Would it be worth it?

[Astonished]

I think an iRobot situation would absolutely be worth it. It would save us from religion and save us from ourselves.

Sure, the robots in iRobot keep you in your homes which is pretty fucking extreme. But I always try to go out the minimum anyways. So it's hardly a change for me. All I do is shopping.

You don't even have to go out for that anymore. My wife buys literally everything online even though she could buy some of it in person locally. Return policies are very liberal now; some vendors will let you order different sizes and colors of clothes or shoes to pick from and then send the rest back at no cost.

Sometimes I have to break down a surprisingly tall stack of empty shipping boxes for the biweekly recycling pickup; seems like there's a package on the front porch every damn day. It would be alot if it weren't for the fact it's the ONLY conduit into the house for necessities as well as optionals other than groceries.

Even our local grocer will take orders online and deliver to your door; this is the one excuse for an outing that my wife still retains for herself, or she'd probably take them up on that, too.

Meanwhile there was a guy outside on my street a few minutes ago with a VR headset strapped to his face and a VR glove in his hand. Clearly doesn't understand that you don't go out in public like that. But my point there is, pretty soon there will be NO experience you have to leave your dwelling to have, and quite a few you can get at home that you can't get anywhere in real life.

I used to look dimly on all this but after the events of the past couple of years in human affairs, I'm not so sure it's even a Bad Thing.

No, no, no, this hypothetical wouldn't even be as restrictive as that. People would be encouraged not to stay at home, and go out and (at the very least) exercise, if not also socialize, attend school and/or jobs or create public works of art or join collaborative efforts of charity like roadside trash pickup and whatnot. It's just that if, while out and about and around others, we attempted to bring harm to them or property, we would be forcefully restrained until we decided against those actions or could be incarcerated on a more long-term basis if we were too out-of-control to be talked down from whatever sociopathic behavior we were going to act upon.

The main difference is, those who didn't have homes would be given shelter, and food, and water, to meet all their basic needs. Basically the entire status quo would be reset. People like doctors and scientists would occupy the top rung once everyone got acclimated (but other than having the resources they need to do their jobs as best they can, I don't see there being any real economic privilege), and then everyone would have every opportunity to pursue that sort of high degree, or choose not to if they weren't interested.

Ideally the mechanism by which this restraint of our worse nature (whether robots run by an advanced AI or an advanced alien civilization) would want to help us foster independence and self-sufficiency within our own globe, so until we reached a level by which they would no longer need to help us meet basic needs or continue to advance at the rate they'd helped us reach, they would facilitate all of that towards that ultimate goal.