Nothing against disabled people but how come I can't replace my arm with something augmented that can carry more weight? Also other parts? My disabled bro asked me this and got me thinking
You want an exoskeleton. No need to replace your arm, just wear something that augments it, and the rest of your body.
There are some great ones in sci fi, but google ot and see the ones available in real life
The exoskeleton we want:
The exoskeleton we have:
I mean, we have both and more. From japanese folks using small type to a full blown sci-fi robot exoskeleton.
Pretty much what everyone already said The force you want to move affects your whole body, you move objects against the effects of gravity, therefore your whole body needs to be in action. If you lift something over your head you put yourself between the object and the center of gravity, so your whole body needs to withstand the force of both Wich brings us to either an exoskelleton or an replacement, or Augmentation, of almost all your bones and muscles
So, I gotta ask, are you redantman in disguise? Because he had a habit of asking questions that looked silly and simple on the surface, but weren't.
So, the first big barrier is that we don't have the tech to make an arm that can exceed human levels of strength without damaging something. It also hasn't developed to where the really strong options can fit into an arm sized package yet. Hydraulics can do crazy stuff, but you can't pack it into an arm and get super strength.
The second barrier to having a limb that's super strong is that it'll rip itself off, or you'll be limited to the strength of the rest of your body.
So, if you aren't familiar, go look up "hang clean" on your favorite video site.
It's a power lifting move, and it was my specialty, though I dabbled in the clean and clean and jerk some. Weightlifting terminology is weird lol
Point being, your max lift on a clean is not limited by your arms as much as you might think, even though you'd think that your grip strength is a hard limit. If you had a powerarm™ and did a clean, you'd still be limited my what your legs can do, right? That's where you really explode from. Yeah, if your arms and hands are too weak, you can't finish the lift, but having jacked arms ain't gonna get the bar up
But it doesn't stop there, where it's obvious that the lower body is the limit.
Curls. Even single arm curls, you're still using the rest of your body. The shoulder is engaged, the trap, pec and even lat on that side engage you stabilize and contribute to the lift.
And, that continues in a chain all the way down to wherever body is in contact with the ground. Weight machines can shorten the path, but only by putting you in contact with the ground via the machine.
You get CYBERPUMP ™ installed, and you're still limited by whatever the bones and muscles it's connected to can support. If you get too far over that, you could just end up with the
So you don't want a super powered arm. You want a prosthetic that matches your overall strength levels. If you want enhanced strength, it would need to be all over, via an exo-suit, or something similar.
Now, the reason that your bro can't get top end prosthetics that at least match as close as possible to a "natural" arm is that we live in a capitalist dystopia where we prioritize the profits of the few over actual benefit to the many. Not that an amputee would automatically get bleeding edge tech in an non capitalist world either, they'd end up on a waiting list until the very resource intensive high tech stuff was available, but still
we don’t have the tech to make an arm that can exceed human levels of strength without damaging something.
What if I don't need it to be gentile? Maybe I want to be Doctor Octopuss from spiderman, and just smash the city with big metalic arms. There's nothing wrong with wanting to destroy the world, because this world SUCKS! Have you seen......ya know, things??? I don't know a single person who's like "Yes, things are certainly going well."
I think it was meant as "without damaging something in your body".
Well, I guess a nice jewish arm would also be nice, but the gentile ones don't have to have the tip snipped
Sorry, the typo made me giggle
I'm with you! Supervillain origin story: go!
But, you want limits on what a piece of machinery strapped to you can do.
Ever see somebody lifting super huge weights, and the muscle just rips off and rolls up? Or someone carrying something huge and heavy (like my johnson) and take a step just a little wrong and bye-bye knee?
You get a mechanical arm, it's gotta be hooked to you. If the attachment is something like a strap, it doesn't matter what the arm can do, the strap is the weak point, and will eventually fail.
If the arm is grafted onto bone and muscle, guess what the weak point is. The arm can maybe lift a ton, but what actually happens is that either the ton just sits there while your arm pulls you to it; or, your arm pulls itself off of you in a spray of blood and gristle
Honestly, the first one of what would really happen if you were trying to pick something up. You don't have the mass and stability to move something that heavy, you'll get pulled to it.
But, let's say you're strapped to a crane by unbreakable chains. Then, pop-pop goes the shoulder right out of socket, tearing the flesh around it until the arm stops pulling.
Most likely, whatever would be translating your wishes to the arm would stop sending a signal after whatever connection broke, but if it was not done right, it would get ugly fast.
I don't think the technology is there yet where artificial would routinely beat physical.
You can get more raw strength out of a machine, but our biological bodies are something incredible, really. And when you need extra strength, there are machines you can operate with your body (e.g. with your fingers!) and leave behind when you don't need them.
From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me.
It's a good question. One of the major examples are wheelchairs. They could be much faster then they are but they are deliberately restricted to leg speed. Of course for safety reasons and so on but its kinda obvious that we don't trust anyone disabled to excel non-disabled people.
Counter-point to that would be blade-style leg prostheses, with which 'disabled' people can acheive speeds far greater than non-augmented people.
Check out Ian Davis' prosthetic hand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kixS5Sy0F9s
In at least one of his videos, he demonstrates a 'lock under load' feature that enables him to lift fairly heavy objects.
I don't think you'd get any magic superhuman powers, but it's pretty badass regardless.
Love Ian Davis man, such a cool channel.
While you wait, I suggest reading the book called Machine Man by Max Barry which is a fictional story about a person doing just that.
Money and lack of scientific reasearch or surgical knowledge are i think your primary limiting factors.
This. This is a stupid question.
Because when you lift something, you're not just using your arm, you're using your whole body. Having an arm that could carry heavy weights would put large amounts of stress on the rest of your body as well, which would not be able to handle it. More importantly, the transition between prosthetic and flesh would be exposed to high stresses and current prosthetics technology is not able to handle those.
That’s what I was thinking. You might have an arm that can carry 400lbs but man, that would screw up your shoulder and back.
I guess the only solution is to become a full borg. That way, every titanium bone would be rated to handle superhuman stress and you could cary much more.
You're touching on where "dad stength" and, uh, R-word strength comes from. Our brains limit us from tearing ourselves to pieces.
Our old guy brains still think we're 25 and act accordingly, and we fuck ourselves up. People with Down's don't have the limiter, so they appear to be super strong.