Competition from the Warmongers

Now that I have resolved to build the world's most amazing powered suit, I have to study my competition. The current "leader" in the powered suit business is SARCOS. Watch this video here, it's impressive.

Well, it's impressive right up until you realize that the suit has rudimentary hook hands and you really can't "grab" anything.

As an exercise, make your index and middle finger into a "hook" and curl up your other fingers, including your thumb. Now go to the fridge and try to make yourself a sandwich or open a bottle of wine. Pretty tough with hooks, isn't it? Powered suits really aren't any good if you can't use them!

I won't deny the controls integration of the SARCOS suit is leaps and bounds ahead of the one I have sketched out. But am I honestly the only person who has thought a power-augmented hand should be the first order of business, and then you should build from there? Humans really have two things that separate them from all other animal species: upright, running stature and a keen intellect coupled to the power to devise and use tools.

The argument is long to make, and I don't really want to do it here. The point at which I would eventually arrive is that there is a separation between the military complex and the civilian need and the division is that the military complex doesn't require hands, just hooks. A soldier can easily lift a 400 lb bomb up under a plane wing with hooks, then an assisting soldier clamps it in place. A soldier can have several hundred pounds of ammo and equipment stacked on his power assisted suit, then hike it for miles, never once needing his hands.
But in the civilian world, the applications for powered suits almost always requires hands. Perhaps assembly line workers could assemble larger pieces of machinery, or carry more product, if they had a powered suit. This would be difficult with hooks but simple with power-assisted hands. Think of something you've tried to do that required you to strain yourself. Chances are, it would be a lot easier if you had a powered suit, but would require hands to do it.
My personal favorite example is the idea of moving into a new home. Wouldn't it be easier (faster and more efficient too) to unload all that heavy furniture if you had a powered suit? But would your wife be okay with you putting hook-holds in the sides of the leather couch? Better buy the suit with hands.

But the research funding is all military. Seems like any time you mention "super-soldier" you get instant Army dollars, and a guaranteed article in Popular Science.

I guess maybe I'm just a whiny pacifist on this one, but I just don't think it's a good investment of a human mind to devise better ways of killing one another. Seems like the civilian sector is where this research should be conducted. The problem is that the DOD has a $530 billion budget, and the NIH (which funds private research) has a budget roughly 1/20th of that.

The argument could be (and usually is) that government research eventually trickles down to civilians, like Velcro and Tang, but I guess my problem is that I don't want powered suits to trickle down from soldiers to civilians. I don't even want there to be soldiers. I dream of a peaceful (though far-fetched world) where no one fights with anyone else, and making deadlier soldiers seems (though in the best interest of good defense) converse to the idea of preserving and raising the quality of life. I'd much rather see a powered suit in the hands of Tony Stark than in the hands of Obadiah Stane, to rip right from the movies.


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