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.
RE: Argenti and Kittehs
Sure! Right now, the issue is pretty much scannage, and teching. (Which unfortunately, I am unlikely to get to today.) The strips are all here, it’s just putting them online.
Also a weeding process; I started the comic because I injured my knee and needed SOMETHING I could do sedentary before losing my mind, but that means a few might pull people I know into the comic that don’t want to be. So some will get dumped.
Still, I’m so excited!
OMG there’s a Dickie Knee epidemic! Mine’s stuffed, one of the guys at work stuffed his playing soccer yest, now I hear you have …
HOBBLE FOR YOUR LIVES!
ABNOY — wtf makes you think we’ve all seen Wreck-It Ralph? And what in the everloving fuck is the relevance of this?
Abnoy, would you do me a favor and take your wanking fantasies elsewhere? I really don’t give a shit what your boner likes.
Kitteh — lol, ok 🙂
*goes to pedestal of greatness*
Wreck-It Ralph hasn’t even opened here yet as far as I know, and guess what, I ain’t going to see it anyway.
Assuming “stuffed” is Aussie for “ruined,” I stuffed mine on Saturday while hall monitoring. Turns out there’s a strict limit to how many times I can go down stairs.
Ouch!
Stuffed is definitely ruined. Stairs are an absolute bastard when your knees are playing up.
So, it’s not just an epidemic, it’s a pandemic!
I’m getting in on the knee-hurt party. I sit cross-legged when I work. It’s not a good idea to do that for 8+ hours a day :/
Ouch again! Closest I can come to sitting cross-legged at all is doing glutes-stretching exercises in the morning. Oh the joys of age.
“As for “I’m not your enemy” — I’m not saying you are — but much like one’s orientation, that’s for everyone else to decide (ie, everyone here, as individuals gets to decide whether or not you’re their enemy)”
@Argenti, you just decided my orientation. You’ve decided I’m oriented toward being your enemy, which is far from the case. You can only decide whether you are *mine* or not, not how I feel towards you or anyone else here. You have also decided I am transphobic, which is completely untrue, even by anything I have posted here. Not being familiar, not understanding, not being aware of the social norm of a community (or thread), does not make one a bigot or ignorant or irrationally afraid. It just makes them awkward and pre-informed. Unintentional lack of etiquette on a public forum may make one unwelcome, but does not equate to prejudice. I can completely understand that those of you here who are regulars have become very protective of one another; be careful, when part of a group, to not assume everyone who doesn’t ease into that group without faux pas is an alien with ill intent.
I have not said one thing in this or any thread with the intention of hurting, insulting, offending or “rating” (I don’t know what that means, but if it’s “dismissing, insulting, marginalizing, invalidating, and mocking” then you are extremely mistaken) any of the regulars here. Lack of education or information is not ignorance; disagreement or difference of opinion or experience is not insult or lack of respect.
@Kitteh’s: thank you for the blog link, I’m looking forward to learning your story.
Peace out.
You’re welcome, Penny. 🙂
*Has seen (and loved) Wreck-it Ralph. Remains as confused as those who haven’t*
I, too, have seen and loved W. I. R., and I would recommend it to anyone (there is a moment near the end where someone is carried off against his will), but I’m not going to insist.
“@Argenti, you just decided my orientation. You’ve decided I’m oriented toward being your enemy, which is far from the case. You can only decide whether you are *mine* or not, not how I feel towards you or anyone else here.”
Congrats, I hadn’t yet decided whether I saw you as an enemy, that right there? Now I’ve decided. Me, or anyone else here, seeing you as an enemy is nothing at all like deciding someone else’s sexual orientation. For starters, whether you’re “oriented towards being [my]” enemy is rather irrelevant to whether I see you as my enemy (I’ll get back to the nature of intent). For finishers, whether you see me as an enemy, and whether I see you as an enemy? Not the same thing, not seeing me as your enemy doesn’t magically get you out of having pissed me of.
“You have also decided I am transphobic, which is completely untrue, even by anything I have posted here.”
Actually, I said that focusing on chromosomes was transphobic, which since it was a rhetorical question, I had no way of knowing whether that was a factor in your partner selection, just that questioning chromosomes is failing Transphobia Avoidance 101.
“I have not said one thing in this or any thread with the intention of hurting, insulting, offending or “rating” (I don’t know what that means, but if it’s “dismissing, insulting, marginalizing, invalidating, and mocking” then you are extremely mistaken) any of the regulars here.”
It means I’m posting from my iPad and typo’ed ranting, which means exactly what it sounds like. That aside, intent, it’s fucking magic. That you continue to ignore that your questions grated on LBT’s (trans*) nerves, well, it isn’t helping make your case that your problem comes from simple naïveté.
You want to make friends here? Take the advice to take a break and come back to reply later (if at all). And for the love of all the gods, consider wtf you’re doing by ignoring inquiries into the transphobic nature of your questions coming from trans* and genderqueer people.
Dafuq?
That’s basically the one word version of my response to that, yes.
Dafuq sounds like the name of an obscure desert kingdom on the Discworld …
This is so ‘splainy and assy. It’s true enough on it’s face, but you’re not exactly making it easy to like you. You’ve been assumptive, patronizing, and rude.
I highly recommend you dial it back a notch, go read old threads, and learn some 101 stuff elsewhere.
Dafuq is a city on FAQ — http://www.erfworld.com/wiki/index.php/FAQ
“Pre-informed” may be the best euphemism for “ignorant” that I’ve ever heard, and I hear a lot of dumb euphemistic buzzwords at work.
LOL Argenti, that page left me totally in the dark, since I’ve never heard of Erfworld or anything to do with it! Glad to see the name gets some use, though. 😀
“Misinformed” would be a better choice than “pre-informed” – the latter isn’t a word afaik, and implies the person has prior knowledge rather than assumptions.
Erfworld’s a comic strip, with a bunch of puns (including the title). The kingdom of FAQ being one such pun, though the ORLY? owls might be my favorite. (I’d like to set a few loose on this thread actually, because O RLY?)
Owls are always good! 😀