Oh dear. Our friends the Men’s Rights Redditors have discovered Mr.Ian Ironwood’s little treatise on sexbots. While some are a bit skeptical about the reality of the (non-existent) Human-Robot Personal Relationship Act — more skeptical, anyway, than Ironwood or Vox Day before him — this doesn’t stop the regulars from offering all sorts of distressing and/or hilarious opinions on the subject.
For example, OuiCrudites suggests that women have made sexbots inevitable by generally being such a pain in the ass, and MaunaLoona compares female sexuality to the railroad monopolies of the 19th century:
In a later comment, OuiC elaborates on his “most women are shitty” thesis:
MaunaLoona, meanwhile, agrees with Ironwood that developing the AI for sexbots won’t be a big challenge, because the average American woman is dumb and has a terrible personality.
A Canadian Redditor steps in to point out that the alleged “legislation” isn’t real. Oh, and to suggest that many “females” can’t think rationally.
Geigerwasright concludes that men will find sexbots preferable to women because the women of today aren’t providing them with “love, loyalty [or] kindness.”
So watch out, ladies! Unless you clean up your act, and quick, the good men of the Men’s Rights subreddit will abandon you en masse in favor of sex with inanimate objects that pretend to like them.
And this is apparently supposed to be a bad thing for women.
Clauderoughly postulates that sexbots for women will never be that popular, because what women really want is to get pregnant, so they can live the good life off of child support:
That’s a bit weird, as all the women I’ve had sex with have seemed quite interested not getting pregnant from sex. Indeed, some have had devices inserted into their bodies by doctors to prevent such an occurence.
The world that MRAs live in is a strange and scary place. I prefer the real world. It’s much cheerier.
NOTE: The horrible picture at the top of this post was borrowed from Craftastrophe.
I could totally see this happening at home …
http://youtu.be/hs1J9QpqxDU
@Argenti, sorry was playing Guild Wars 2 for a bit there. We did our dailies. 🙂 They do sound a bit “for your own good” types. So I come back to the point of, what objectives do they want out of the face-to-face socialisation? If it’s just for its own sake, then pointless, but if it’s to have deep conversations, or give-and-take, or just to meet new people, then that’s what we’re really doing here.
They would be shocked, SHOCKED, if their closemindness was pointed out to them. Except if they decide that someone making that point was just doing some type of transference. Seriously though, your psychs sound young enough that the internet was around when they were growing up. I would have thought they would have a better mentality towards it than someone, say, my age (mid-40s). Of course, I used to be at the pub 3 nights a week when I was in my early 20s, I would find it horrifying if they thought that was more helpfully social than being here. Back in those days, you could smoke in bars, and I did smoke back then, so half-a-pack in a night. Plus the costs of booze at bar prices. Damned expensive nights out. And I don’t recall that anyone said anything of particularly deep meaning in those nights either. I know more about a number of you here just from this thread alone, than I ever found out from people I drank with for two years. I hope the psychs aren’t confusing quantity with quality.
@Kitteh, Noooooooooooooooo not chocolate. Chocolate + cats = very ill, and death if in large enough quantities. I’m so paranoid about it, when I eat chocolate (at a particular time of the month), I do it over the sink.
Cat’s can’t break down theobromine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theobromine_poisoning
Fear not, I know that. My kitties on this side of the veil are never allowed near the stuff. I’m talking Bakery Theft happening if Louis had been cooking (cue French shouting in the background). Should have been clearer which home I meant, sorry for the scare!
The kitty in this video seems to be going for whatever the creamy stuff is (icing?) on the cakes rather than the slivers of chocolate.
Oh thank goodness. I thought you might know that, but maybe not the person who did the video, I should have been clearer in my post. The vet at work thinks I am paranoid about the chocolate because the lethal dose is so high, and she’s a cat lover too. I just think, why risk it.
And I think one of my cats has developed asthma. 🙁 I really don’t want him to be given a general anaesthetic to do the confirmation test, but I’ve taken 3 videos of his coughing on my phone, so I’m hoping the vet will diagnose off video evidence… I feel so guilty about this, all this time I thought it was furball related. I will be making a vet appointment this week, once I show the videos to the vet at work (she’s not practising any more) to see if she thinks there is enough in the videos to make the diagnosis without doing a lavage.
Don’t feel guilty – who would think of asthma first-off for cats? I wouldn’t, and I’ve had cats since forever. I’ve just done a quick read on About.comand it says the symptoms are very much like hairball, but it’s also a matter of managing it, just as with humans.
Has your vet or the vet at work mentioned blood tests or an x ray? They don’t require general anaesthetics.
Kitteh — I was more going for the concept of a muse than Definitely Is One, but hey, he doesn’t want to be called a muse, fine by me! (Who am I do argue with a French king?)
Lol, though my brother did find that we’re related to Catherine something or other somehow, he really could’ve taken better notes before canceling his ancestry.com account!
Kiwi Girl — I will have to inquire into wtf they want out of this, because, for one, that’s backwards, this is supposed to be wtf I want out of this! And talk!psych is old enough to have an MSW and two kids, so probably mid-30s (I wouldn’t imagine much older as she did just have a kid) — MSW is a minimum of a 3 year program, I was debating it at one point.
The only “but why?” I’ve gotten so far is that face-to-face comes with verbal and non-verbal cues. Which is apparently massively important and non-existent with family and family friends.
Good luck with the kitteh, and thanks for that link, I can’t convince my parents that even a little chocolate is Not For The Kitteh.
Cor lumme, he finds out something interesting and then doesn’t take notes? Argh!
I always get the creeps a bit when I see ads for Ancestry.com. It’s owned by the Mormons – nothing would induce me to use a site owned by that lot. Apart from all the other horrible things about that mob (Mittens, for example!) the whole rebaptise-the-dead thing brings out my ragesaurus. No, I don’t believe they can affect anyone who’s passed over, but the utter arrogance, the presumptuousness, of it, makes me want to throw ’em in a giant tub of runny cat poo. With a lid.
Even the age of the psychs doesn’t help with understanding wtf they’re so blinkered about internet contact for. I’m fifty, my psych would be older than that, and the importance and value of internet connections was something we were both enthusing about.
Sounds like they’re going by their books and not taking stuff in, or they’re just not experienced enough and have blinkered views or … gawd, I dunno.
I’m starting to think of this like a Captain Awkward script with added snark … “You talk to me about the importance of verbal and visual cues, yet you sit here and completely ignore not only those, but what I am saying. You ignore the content of my speech, my words. Tell me again why face to face is so superior to the internet?”
Someone who knows metric cold help me here —
“A typical 20 kg (44 lb) dog will normally experience intestinal distress after eating less than 240 g (8.5 oz) of dark chocolate…”
But the LD50 is 300 mg/kg.
240g for a 20 kg dog would be 12 g/kg…but that should be 12,000 mg/kg and entirely fatal, not just intestinal distress, right? Wtf is broken here? My metric math? Wiki? *CONFUSED!*
“You talk to me about the importance of verbal and visual cues, yet you sit here and completely ignore not only those, but what I am saying. You ignore the content of my speech, my words. Tell me again why face to face is so superior to the internet?”
*dies* this is pure awesome
It’s like they think I’m just awkward around them because I’m not practiced socializing or something. Because fuck, nervous laughter gets a “you seem happier” they can’t read my cues and think they can and I’m too damned nervous to say otherwise.
Figures that it’s the Mormons, who else has that kind of info >.<
::looks at numbers::
::head explodes with teh incomprehension::
Y’know, this sort of psychshite makes me think of why people are taking patient advocates along with them to doctors’ consultations now (I’m guessing if it’s a thing here, it’s prolly been a thing in the US for ages). They’re so full of their own authority it’s a wonder they haven’t floated away on a cloud of hot gas.
Maybe just hold up a mirror when they’re on their “you need to get out more” schtick, because it sounds like they should follow their own advice. And really, what does their suggestion come to except that trite “you need to get out/ get out of yourself” line? What are they going to say next? ‘Here’s a copy of Reader’s Digest, read the “Laughter is the Best Medicine” section?’
@Argenti: your maths is right. But if the LD50 relates to the amount of theobromine, then that explains it, as theobromine will only be contributing a minute amount towards the total weight of the chocolate, as I assume it is inside the cocoa. So the LD50 amounts and the chocolate weight amounts are referring to different things. Dark chocolate will contain higher amounts of theobromine w/w compared to milk chocolate. White chocolate is fine, because it contains no cocoa (don’t ask me why it’s called “chocolate”).
But yeah, could probably do with some more explanatory notes. 🙂
Kitteh: interesting about the Mormons, explains a lot.
Just the “you need to get out more” and no amount of explaining that I’m happiest left alone with my fish and an Internet connection is working (I’ve threatened to move to a cave if one ever gets Internet)
And no, patient advocates are only sort of a thing here, and a new one — the “we know best” might be even stronger here. Consider our police state, we’re more trained to just mindless obey authority (funny, considering y’all have the monarchy we supposedly built a system to avoid obeying = actual irony)
Glad the math issue isn’t just my issues with metric, but wtf is it then?!
I’ve had issues with the whole “stop trying to force me to do things” from the beginning, to various degrees of annoying. This art group I have an appointment with on Friday? The first
I heard of it was being awoken to a phone call wanting to schedule an intake, I had to grumble half asleep asking intake where? I already rescheduled once, and they’re not somewhere I can easily get to, but their websites includes lures like gallery shows so the “fuck it might be worth it” is vying with the “do not like being forced and do not want”
Pecunium, if you see this, I need an opinion on whether the potential for gallery space is worth being forced into joining an art group for psych patients, with the referral sent without anything like my consent. It’s really skeevy, but gallery space.
…and I think I just answered my own question, I’m not willing to sell my comfort for gallery space (to steal an EA line “to say I do this for the people I admit is hardly true”) And double fuck, my goddamned psychs are supposed to be fixing my issues with letting people down, not causing them.
“White chocolate is fine, because it contains no cocoa (don’t ask me why it’s called “chocolate”).”
My digestive system can answer that — lactose, it contains lactose. I can’t eat it, it’s the one thing not worth the suffering (pizza? ice cream? canolis? utterly worth it. White chocolate? Not even remotely.)
And thank you for the maths!
Yeah, even without the specific psych/treatment/consent issues, it’s just too damn pushy. It’d be pushy if it was a friend saying “I’ve got this group exhibition lined up and you need to contribute!” I loathe being forced to do stuff, especially where creativity’s concerned. Fastest way to kill off the urge I know of.
Say, if you feel like swapping emails, let me know. No sweat if you’d rather not, or not now, or whatever.
Kitteh — I have an aversion to posting mine publicly (troll and stalker ex avoidance) but if yours is on your blog, and you’ll link me again, I’ll drop you a line.
Lol, or PM me on the forum, duh >.<
The “you need to contribute” would be one thing, I could just go “here’s my collection, have fun” — this is the making art on a schedule with other people around thing. And I’m not much for it without a specific skill being learned // A Point. (My minor was studio arts, but create something, anything! turns me into a self-conscious puddle of fail)
::smacks head:: I totally forgot there are PMs on the forum! Done. You will be utterly astonished at my email addy. 🙂
Yeah, it was the making-stuff-to-schedule thing I had in mind. Done that once, wouldn’t do it again (making even pared-down versions of my figures, and making them to order for a theme, was not much fun). I hate drawing/making/writing to order. It’s why I long since gave up on contests on that writing site, even before I gave up on fiction altogether.
@Argenti: just doing a quick posting before going to work. I was thinking some more about this “you *have* to socialise face-to-face” shite and remembered something which I think is really important. Socialising face-to-face means basically hearing people’s unfiltered thoughts as they say them, and also dealing with people having a bad time. This in itself might not be so bad, except some people are emotional vampires/drama queens, who freaking need to talk about negative stuff in detail, maybe ask for some advice, and then repeatedly not do anything to help themselves. I’m not talking about stuff at the serious level of domestic violence or anything like that, more shite-that-just-happens type stuff. But they seem to attract drama, and like being the centre of attention.
Online, you can just leave the area when you like, you don’t have to read stuff, etc, so there are many ways to protect yourself. IRL, half the time it’s not so easy. And people get really offended if you say that you don’t want to hear it or if you excuse yourself to physically leave. So I think people are exposed to much more emotional/psychological BS IRL compared to online, with fewer rapid and effective ways of minimising harm that aren’t considered “rude”.
tl;dr: face-to-face socialisation isn’t automatically/always a fantastic way of interacting with others.
I don’t really have anything to add to this thread as I haven’t ever had therapy or felt the need for it but I’d just like to say that for those of you having issues with your therapists I hope you sort out your issues with them or are able to find new ones who help you in ways that you want to be helped and that are constructive and not dismissive of the things that matter to you or who you are.
Also Kitteh’s Unpaid Help, I read all the way through your blog the day before yesterday (instead of doing the reading for my seminars or my Russian homework hehe) and it was fascinating and very touching 🙂
Historophilia, thank you! And cool. My blog has officially become a source of Internet Time Wasting! 😀
I can’t add anything either, but I for one am glad this is a place where the non-trolls support each other. I hate this idea that because something happens online it isn’t “real life.” Scattering internet hugs randomly in case anyone wants one!
Gah. I feel immensely thankful that I haven’t had such frustrating experiences with the mental health industry. Then again, I tend to barge in and say, “This is what I want, this is what I’m here for, you are here to assist ME with MY goals. Here are my requirements. Can you do that? Good. Let’s go.” The idea that I might be ordered to socialize is just plain odd. (I’ve had advice to go out and see other friends a bit more often, but that had solid reasoning behind it, and I wasn’t obligated.)
Of course, this does mean that sometimes I need arm twisting from my friends to get me to, say, go on meds when I need them, but at least I’ve never quite felt under anyone’s thumb. (I felt a bit uncomfortable at the ED program I was at, but that was due to class and other barriers, and the whole time, I knew it’d be short-term.)
Oh, boy, therapy.
You know, I had a good therapist. I really did. She was supportive, she was understanding, she didn’t force me to do anything I wasn’t comfortable with. She was really helping.
But, mostly due to my ADD and anxieties in general, I am still almost entirely dependent on my parents. They decided that because she didn’t take their insurance and they wanted to save money that I had to stop seeing her and get another therapist that did take their insurance. Oh, they also think she’s been ‘coddling’ me.
So now I’m annoyed with my parents because I feel like they’re treating their daughter’s mental health like it’s a brand name supermarket item they can get cheaper by buying the store brand and I don’t have any way of making the money myself without resorting to drastic (and only temporary) measures.
That’s my life at the moment. Well, that, a recent sinus infection, and the likelihood of having to take up residence at a homeless shelter sometime soon. Very ironically, I could really use a therapist about now. And I should probably get back on my anti-anxiety meds now that the sinus infection’s mostly gone.
In better news, I just rewatched all my Animaniacs DVDs.