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 went to an event at the NHM a couple of months ago where it was open until 10pm, they put bars in and had loads of booths where scientists and museum workers talked about their work, it was awesome. I got to hold a chameleon.
I’ve had to modify my accent when I’m down here because no one can understand what I’m saying otherwise, but as soon as I speak to anyone from home it comes back. I have a really thick Yorkshire accent usually, including using all the old slang, because I worked in a village pub for five years in Bradford, and I forget not everyone knows what ‘mithering’ or ‘chelpin’ means :/
Mithering I think I know, chelpin I haven’t a clue. 🙂
It’s like ‘wittering on’. I have taught BoyFantastic well though, he can now say “it isn’t in the tin” in Proper Yorkshire*.
(*Ihtin’tin’tin, for the non-UKers)
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLb6hxl4yi0]
Ya’all need to have a heart! Robots need love too.
Is the Yorkshire accent the one stereotyped with t’ for the? My grandfather was from Cornwall, but hadn’t lived there for about half his life so lost most of his accent. Except that for 20 years I wondered why he occasionally said “oh my gratchy over”. At about 24 I realised it was “oh my great Jehovah”. 🙂
Yes, it is. My work was basically like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo
LOL I like Monty Python. I had a quick look at the comments below the video, and they’re funny too.
I LOVE the Four Yorkshiremen sketch! Our former general manager is from the Yorkshire/Lancashire border area, and we adapted that sketch a lot to have a go at him … “lick road clean wit’ tongue” was a phrase frequently heard at work.
If the robots only function include cooking, cleaning and fucking what does this doofus think the robot will be able to relate to? Unless he has a habit of coming home complaining about shitty bosses?
And what is with this solid belief pattern that men and women can’t possibly relate to one another or enjoy each others companionship?
The way the MRAs talk about it, you’d think women were an invasive species from the Andromeda galaxy.
Shh @pillow, where do you think the idea of the flying spaghetti monster came from..
Well, they say straight out that we’re children or animals, so of course they can’t be expected to think we can relate to them (men being the only humans).
Hey, can I ask an OT question about seeing a psychologist? I mean, yeah, I can, but is anyone online able/interested in answering a hypothetical about drawing boundaries?
@ Kittehs
Sure. I’m going out for a walk soon though, will be back online later.
Ask away, so long as you feel safe in doing so know this is an open venue. 🙂
Kitteh’s: ask away.
Thanks, Cassandra!
Let’s see, how to put this concisely.
If there’s something that is non-negotiable, but which a psychologist probably wouldn’t accept as real (although they accept that it’s healthy, regardless), can one just draw a line and say “You can’t go there any more” or “these are my rules for talking about it, otherwise it’s off limits”?
What I’m getting at is that acknowledging that others aren’t compelled to share my beliefs is edging too close to saying “Oh yes, you’re right, I’m fantasising, nice of you to indulge me.”
Because I’m fucking not and I’m starting to feel like I’m being told to play by someone else’s, or a general materialistic society’s, rules. And however nice the person is, that’s starting to put little red flags up.
Hard to keep this from getting too personal! Blast that Secret Room on the forums being out of action …
And thanks everyone! Yeah, I know it’s open forum, but trolls, pffft, they’re just dumbasses. 😀
Sure, I’d say that if a thing isn’t causing you any distress then there’s no reason therapy has to address it. Just tell them you want to work on something else.
You could set some limits about where you’re prepared to change and where you’re not. It would then be up to the psychologist to agree to those boundaries, or not. I would have expected this to occur at the start of the sessions.
Everyone has boundaries that they’re not prepared to “compromise” on. Just, those boundaries are different between different people. 🙂 For example, psychologists don’t counsel people out of being religious, or counsel atheists into religion.
To clarify – the purpose of therapy is to help you with stuff that’s upsetting you or causing you problems, right? If something isn’t causing you any problems then I don’t see any reason to waste expensive therapy time talking about it. You’re the one paying for the therapy – you can tell them that you want to focus on something that will actually be helpful to you.
Kitteh — I’m having a completely different sort of “we know best” and I’m kind of stuck not being able to take this advice, so apply salt. But you could always just get another psych if this one isn’t working.
Thanks, all!
This was my third session and it was the first time I’d had a sense of “Hang on a minute there, fella.” I did tell him straight out that if any psychologist thought they had the right to try to change my beliefs, I’d walk out and never come back. Weird thing is he seems to think he has to justify what we talk about or what course we take to some GP I’ve seen ONCE (and don’t intend to see again, I didn’t take to him at all). My previous psychologist never suggested such a thing, so this was new to me and somewhat strange.
I guess it’s coming down to there being only so far I’m willing to accommodate a norm. There’s only so much “yes, I’m aware this might be only in my mind” one can do before it reaches the point of denying someone else’s external reality as a person, and denying my own life, just to fit with a social norm I think is a load of BS.
Gah. That was not the world’s most coherent sentence! Can’t blame lack of coffee, either. Though it is instant.
::ducks from cries of outraged coffee lovers::
Erm, normally it’s the person paying who sets the conversation, within the overall scope of the objective(s) for the counselling. Why is he mentioning the contents of your sessions with a third party?
@Kitteh, I know you’re in Australia and not NZ, but this might be of some relevance to you. It’s the Code of Ethics for psychologists in NZ through the Psychological Society (although counselling psychologists have to have registration with the Psychologist’s Board): http://www.psychology.org.nz/Code_of_Ethics
This is the Board’s core competency document: http://www.psychologistsboard.org.nz/cms_show_download.php?id=206
I’m sure that the Australian ones will be similar.
Thanks for those links, Kiwi girl. It struck me as bizarre for that very reason – and he went through the ethical requirements at the first session. Methinks I’m going to be doing a bit of Q&A of my own next time, as well as “Treat my reality as real or this ends now. Oh and btw my husband’s right here listenin’, y’know.”
Don’t get me wrong, I like this guy and I think he’s going to be helpful for the specific problem (noise-induced stress) but I think he’s blundered into no-go territory a bit. The underlying suggestion that Louis isn’t real is a bit like saying “All those people you talk to on the Net aren’t real” – they are, I’ve met some of them.