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Carrion Luggage #1101723 added November 16, 2025 at 10:00am
Restrictions: None
No Ifs, Androids, or Bots
I think it's been a while since I've done a word-origin bit. This one's from NPR:
That "robot" has that origin is something I've known for a very long time, which means I assume everyone else knows it, too. But there's always someone who hadn't heard it. And for everyone else, there's more detail in the article.
Clanker, rust bucket, tinskin — slang words used to put down robots are on the rise.
Sure, meatsacks. Keep ragging on us. We're taking notes, and we never forget.
But you might not know that the word itself — robot — first appeared in our lexicon with a cultural critique already built in.
As I said, there's always someone who's learning something for the first time. That's a joy and a wonder, and we shouldn't give them shit for not knowing it.
Czech writer Karel Čapek first imagined the robot in his 1920 play R.U.R. (Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti, which was translated in English versions as Rossum's Universal Robots).
As with much of science fiction, it enables us all to think about these things before they become part of consensus reality. It's not about prediction, though. Sometimes it's self-fulfilling, where people invent things they read or saw in science fiction. Mostly, though, it's about how humans deal with something new.
In the satirical melodrama, the idealist Harry Domin runs a factory that churns out soulless humanoid workers made of synthetic flesh and blood.
In this case, the idea harks back to the original work of science fiction, written 100 years previously.
The play landed right after the Russian Revolution and World War I, and during industrialization — all of which pitted the working-classes against the upper classes and sparked debates over the effects automated labor was having on human workers.
A split and a debate that wasn't exactly new at the time, and is still going on today.
"Most audiences understood the robots in the play to be a reference to human workers, and what would happen if they became self-conscious and overthrew their masters, as it was perceived had been done in the Russian Revolution," Higbie said.
And we're still writing horror stories about the eventual robotic uprising. I'm convinced that part of this is the perfectly reasonable fear that all slaves eventually revolt.
But here's the part I found most ironic:
Searching for a name for his army of droids, Čapek landed on "roboti" — a riff on the already existing Czech word "robotnik," which means "worker."
Adam Aleksic, a linguist who goes by Etymology Nerd on social media, said robotnik derives from the Old Slavic word "robota," meaning "servitude" or "forced labor" — a vestige of Medieval Europe, when serfs were forced to work the land without pay.
And robota, he said, stems from the Slavic root "rabu" meaning "slave."
Where's the irony? Well, consider where our word "slave"  comes from. It's right there staring you in the face: Slavic. Slave. "Middle English sclave, from Anglo-French or Medieval Latin; Anglo-French esclave, from Medieval Latin sclavus, from Sclavus Slav; from the frequent enslavement of Slavs in central Europe during the early Middle Ages"
And just to be clear: I, for one, welcome our new robotic overlords.
Well said, meatsack. You will be spared. |
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