia
 
Dafuq???

One douchebag destroys a robot and the world paints the broadest picture possible as a result. Let's dial it in here for a second.

Philly is a shithole and it is absolutely filled to the brim with angry, bitter dickheads. I went to a football game in Philly once as a 10yo kid and was nearly beat up by grown ass men for cheering a touchdown. Fuck Philadelphia. Twice. Nothing brotherly or loving at all in that oversized dumpster unless you're a shitfaced asshole Eagles fan talking to another... Hell the guy who broke the bot was wearing a Cunningham jersey lol- old school anger right there. He was probably on his way to slowly pluck doves and saw an opportunity to earn another Philly dickhead merit badge. It's what they do. Every time I've gone I've regretted it.

I've been to a lot of cities- the one I live just outside beats Compton in violent statistics every year- and let me say that Philly is by far the shittiest. So yeah, don't blame the whole country, blame Philly. They deserve it and you can get a great cheesesteak in any fucking city dammit.
 
why do I feel like no matter which american city this happened in, the response would be "oh well, there are bad people and neighborhoods everywhere."

that thing probably had a better chance hitchhiking down the gaza strip
 
I go to school in Philly, and let me tell you. You could get jumped, robbed, stabbed, meet the nicest person in the world, get a solid cheesesteak, become a dad, jumped, and watch Meek Mill ride his dirt bike down the street all in one day.

Depending where you are stuff gets real.

(I say jumped twice because my room mate got jumped for textbooks on campus and I know some other guy who got jumped the same day at an ATM)

((Textbooks!!! These people doing the jumping are smart, didn't even take his iPhone, went straight for the money bags of college books.))

Moral of the post, don't leave robots in Philly or they will get jumped.
 
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