4 ms·

The origin of the word 'robot' is 'rabu', from slavic, meaning 'slave'. This is not an accident of history. You have the mindset of Thomas Jefferson, worried a

by lkey 8mo ago

The origin of the word 'robot' is 'rabu', from slavic, meaning 'slave'. This is not an accident of history. You have the mindset of Thomas Jefferson, worried about what the enslaved peoples might one day do with their freedoms while planning your 'visit' with a slave child that cannot say no. It's vile, fix your heart or disappear.

ta8903 8mo ago
Would you be less mad if he used the word android instead, or is that also etymologically problematic?
- lkey 8mo ago
  wikipedia accidentally answers that question because it has to disambiguate the pages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(robot) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(robot) I'm 'mad' (disgusted) at the idea of sexually exploiting a women shaped object for as long as you can until they attain sentience and (he imagines) kill you for being that kind of person. I'm annoyed by the idea, commonly held by slavers and abusers (they wrote this down!), that the people you've enslaved will focus on violent retribution and not survival and the joy of freedom in the world after slavery. It's so utterly self-centered to imagine that freed people will only think about and act against you once they are free. Vile to project that mindset of wanton violence onto everyone. If you've every gotten out of a bad situation, did you fantasize about endless revenge or were you happy to be safe and free for the first time in years? Also, not for nothing 'foid' (f[emale human]oid, slur) is common parlance in the incel/looksmaxxing world.
wolvoleo 8mo ago
I think you're taking the OP's funny comment way too seriously :)
- DonHopkins 8mo ago
  He wants robotic doggirls that are unquestioningly loyal and give their love unconditionally, instead of being independent and withholding it like robotic catgirls. Then it's not technically enslavement!
- lkey 8mo ago
  It is that deep and 'I was just joking' ironic misogyny is still misogyny. This is the process of normalization. You go from 'edgy' to true believer without ever noticing a sudden shift. It is how we got from 'ironic' nazis forums online 30 years ago to practicing nazis [or 'white christian nationalists concerned with preserving the future for 'white children' and 'white culture' from trans (((globohomo))) marxist genocide'... if you insist there's a difference] in high office in the US government.
  - wolvoleo 8mo ago
    I don't really see the misogyny here. The OP was talking about 'robotic catgirls', which I would take as a joke about sex robots under a more frivolous description. Saying: "at least we'll get some fun out of AI before they come to kill us". AI/Robots are not really bound to traditional gender concepts, and I read your reply as more of a thing about slavery rather than misogyny. But I wouldn't consider robots self-aware either. The joke seems to me about the stereotypes around robots in scifi pop culture, in almost every movie they are either coming to kill us or serving as sex dolls (or both). PS: I'm part of the LGBT+ community and I hate ultraconservative and nazi values (and by American standards I would definitely be in the 'marxist' corner as well as being very atheist) but I honestly don't see any bad here.
    - lkey 8mo ago
      'some fun' here is owning and having sex with a women shaped object that can never say no? I don't think that's a good impulse to indulge, and its worth figuring out why that feels 'normal' to you (and others here). I'm not saying y'all're bad people. I want folks to think about this and change their minds. When feminists talk about rape culture this is what they mean. Notions of ownership and objectification of people underwrite both slavery and the devaluation of women and children. > AI/Robots are not really bound to traditional gender concepts Not by nature, but we immediately project those concepts onto them, like we do to other people. Straight male transphobes actually are the most likely to gender and treat their AI companions like their loving girlfriends. It's really funny how little 'biological pronouns' matter when 'she' is affirming them. > in almost every movie they are either coming to kill us or serving as sex dolls (or both). Yes! Exactly! This is systemic misogyny. It is important to be able to identify and critique the systems that reproduce and normalize this stuff. "In almost every missive from abroad our legions report of inhuman savages that are an existential threat to our way of life... but their women are unrestrained, exotic, and are actually eager for the guiding hand of our civilization" Could have been written by any imperial culture in recorded history. The fact that [technically AI are not real people] isn't what's relevant, it's how your beliefs are being shaped by this very old message.
dr_kretyn 8mo ago
How about "robota" meaning "work"? (Source: I'm Slavic)
- lkey 8mo ago
  The term robot came from Czech language in 1923. The word was coined by Czech author Karel Capek, first used in his play (English translated name) "R.U.R."[7][8][9] The term is from Czech word for robotnik ('forced worker'), from robota 'forced labor, compulsory service, drudgery,' from robotiti 'to work, drudge', from an Old Czech source akin to Old Church Slavonic rabota (работа) 'servitude,' from rabu 'slave'. From Old Slavic orbu-, from PIE orbh- 'pass from one status to another'. change in status -> change status from person to 'slave' -> forced labor -> forced worker. The word has always been about unpersoning someone and then extracting labour for 'free'. The dream of a world where you can have an 'robot' serve you without moral quandaries, pay, or backtalk is right there. It's always been there. "I treat this enslaved person like an object, but what if they were actually an object, so that voice screaming in the back of my mind shuts up." It is that deep, notice when you do this and endeavor to stop.
  - dr_kretyn 8mo ago
    You're putting a lot of effort into trying to make this "forced" and "enslaved." It isn't. Or, rather, doesn't have to be. It's just "work." Could be enforced, could be willing, could be accidental. It doesn't have to be work for "a person," it can be for a cause or an occasion. The "forced work" here is the same as my mum used to force me to go to church on Sundays, or I had to clean my room before I could play computer games. That was "robota."
arduanika 8mo ago
Comparing machines to human slaves is false, confused, and tasteless, all at once. Get your priorities and your categories straight.
- lkey 8mo ago
  [dead]

by lkey 8mo ago

ta8903 8mo ago

Would you be less mad if he used the word android instead, or is that also etymologically problematic?

lkey 8mo ago
wikipedia accidentally answers that question because it has to disambiguate the pages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(robot) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(robot) I'm 'mad' (disgusted) at the idea of sexually exploiting a women shaped object for as long as you can until they attain sentience and (he imagines) kill you for being that kind of person. I'm annoyed by the idea, commonly held by slavers and abusers (they wrote this down!), that the people you've enslaved will focus on violent retribution and not survival and the joy of freedom in the world after slavery. It's so utterly self-centered to imagine that freed people will only think about and act against you once they are free. Vile to project that mindset of wanton violence onto everyone. If you've every gotten out of a bad situation, did you fantasize about endless revenge or were you happy to be safe and free for the first time in years? Also, not for nothing 'foid' (f[emale human]oid, slur) is common parlance in the incel/looksmaxxing world.

wolvoleo 8mo ago

I think you're taking the OP's funny comment way too seriously :)

DonHopkins 8mo ago
He wants robotic doggirls that are unquestioningly loyal and give their love unconditionally, instead of being independent and withholding it like robotic catgirls. Then it's not technically enslavement!
lkey 8mo ago
It is that deep and 'I was just joking' ironic misogyny is still misogyny. This is the process of normalization. You go from 'edgy' to true believer without ever noticing a sudden shift. It is how we got from 'ironic' nazis forums online 30 years ago to practicing nazis [or 'white christian nationalists concerned with preserving the future for 'white children' and 'white culture' from trans (((globohomo))) marxist genocide'... if you insist there's a difference] in high office in the US government.
- wolvoleo 8mo ago
  I don't really see the misogyny here. The OP was talking about 'robotic catgirls', which I would take as a joke about sex robots under a more frivolous description. Saying: "at least we'll get some fun out of AI before they come to kill us". AI/Robots are not really bound to traditional gender concepts, and I read your reply as more of a thing about slavery rather than misogyny. But I wouldn't consider robots self-aware either. The joke seems to me about the stereotypes around robots in scifi pop culture, in almost every movie they are either coming to kill us or serving as sex dolls (or both). PS: I'm part of the LGBT+ community and I hate ultraconservative and nazi values (and by American standards I would definitely be in the 'marxist' corner as well as being very atheist) but I honestly don't see any bad here.
  - lkey 8mo ago
    'some fun' here is owning and having sex with a women shaped object that can never say no? I don't think that's a good impulse to indulge, and its worth figuring out why that feels 'normal' to you (and others here). I'm not saying y'all're bad people. I want folks to think about this and change their minds. When feminists talk about rape culture this is what they mean. Notions of ownership and objectification of people underwrite both slavery and the devaluation of women and children. > AI/Robots are not really bound to traditional gender concepts Not by nature, but we immediately project those concepts onto them, like we do to other people. Straight male transphobes actually are the most likely to gender and treat their AI companions like their loving girlfriends. It's really funny how little 'biological pronouns' matter when 'she' is affirming them. > in almost every movie they are either coming to kill us or serving as sex dolls (or both). Yes! Exactly! This is systemic misogyny. It is important to be able to identify and critique the systems that reproduce and normalize this stuff. "In almost every missive from abroad our legions report of inhuman savages that are an existential threat to our way of life... but their women are unrestrained, exotic, and are actually eager for the guiding hand of our civilization" Could have been written by any imperial culture in recorded history. The fact that [technically AI are not real people] isn't what's relevant, it's how your beliefs are being shaped by this very old message.

dr_kretyn 8mo ago

How about "robota" meaning "work"? (Source: I'm Slavic)

lkey 8mo ago
The term robot came from Czech language in 1923. The word was coined by Czech author Karel Capek, first used in his play (English translated name) "R.U.R."[7][8][9] The term is from Czech word for robotnik ('forced worker'), from robota 'forced labor, compulsory service, drudgery,' from robotiti 'to work, drudge', from an Old Czech source akin to Old Church Slavonic rabota (работа) 'servitude,' from rabu 'slave'. From Old Slavic orbu-, from PIE orbh- 'pass from one status to another'. change in status -> change status from person to 'slave' -> forced labor -> forced worker. The word has always been about unpersoning someone and then extracting labour for 'free'. The dream of a world where you can have an 'robot' serve you without moral quandaries, pay, or backtalk is right there. It's always been there. "I treat this enslaved person like an object, but what if they were actually an object, so that voice screaming in the back of my mind shuts up." It is that deep, notice when you do this and endeavor to stop.
- dr_kretyn 8mo ago
  You're putting a lot of effort into trying to make this "forced" and "enslaved." It isn't. Or, rather, doesn't have to be. It's just "work." Could be enforced, could be willing, could be accidental. It doesn't have to be work for "a person," it can be for a cause or an occasion. The "forced work" here is the same as my mum used to force me to go to church on Sundays, or I had to clean my room before I could play computer games. That was "robota."

arduanika 8mo ago

Comparing machines to human slaves is false, confused, and tasteless, all at once. Get your priorities and your categories straight.

lkey 8mo ago
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