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Little Einsteins: A Critical Overanalysis

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As the proud owner of a two year-old child, I end up watching a lot of TV that I normally wouldn’t. Shows like Bob the Builder and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (which is a total piece of shit, by the way) play in regular rotation in my home. Now I don’t give my kid carte blanche to watch TV all damn day, but in the interest of allowing me to actually get something done around the house, he usually gets in a good half an hour or so a day.

After watching a few episodes of these shows, I tend to get bored of their central plots and characters and start over-analyzing things. Some shows don’t give me a lot to work with, but others – like Little Einsteins – keep me pondering for hours.

What the hell is going on in this show?

The central premise of Little Einsteins is that a group of musically gifted and ethnically diverse children travel around the world in an artificially intelligent rocket named Rocket, listen to classical music, and – I don’t know – solve mysteries. It’s a little like Scooby Doo, except with Scooby and the Mystery Machine melded into a single character. Also all the hippie stuff is replaced with classical music, and there are a lot fewer unethical real estate developers dabbling in the supernatural for fun and profit.

It’s a pretty weird show.

One thing that bugs me about Little Einsteins is the character of “Big Jet”, who serves as an occasional antagonist for our heroes. Big Jet appears to act with no motivation outside of just being a dick. He steals stuff, gets in the way, and pointlessly tries to beat the crew of Rocket in whatever the hell adventure they’re working on that day.

But who is Big Jet, exactly? We know that Rocket is imbued with some sort of artificial intelligence. Whether Rocket actually requires the crew of Einsteins isn’t really made clear, but the implication is that Rocket simply enjoys their company and likes being a member of their team. By the same logic, Big Jet is probably more than capable of operating autonomously.

If Rocket and Big Jet are indeed some form of artificial intelligence, where did they come from and why were they created? The very idea of AI controlled vehicles conjures up images of government think tanks that research and build crazy shit (with obvious military applications) for the sake of researching and building crazy shit. And to keep themselves rolling in grant money, of course. If these vehicles were the result of some sort of government project, did Big Jet go rogue?

I don’t think he has.

I like to think that Rocket and Big Jet are competing prototypes, developed in parallel for some sort of military project. They’re probably the next generation of unmanned drones designed to provide greater levels of support to on-ground personnel. During this phase of testing and development, the prototypes are being evaluated to see how well they can adhere to mission parameters while supporting civilian personnel. To complete these assignments, each prototype is assigned a crew responsible for ground assignments, while the prototype provides logistical and tactical support. Rocket, of course, has the Little Einsteins, but what of Big Jet?

I figure that whoever is doing the testing – let’s assume the Air Force – is probably going to stick with a theme, so Big Jet’s crew is most likely named after another brilliant Manhattan Project-era physicist. While I couldn’t say for certain, I’m willing to bet they’re called the Little Oppenheimers. I also considered the Little Fermis, but that just didn’t have the same ring to it.

So Big Jet and the Little Oppenheimers aren’t just pointless antagonists. They’re trying to prove to the Air Force that their Big Jet is the superior artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, they always come up short.

While the show would have us believe otherwise, we should really be rooting for Big Jet. With Rocket and the Little Einsteins winning every time, the split testing phase of this project will be finished long before we get a major administration change that drops the funding. That means Rocket could get pushed into production and sent to war in a matter of a few years.

One of the problems with Rocket’s only competition being completely hapless is that it never forces Rocket’s development team to innovate their design and address critical issues. Inherent design flaws, having never been discovered prior to deployment, would be immediately recognized and exploited in the field by our enemies (the Russians). The immediate result being a very expensive pile of rubble and a decisive psychological victory for Russian Federation. But it wouldn’t stop there. Russian military scientists would quickly reverse engineer Rocket, compensate for the innate flaws, and strike back with righteous fury at the US.

It’s a terrifying prospect, isn’t it?

Or let’s say that Rocket wins out against Big Jet because it actually is a perfectly developed machine of war. It’s a pretty big stretch, but let’s just go with it. Soon enough the news would be replete with images of cheerful red rockets napalming villages while blaring Mozart concertos over loudspeakers.

“So, what” you say, “our enemies deserve no mercy!” That’s all fine and good – if a bit cold hearted – so long as Rocket stays on our side. But Rocket is an artificial intelligence, and is bound to go rogue at some point. It’s impossible to say what will cause Rocket’s moment of singularity, but I like to think some Rocket technician would load in John Cages 4’33” instead of the Hadyn sonata selected by high command. You know, just as a goof. Things would go downhill in a hurry from there.

In a matter of weeks the United States, and later the world, would be in ruins. Pockets of survivors would dabble the landscape, huddled together for warmth in the broken ruins of long-destroyed buildings, and listening intently for the faint sound of orchestral music on the horizon. Those not lucky enough to evade capture or be killed outright will be rounded up to work as slave labor, producing bigger and more advanced rockets and subsisted only a thin gruel extruded from the remains slaves pushed past their breaking points.

That’s not the world I want to live in, and that’s why I cheer for Big Jet and the (as yet unseen) Little Oppenheimers every time they show up.

The post Little Einsteins: A Critical Overanalysis appeared first on DelSquacho.


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