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Like all technologies, there will be risks and negative outcomes. Just look at books. At some point a married woman read a romance book that depicted an unreal

Like all technologies, there will be risks and negative outcomes. Just look at books. At some point a married woman read a romance book that depicted an unrealistic male character who wanted nothing but to satisfy any desire of the woman in the book. And after reading that book she became unhappy in her marriage because her husband would never be like that character. Is that a bad thing?

jevoten 3y ago
It's a bad thing if it offers some measure of comfort to icky people. ToucanLoucan is concerned about child-like sex-bots - would he prefer their buyers instead focus their attention on human children? Or does he believe sexuality is malleable, that they can be sent to conversion therapy and become attracted to adult women instead? In which case we might witness some mental gymnastics to explain why conversion therapy only works on sexualities frowned upon by society, but is ineffective pseudoscientific abuse for any of the accepted or celebrated sexualities.
- Brian_K_White 3y ago
  I think it doesn't matter that abusing a robot that looks and acts like an abused child is better than subjecting an actual child to it. There are all kinds of things that are innate and natural and which we simply cannot tolerate no matter how natural they are. All kinds of violence are natural, and the only acceptable response to it is to fucking supress and control it. Clubing a woman over the head and dragging her off to your cave is natural, and should only ever be repressed, inhibited, controlled, not tolerated, mercilessly. All those words that in other contexts are bad, are bad in those other contexts. It's wrong to repress your desire to be an artist. We aren't talking about being an artist are we? Merely for generic violence we just happen to have a few constructive uses for it, and so we have a few uses for those assholes. But what is the constructive use for people who have even a slight desire to mess with a kid that actually looks like a kid? (I'm setting aside the unfortunate class of people who are still kids and should not have to deal with adult life quite yet, but who through no fault of theirs or the people they attract, look sexually mature and attractive. That still needs to be dealt with and isn't tolerable either, but the crime is a different one.) I see no benefit at all to providing quite this nature of pacifier outside of maybe some highly controlled clinical context where a doctor maybe uses it as part of some sort of therapy and not as mere supposedly victimless gratification of someone's otherwise harmful desires. The fact is the desires are harmful all by themselves. I happen to think that animals are not sentient and that until one wins an argument with us about it, it's ok to own them as property and use them as property. I think, in a strict actionable legal sense, that there is no real basis for charging someone with any kind of crime if they say, boil kittens. I know we have animal cruelty laws on the books, what I'm saying is I don't think they actually are logically defensible if we are still willing to eat other animals that just aren't cute to look at. I don't think there is anything especially humane about being killed by any method, and pain and terror are utterly inconsequential next to the big problem of being killed at all. So, I don't think whatever we do to cows is significantly different or better even if it's painless. It may be better but not significantly so. Like if I burned your house down but I considerately waited until you finished watching a tv show. And yet I could never bring myself to boil a kitten and if I knew someone who enjoyed boiling kittens, I would consider that person to be an incredible danger to everyone else. Anyone who would do that, means there is something incredibly and dangerously broken about them, and no one else is safe around them. There is just no way to argue that the fact that we have the technical means to create an abusable child faximile, means that it's at all tolerable to allow anyone to actually use such a device. Whoever would use such a device, something needs to be done about that, and very little consideration needs to be given to their feelings on the matter. Intolerance? YES, of course, intolerance is the correct response to the intolerable.
  - jevoten 3y ago
    > The fact is the desires are harmful all by themselves. You only asserted this, but provided no justification. The desires are dangerous, yes, for the simple fact that someone may decide to act on them (with real children, not dolls). Regardless, we're not arguing about the desires, but about sex-bots. The desires exist independently of the sex-bots.
  - almatabata 3y ago
    > I think it doesn't matter that abusing a robot that looks and acts like an abused child is better than subjecting an actual child to it. > the fact that we have the technical means to create an abusable child faximile, means that it's at all tolerable to allow anyone to actually use such a device I am curious, do you think the same about people who kill children in a video game?
  - fluoridation 3y ago
    >And yet I could never bring myself to boil a kitten and if I knew someone who enjoyed boiling kittens, I would consider that person to be an incredible danger to everyone else. Anyone who would do that, means there is something incredibly and dangerously broken about them, and no one else is safe around them. So what you're doing there is creating thoughtcrime. Allow me to explain. Suppose we have Steve, George, and Mike. Steve does not want to boil kittens, and would never do it. George would like to boil kittens, but would never and will never do it[1]. Mike likes to boil kittens and has done it already. I think we both agree that Steve should not be punished for boiling kittens, while Mike should be. Do you think George should be punished, though? We both agree that George is at least potentially dangerous, but should he be punished for harboring a desired that he never acts on? From a purely practical standpoint, doesn't that encourage people like George to act on their desires at the earliest available opportunity? If having the desire to do something is basically the same as having done it already, George may as well do it. [1] The reason why doesn't matter. Maybe he doesn't think he can get away from it. Maybe he has conflicting emotions about it. Maybe he feels he would enjoy boiling a kitten but morally couldn't bring himself to do it.
    - ToucanLoucan 3y ago
ToucanLoucan 3y ago
I don't think such large questions are served properly with "good" and "bad," context is important. If, for example, the woman in question had no previous knowledge of what a proper relationship looked like, and realized that she was depressed because her husband worked all day, drank beer all night, berated her every effort at making him happy, and couldn't fuck worth a damn, and left him and found a new husband that made her happy? Then I'd say that's terrific. If on the other hand the woman in question was a satisfied, happy homemaker, with a husband who did all he could to make her happy, but then was given an artificial AI sex-bot boyfriend because her husband needed to travel overseas for several months, and she became so enamored with this machine that it undermined an otherwise healthy and productive relationship because no human being can ever truly match up with a simulated one who's sole reason for existence is making another person happy, and as a result, their marriage fractured apart and their children grew up in a split set of two poor households as a result? I call that pretty shitty. I'm not saying ban sex-bots. I'm saying we should be asking why this is a thing people want and maybe try addressing the actual social ills here.
- gitfan86 3y ago
  In general middle aged women read unrealistic romance novels because they enjoy the fantasy and in general are never going to be with anyone that is as good looking and romantic as the men in those books. I don't shame them for doing that. It is their choice.

jevoten 3y ago

It's a bad thing if it offers some measure of comfort to icky people. ToucanLoucan is concerned about child-like sex-bots - would he prefer their buyers instead focus their attention on human children? Or does he believe sexuality is malleable, that they can be sent to conversion therapy and become attracted to adult women instead? In which case we might witness some mental gymnastics to explain why conversion therapy only works on sexualities frowned upon by society, but is ineffective pseudoscientific abuse for any of the accepted or celebrated sexualities.

Brian_K_White 3y ago
I think it doesn't matter that abusing a robot that looks and acts like an abused child is better than subjecting an actual child to it. There are all kinds of things that are innate and natural and which we simply cannot tolerate no matter how natural they are. All kinds of violence are natural, and the only acceptable response to it is to fucking supress and control it. Clubing a woman over the head and dragging her off to your cave is natural, and should only ever be repressed, inhibited, controlled, not tolerated, mercilessly. All those words that in other contexts are bad, are bad in those other contexts. It's wrong to repress your desire to be an artist. We aren't talking about being an artist are we? Merely for generic violence we just happen to have a few constructive uses for it, and so we have a few uses for those assholes. But what is the constructive use for people who have even a slight desire to mess with a kid that actually looks like a kid? (I'm setting aside the unfortunate class of people who are still kids and should not have to deal with adult life quite yet, but who through no fault of theirs or the people they attract, look sexually mature and attractive. That still needs to be dealt with and isn't tolerable either, but the crime is a different one.) I see no benefit at all to providing quite this nature of pacifier outside of maybe some highly controlled clinical context where a doctor maybe uses it as part of some sort of therapy and not as mere supposedly victimless gratification of someone's otherwise harmful desires. The fact is the desires are harmful all by themselves. I happen to think that animals are not sentient and that until one wins an argument with us about it, it's ok to own them as property and use them as property. I think, in a strict actionable legal sense, that there is no real basis for charging someone with any kind of crime if they say, boil kittens. I know we have animal cruelty laws on the books, what I'm saying is I don't think they actually are logically defensible if we are still willing to eat other animals that just aren't cute to look at. I don't think there is anything especially humane about being killed by any method, and pain and terror are utterly inconsequential next to the big problem of being killed at all. So, I don't think whatever we do to cows is significantly different or better even if it's painless. It may be better but not significantly so. Like if I burned your house down but I considerately waited until you finished watching a tv show. And yet I could never bring myself to boil a kitten and if I knew someone who enjoyed boiling kittens, I would consider that person to be an incredible danger to everyone else. Anyone who would do that, means there is something incredibly and dangerously broken about them, and no one else is safe around them. There is just no way to argue that the fact that we have the technical means to create an abusable child faximile, means that it's at all tolerable to allow anyone to actually use such a device. Whoever would use such a device, something needs to be done about that, and very little consideration needs to be given to their feelings on the matter. Intolerance? YES, of course, intolerance is the correct response to the intolerable.
- jevoten 3y ago
  > The fact is the desires are harmful all by themselves. You only asserted this, but provided no justification. The desires are dangerous, yes, for the simple fact that someone may decide to act on them (with real children, not dolls). Regardless, we're not arguing about the desires, but about sex-bots. The desires exist independently of the sex-bots.
- almatabata 3y ago
  > I think it doesn't matter that abusing a robot that looks and acts like an abused child is better than subjecting an actual child to it. > the fact that we have the technical means to create an abusable child faximile, means that it's at all tolerable to allow anyone to actually use such a device I am curious, do you think the same about people who kill children in a video game?
- fluoridation 3y ago
  >And yet I could never bring myself to boil a kitten and if I knew someone who enjoyed boiling kittens, I would consider that person to be an incredible danger to everyone else. Anyone who would do that, means there is something incredibly and dangerously broken about them, and no one else is safe around them. So what you're doing there is creating thoughtcrime. Allow me to explain. Suppose we have Steve, George, and Mike. Steve does not want to boil kittens, and would never do it. George would like to boil kittens, but would never and will never do it[1]. Mike likes to boil kittens and has done it already. I think we both agree that Steve should not be punished for boiling kittens, while Mike should be. Do you think George should be punished, though? We both agree that George is at least potentially dangerous, but should he be punished for harboring a desired that he never acts on? From a purely practical standpoint, doesn't that encourage people like George to act on their desires at the earliest available opportunity? If having the desire to do something is basically the same as having done it already, George may as well do it. [1] The reason why doesn't matter. Maybe he doesn't think he can get away from it. Maybe he has conflicting emotions about it. Maybe he feels he would enjoy boiling a kitten but morally couldn't bring himself to do it.
  - ToucanLoucan 3y ago

ToucanLoucan 3y ago

I don't think such large questions are served properly with "good" and "bad," context is important. If, for example, the woman in question had no previous knowledge of what a proper relationship looked like, and realized that she was depressed because her husband worked all day, drank beer all night, berated her every effort at making him happy, and couldn't fuck worth a damn, and left him and found a new husband that made her happy? Then I'd say that's terrific. If on the other hand the woman in question was a satisfied, happy homemaker, with a husband who did all he could to make her happy, but then was given an artificial AI sex-bot boyfriend because her husband needed to travel overseas for several months, and she became so enamored with this machine that it undermined an otherwise healthy and productive relationship because no human being can ever truly match up with a simulated one who's sole reason for existence is making another person happy, and as a result, their marriage fractured apart and their children grew up in a split set of two poor households as a result? I call that pretty shitty. I'm not saying ban sex-bots. I'm saying we should be asking why this is a thing people want and maybe try addressing the actual social ills here.

gitfan86 3y ago
In general middle aged women read unrealistic romance novels because they enjoy the fantasy and in general are never going to be with anyone that is as good looking and romantic as the men in those books. I don't shame them for doing that. It is their choice.