So last night I was skimming through the official Church of Satan Info Pack, like you do, and I made an interesting discovery. Alongside such standard Satany things as, you know, eugenics, vengeance, naked-lady altars, it turns out that the official Church of Satan position on sex robots is: Yes, please!
In fact, they’re so into it that it’s point number four in their “five point plan to move society in directions that are considered to be beneficial to Satanists.”
Here’s their pitch:
Satanists advocate a new industry, the development and promotion of artificial human companions. These humanoids will be constructed to be as realistic as possible, and available to anyone who can afford one.
So poor people will have to make do with blow-up dolls, I guess.
Recognizing that the human animal often raises himself up through the denegration of another, this would provide a safe outlet for such behavior. Have the lover of your dreams, regardless of your own prowess; every man a king who can purchase his own subject; or contrarywise, buy the master you wish to serve.
That got a little bit dark, huh? Then again, this is the Church of, you know, SATAN.
Freedom of choice to satisfy your most secret desires with no-one to be bothered is now at hand. What could be better for blowing-off the tension that exists throughout our society, and promoting healthier interaction among true humans?
I can’t say I’m 100% with the Church of Satan on every issue, or even 1%, but I’m going to support them on this: Sex robots for Satanists — or anyone else who feels the need to “raise … himself up through the denegration of another.” Because it’s better to be horrible to inanimate objects than to human beings.
Speaking as a computer science guy, I do not think that sentience is necessary or desirable in a sexbot. It’s not something that is really plausibly going to happen by accident, it would be difficult to do on purpose, and all that’s necessary is for it to act attractive in very specific circumstances. Also, obviously creating a sentient being and forcing it into prostitution against its will is wildly unethical. If we did need to create a sentient one for whatever reason, all ethical and practical concerns specifically demand creating a sentience that actually wants to do what we want it to do.
I’d rather see that photo at the top as Ming the Merciless and flunky instead. He has better fashion sense, at least. XD
Off-topic swerve time. I offer up as brain bleach for the latest mass shooting news the Star Wars Christmas Special – 2015 version:
https://www.yahoo.com/makers/stormtroopers-assembling-christmas-tree-heart-202126918.html
Enjoy. 😀
Anton LaVey plagiarized Ayn Rand and some guy called Ragnar Redbeard in equal parts. Both had a “I’ve got mine, screw you” philosophy and so did Anton. I appreciate the Satanists efforts to annoy Christian dominionist who want to mark their territory by spraying the ten commandments on everything but they’re still right wing libertarians. Libertarians who have better dress sense than the rest for sure, but libertarians all the same.
So….at what point to they stop and think about just how pathetic they really are?
As an aside, I did have to laugh at his injection of ‘contrariwise’ into the sentence. Somehow it just doesn’t seem to fit with the subject matter…you know?
Seems like a reasonable stance on sexbots. As long as they’re not sentient, there’s no good reason not to make them widely available imo.
I’m just gonna leave this here.
“What your men do to us, they want to do to you.” Is still a line that sends chills down my spine.
And that San Bernardino shooting has been on the news all day here. I live a few hours north of them, and it’s terrifying to hear. When I woke up this morning, it was on every news channel.
There’s a sci-fi series that has this premise: a church realizes that humanity is awful, and should have robotic companions to take their awful desires out on. It…does not go well. (First book in the series is vN, author is Madeleine Ashby, highly recommended.)
So, yeah, little creepy…
@Bernardo Soares: “If you get off on denigrating someone else, this won’t really work if it’s an ‘inanimate object’ that can’t feel pain or denigration or humiliation – because by definition then you can’t denigrate it. If a robot can feel pain, humiliation and so on, it should have basic rights.”
But I think these folks are talking about working off their sadism on inanimate objects that can convincingly SIMULATE feeling pain or denigration or humiliation. Just like you can get a rush from shooting a baddie in a video game, even if it’s nothing more than pixels on a screen, because the experience somewhat simulates the actual killing of an enemy.
I have no objection on principle to misogynists essentially playing complicated denigration/humiliation AI videogames on an expensive woman-shaped electronic console that isn’t actually feeling or thinking anything.
I am with them. If those guys can’t differ relationships from owning a fake person, can’t differ human consensual sex from sticking dick inside an inanimate object, and feel proud that his gf is pretty even if he didn’t seduce her, then, sure! Leave the dating scene, please, I beg.
Now I read the problems I see what problems this may lead to… Oh, damn. I just wish those pieces of trash would stop looking for victims.
“the human animal often raises himself up through the denegration of another….Freedom of choice to satisfy your most secret desires with no-one to be bothered is now at hand. What could be better for blowing-off the tension that exists throughout our society, and promoting healthier interaction among true humans?”
What about getting rid of the desire to denigrate in the first place and burning that tension at its root?
Ugh, misogynists and sexbots.
TWI involved!: I’m actually someone who is kinda interested in robots in an adult-context kinda way. Though in my case, it’s not the dominating someting that can’t say no/weird revenge fantasies and more that I dunno, I overidentify with robots and watched too much Star Trek TNG as a kid and think they’re neat-looking and would be up for smooching one if it was able to decide it wanted to smooch me? And the sexbot dudes scare the shit out of me. Especially as an abuse and rape survivor and seeing what they talk about when they think it’s just people who are like them.
This interesting development in robot intelligence and ethics came up all over my friends’ FB feeds the other day, and made me honestly super happy: http://www.neatorama.com/2015/11/27/Robots-Learn-to-Disobey-Humans/
Having read most of the CoS’s books (I like reading religious texts, especially weird ones), it was pretty obvious that they are just libertarianism/objectivism with a light sprinkling of bad occult scholarship and a lot of ripping off H.P. Lovecraft (including the racism). The Temple of Satan at least seems to be doing useful and not douchey things, though.
Reminds me of the time i misread the title for the movie “The killing of Satan” as “The killing of Santa”
That was fun
Anton LaVey was a fan of Ayn Rand so…
Ditto what someone mentioned about the Satanic Temple people. They don’t seem very assholish at all. Luciferians aren’t too bad either.
The Church of Satan borrowed heavily from Alasteir Crowley who was an awful human being. Crowley originally said “Do what thou will shall be the whole of the law.” Which is basically libertarianism. Other types of Satanists follow the more ethical rede which prefaces it with the stipulation of “An it harm none.”
But yeah, LaVay was an asshole and a conman.
i’m beginning to realize that this topic raises all sorts of complicated issues well beyond what can be said about it in a jokey post.
@RoseHipster
Note that it was a robot deliberately programmed to disobey unsafe orders. Very useful thing to have in a robot that might be working in a steel mill or something. There is no reason to make a robot that will disobey orders we want it to follow. Then you’re happy, the robot is happy, the people who paid you to make a robot are happy, and anyways you have to pick what the robot wants in the design phase or you have an extremely expensive paperweight.
But, yeah, the Church of Satan is pretty much terrible. While their central premise (a kind of atheism that’s big on expressing one’s shadow side) isn’t necessarily horrible, they go beyond this into a sort of Nazified Ayn Randianism, supporting such lovely things as eugenics and a barely disguised white supremacism that they seem to be getting much more explicit about.
“Anton LaVey plagiarized Ayn Rand and some guy called Ragnar Redbeard in equal parts. Both had a “I’ve got mine, screw you” philosophy and so did Anton.”
I’ve watched some Rand interviews and read some of her material. One thing that strikes me is she comes off as very unhappy. Never smiles. Just sounds and looks miserable. Someone like her may have benefited by having children. Kids usually mellow people out and warm them up. Of course maybe she would have just been a horrible, “rationally self-interested” mom. Maybe even an abuser. That she’s considered a heroin in the Manosphere baffles me. She “cucked” her husband and convinced him the affair was in his “rational self-interest” (LOL!) yet I’ve seen Manospherians white knight for her. Even call her “alpha female”.
Phil Donahue introduced her on his show as one of the warmest people he’d ever met. Warm is not a word I associate with Ayn Rand. Maybe her PR team made him say that?
Libertarianism + Magic* is a fair description of some Satanist organizations. People trolling Right-Wing Christians is the other main thread.
*That phrasing is stolen but I can’t remember from who right now.
NOPE.
David, if you’re interested, look up Zeena Schrek née Levey, Anton’s daughter. She wrote a lot about the gross stuff her father did when she broke with the CoS (and her dad).
Oh look, Virtually’s saying really questionable stuff. Same old same old I see. I’m gonna go pet a cat, cuz I just can’t with this (also, basement cat needs love too!)
I’ve opened a thread for discussion of the San Bernardino shooting. Fucking awful.
@VirtuallyOutOfTouch:
Bah. Blockquote monster got me.