So the Boobz are getting worked up – again – over some imaginary “proposed legislation” to ban sexbots. Vox Day, one of the esteemed elder statesmen of the right-wing of the manosphere, has resurrected an urban legend that first fooled his comrades about two years ago, reposting a “statement” of mysterious Canadian origin explaining that
provisions have been proposed for the new Human-Robot Personal Relationship Act, the first draft of which is currently being finalized.The provisions are specifically meant to target the concerns that were expressed at the roundtable that sexbots will negatively impact the pursuit for gender equality and may unduly emphasize the objectification of women as sexual objects.The suggested provisions fall into the larger framework of regulating the emerging service robot industry that will be governed by the Human-Robot Personal Relationship Act and under the direction of the Ministry of Robots and Artificial Intelligence, to be established in Ontario and other Canadian provinces and territories at the end of next year.
The main provision of this dastardly Femi-Canadian proposed legislation?
The use of sexbots in the privacy of one’s home is prohibited, unless otherwise permitted by the Ministry of Robots and Artificial intelligence or a relevant regulating agency as per the criteria outlined in the Human-Robot Personal Relationship Act.
You may wonder: Why didn’t I read anything in the papers about this Human-Robot Personal Relationship Act? Why haven’t I heard about this Ministry of Robots and Artificial Intelligence?
Well, you guessed it. Because neither of them exist. I looked into this two years ago when the story first, er, broke in the manosphere. There’s no vast feminist conspiracy to deny Canadian men (or, for that matter, women) their still-imaginary sexbots. The “statement” was evidently written as part of a law school class project on law and robotics taught by Prof. Ian Kerr at the University of Ottawa Law School.
If you Google “Human-Robot Personal Relationship Act” or “Ministry of Robots and Artificial Intelligence” you will find that literally the only people talking about this issue are MRAs and PUAs and conspiracy theorists. And some of the more gullible 4channers, though a few of them quickly figured out that the whole thing was fake. (As did the Real Doll enthusiasts.)
Vox Day, who has yet to come to this realization, draws some dire conclusions from this thing that isn’t real, declaring that the
This Canadian attempt to preemptively ban sexbots is an overt confession by feminists of both sexes concerning their belief that women have nothing significant to offer men but sexual services. Moreover, it is proof that their “pursuit for gender equality” is directly and fundamentally opposed to the most basic human freedom. …
One would think that even those only superficially acquainted with human history would realize that attempts to put the technological genie back in the bottle almost always fail, as do attempts to prevent men and women from pursuing pleasure in ways deemed illicit. But then, a near-complete ignorance of human history is required to either be a feminist or possess a genuine belief in the rainbow-tailed unicorn of equality.
Well, not so much. Though Vox proves yet again that there are few people on planet earth as gullible as the manosphere’s pompous philosophers.
NOTE: Vox isn’t the only manospherian up in arms about the evil imaginary sexbot ban; more on this tomorrow.
I swear it’s like these guys watched the first part of Cherry 2000 and not the full movie (or they did and completely missed the point) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_2000
Also the idea that maybe women would get their own sexbots never seems to occur to them? Do they really think that if sexbots are as awesome as they think they are that women wouldn’t get their own?
Abnoyance: Who on earth conflates sex robot with dildo/vibrator? The former is an entire-human being sex replacement, the latter is just a parts replacement.
I can’t think of any person who has said to me, “I wish my dildo had a better sense of humour”, or “I enjoy the comments that my vibrator says”.
Also, sex toys can actually be used when one has a partner (partners), either for solo time or to enhance the experience with the other (others). It doesn’t have to be an either/or arrangement.
Kim — I’d still classify that as programmed then, but I’m not sure robots with the level of free will we have will ever exist (and the free will discussion isn’t really relevant here, as this problem seems to apply to all the definitions I can think of)
But hey, I’m tired, and could well be missing something!
@Noadi, if the idea that (some) women would like their own sex robot/s, did they consider that some of those preferences would be for same-gender? Or did they think that women could only want male robots?
Obviously, they have own robot partners too. For instance, I do know of gay/dyke/bi nerds, amusingly enough. Velvet Divorce is how civilized people conduct secession i.e. the Czechs and Slovaks.
You don’t think anyone you know has seen the movie A.I.? or Serenity? or watched Buffy? They might not ever think about it when they aren’t watching tv/movies, but I am sure they are all aware of the concept. And you should never assume you know what a person is into that they keep private.
Kim, no, they wouldn’t. The men I know either don’t go to movies at all or simply have no interest in fantasy or sf. It’s a small social circle but I’m not sure why you’re talking as if I’ve said something horrible about them because I don’t think they are interested in the subject or have heard of it.
@argenti. Any robot with free will, would still need emotions reasonably hardwired, just like we do. Emotions are necessary for motivation and decision making. Why would a robot ever do anything at all if there were no internal rewards?
I don’t know about anyone else but I have a hunch about Joss Whedon. He’s used the idea several times.
@kitteh. Fair enough. In my social circle media like that is so ubiquitous that I forget other people live outside of geekdom. 🙂
@Noadi. I hadn’t even clicked that I listed 2 Joss Whedon things. Are there more in his work?
@Kim
Yeah, Buffy and Firefly/Serenity are so big in geek culture that it’s easy to forget that they were fairly ignored outside of it (personally I haven’t seen Firefly personally, and only saw a few episodes of Buffy in high school English as an example of a deconstruction of the Gothic narrative, but I do hang with geeks a lot).
AI was more mainstream (saw that one in a high school class too – a joke of an elective called “Artificial Intelligence”) but AFAIK never became one of the films that “everyone” had seen. There must be other popular things with sexbots but I can’t immediately think of any.
@kitteh. Also, very sorry, I didn’t mean to come across sounding like that. Poor phrasing on my part..
Kim, gotcha! 🙂 I’m totally not a geek and nobody I know off-net is either. The blokes I know are into sport and music and boating or cars, that’s about it. One of ’em still uses Windows 95 at home.
Even though they are human the dolls in Dollhouse are essentially sexbots (among other things) in that they are fully programmable people.
@lowquacks for more mainstream how about Austin Powers?
No worries, Kim! 🙂
XP represent!
@Noadi
Haven’t seen that, but that definitely entered the public consciousness more.
@lowquacks. There are the fembots in Austin Powers, but they aren’t quite what MRAs are after. 🙂
@Noadi. good point. I didn’t like that one at all.
@Kim Did you watch the whole series? It sort of comes full circle in the “programming people is a really bad idea” apocalyptic way.
Oh, and Blade Runner.
Well, given that I don’t really go in for religion, I don’t think anybody has a “soul” in the sense you’re probably using the word, but setting that aside … is this what “helpmeet” means, a 24-7 personal assistant? Because I knew Christianity was some high-grade patriarchal bullshit, but wow, all of my prejudices just got confirmed.
I mean really, I’ve got my own life to lead, don’t you too? Do you really think I’m that much different to you just because I have two XXs? For an omniscient being, this robot-ensouling rib-stealing dude in the sky is a bit of a dumbarse. Or you are for believing in him.
Yes, I too can see no other way to resolve the disappointment that arises when a man regards women as little more than a personal slave, yet the woman regards herself as a person. Fembots it is!
@Noadi. I don’t think I watched a full episode actually. Maybe I should have given it more of a chance, but I’d already heard reviews of how bad it was.
It seems Vox Day’s dunning-kruger syndrome began in bubs’ class:
Unfortunately, as he Knows Best in every situation, he doesn’t feel the need to google, check Snopes, read widely, or otherwise fact check.
But the facts he makes up himself are so much more satisfying, I guess.