I was emboldened by news last week that robotics finally made the technological leap forward necessary to create the one thing that can conceivably save our country from collapsing under the weight of our own self-importance — lying robot politicians.
From this moment forward, America can fashion its future with hypocritical androids instead of relying on weak humans with their annoying gray areas and tendency toward consensus.
Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley have introduced an “electronic skin” that senses touch using confusing things like nanoparticles and complex polymers. The details were published in a scientific journal last week, but the vital point to take away from this invention is the fact this e-skin can be sewn onto an android for hours of non-lethal handshakes and photo ops.
As if heralded by angels, an experiment at Georgia Tech completed the necessary ingredients for artificial statesmanship with the inception of the first lying robot. This robot liar, according to an article in the London Daily Mail, could behave deceptively by laying a false trail about its movements. It can also tailor its trickery of other robots based on how much knowledge it has of the robot it attempts to deceive.
From this description, it sounds like our robot liar is already campaigning for the fall elections.
Think of all the money our country would save if all we needed to do was switch off our politicians at night and plug them into a standard wall socket. As it stands, it costs more than $5 million a year to feed Nancy Pelosi (she can reportedly eat her body weight in arugula within seven minutes of it being placed in her cage) and keep John Boehner slathered in organic Thousand Island dressing nightly to preserve his luminescent tan.
Entourages of aides could be lopped from the federal payroll in an instant if we stood strong and elected only lying robots instead of actual humans to higher office.
Reprogramming based on the latest polls would be as easy as the push of a button, and the teleprompter could be eliminated entirely.
The advent of bureaucratic androids even bodes well for upstart political movements like our Tea Party Patriots.
The Tea Party has thus far struggled with an identity crisis, mostly based on the fact it’s a nebulous concoction of nonsensical libertarians and limp Pentecostals.
Tea Partiers are having a heck of a time finding a legislative agenda that fits their varied needs, and the closest they have come to a political plan is an idea to pack the Supreme Court with the righteous southern rockers .38 Special and the remaining members of Lynyrd Skynyrd.
With the ability to build precisely the right lying robot to suit their requirements, Tea Party Patriots could rally behind a candidate who stands for every ideal they hold dear and represents exactly who they want to pilot our country into an uncertain and murky future: Rambo Jesus, wearing a tuxedo T-shirt and a camo hat from Bass Pro Shops.
Tommy Maple is an international communications graduate student. His column appears every Tuesday.
