Moral questions for the 21st Century- Sex and Robots

Well, they are pretty warped. A sizable minority of Japanese men don't want to have sex with women.

 

Actually believe it was for " spilling seed" which led to churches position that sex just for fun was a sin.

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) wrote extensively about sexual subjects; his thinking dominated Christian teaching for centuries. First, he taught that any sexual activity that did not lead to procreation was deviant, even within marriage. Sex without procreation was lust, directed solely at venereal pleasure. Other sexual sins included adultery, rape, and incest.

Second, he set up a category of four "sins against nature" or "unnatural vices." These are considered more sinful than illicit sex, because they violate the laws of nature as well as the laws of society and the Church. In order from least to worst sinful:

Ejaculation without coitus, i.e., masturbation
Deviation from the "natural position" (face to face contact, female on her back)
Copulation with an "undue sex" (i.e., homosexuality)
Copulation with non-human creatures, i.e., bestiality.

So you can't masturbate and definitely should not have sex with robots.

 

I've always believed that if god didn't want us to masturbate... he would have made our arms shorter!

 

Well, if those robots were really life like, where it counts, we would see the end of humanity. No procreation going on. For how many younger men put up with their bedmates, just so they get their physical drives satiated? We would have to change the laws again to allow human/robot marriages. I am glad I am so old, that I will be dead before that happens. And Tommy Lee Jones said in one of his films, "this ain't a country anymore for old men" Lord, please, give me a time machine so I can go back when insanity didn't rule. Even the great depression years would be fine with me.

 

C-Jester.....WHICH Church? The Catholic Church....sure. They consider masturbation a sin.

But again, there is no Biblical injunction against masturbation....adultery, sure. But it takes a leap to turn adultery into "masturbation".

The Bible's silence on the matter, when obviously self-stimulation pre-dates even our simian ancestors, atleast SEEMS to show that neither the Hebrew chroniclers nor the Apostles had any particularly strong feelings against it. A quick Google search of Protestant Christian websites on the topic say it's "difficult to answer" (mostly due to no direct references in the Bible).

As for the Onan story, it was primarily about Onan's refusal to impregnate his sister-in-law and thus carry on the lineage laws.....perhaps an argument against contraception (via its argument against using premature withdrawal as a method of contraception or any contraception...your "no sex just for fun" argument).....but not against masturbation.

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Or it would be impossible....like trying to tickle yourself.

 

1. You make a valid point...and one that many religons might base their opposition on...i.e. "Many men with realistic sex robots won't engage in reproductive sex and humanity will die out"...which seems a bit far-fetched, given at the same time we'd also have artificial wombs coming on-line and if needed people could have a baby "grown" at a lab and bring it home to a robotic "mother".

2. The past only looks good to those in the present. There was no "Utopian past".

In the 1930s, you'd risk getting polio, measles, etc.....lynched if you were black.....fondled even raped if you were a woman and be blamed for being "a hussy who brought it on herself".....without New Deal protections, you could face poverty and even starvation.....and even if you could afford it?....the food sucked.

Go back further and things get even worse.

 

I can't really say I care. There is much to deal with in this line of politics, I can't say I see a particular point in playing into the idea that Bible quotes carry that much weight.

 

Religion interprets the bible to it's own uses. We can either discuss the bible or a specific Religion at a given time in history but going back and forth just confuses the discussion.

 

I dunno about the moral impact, but the chance to buy a custom-made robo-wife? Sign me up!

 

Then my point remains....there would be Christian churches who have no strong objections to masturbation. In fact, to prevent teen pregnancy or even as a "release" to prevent pre-marital sex...may endorse it.

Thus, we're back to "How will they view 'sex robots'?"

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Go back and watch the original "The Stepford Wives" with Katherine Ross. (Then you also might want to watch "Westworld" with Yul Brynner, just in case. )

 

It's really very gross to even think about that in my view. I don't really care about the "morals" of this. I'd be for a ban, if only because I think it's icky. It might be best to just ban things like this, else we become like the japs. Which is to say, stop having sex, which leads to suicidal demographics. Sometimes I think everything would be better if there was just a ban on japanese culture in general and sexual stuff in particular. I mean really, the japanese do some sick (*)(*)(*)(*).

 

Ban machines that people can have sex with? Might be a few ladies with their "Mr. Wonder-3000" vibrator who might fight you on that.

 

As long as the robot didn't feel it had to argue with me, who cares about the moral impact?

 

Humanoid robots.

 

All humanoid robots? On what basis would you ban them?

Also what about "robot maids" or "robot butlers" or "robot companions/nurses for the elderly"?....that just happen to have a "chassis replacement module" that goes in the lower pelvic area?

 

Sexual humanoid robots! JEEZ!

 

Let me be clear....to be a bit graphic-

a person buys a female-appearing "maid robot"...nothing sexual to it.

And then replaces her "blank pelvic region" with a rubber/gelatin facsimile of female genitalia and re-programs the robot to act in a sexual manner or simulate sexual response...

How would you "ban that"???

 

Well, just like laws against murder doesn't stop all murders, but still significantly reduce the number of murders, so would this law. AND, it would force them to do any such creepy and icky things well away from where ordinary people could see them. Perhaps such odd people would gather into secret creep-clubs and do their wierd stuff there, in basements or whatever, and have their own wierdo black market for their wierd things, and their own creepy internet side in a remote corner of the interwebs. As long as they're well away from everyone else, most improtantly me, and well isolated I don't really care.

 

The analogy to "murder" is rather illogical.

A more apt analogy would be...."Prohibition in the 1920s". But even then you'd need "raids" on "genitalia part replacement factories" in the US.....or the Postal Inspectors scanning every box that came in from China or across the Canadian border for "simulated vaginas/penises".

Plus there would be little if any "people would see them"....I doubt a guy or gal with a sexual surrogate robot would be having intercourse with it in the front yard.

More generally, such "moral prohibitions" always fail....again, from Prohibition for alcohol to the failed "Drug War" we've had for decades.

Plus good ol' fashioned "MYOB" (Mind Your Own Business) ...America's libertarian streak (that is often at odds with its Puritanism)....would keep such a "ban" from succeeding.


None of which is my point...except tangentially....such automatons are certain to become technologically feasible in the near-future....and I'm asking what the response will be from certain churches, synagogues, mosques, etc. Which may be in agreement with you on morality....but legally or politically, your idea is likely never to be implemented.

 

I'd say that alochol and drugs are a wee bit more popular than sexbots.

myob is so overrated. Much better to just force your morality on people. Especially sexual minorities like in this case.

 

"minding your own business is over-rated"??? Perhaps in Sweden, but not in the USA.

Again, while it's true Americans strike a Puritanical pose and talk about things like the "evil insidious nature of pornography on our society"......if an American politician put forth a bill to become LAW that would outlaw "Playboy" or movie channels like "Cinemax"....even ignoring the violation of the First Amendment......there would be mass outrage against such a law.

Nobody would support a "sex robot ban"....if for the reason it would be unenforceable, unless you banned ALL robotics, which would go against another great American tradition...capitalism.

They certainly wouldn't support the police raiding homes looking for "robot butlers" fitted with penises or "robot maids" fitted with simulated vaginas.... and programmed to moan "Oh, yeah, baby...feels so good!!!!" by some lonely man or woman.

And again, while churches, synagogues, mosques might preach sermons against "android gigalos and gynoid whores"....and you might get a poll done by some Religious Right organization showing "54% of Americans think using sex robots is immoral"......nobody would want them actually banned.

I'm curious though....the Swedes have this "myth" about them as being more sexually liberated than Americans. You seem to go against that apochryphal idea?

 

I don't think it would be hard to get through such a ban, because most people, like me, find it to be gross. besides, it's certainly going to offend more religious people, and the us is very religious. As for americans being more myob, that's a (*)(*)(*)(*)ing joke. You're proabably the hardest on the drug war and you've had a freaking prohibition. Netherlands is more myob than american's will ever be.

yes, we're probably sexually free here. Not with creepy stuff like robots though. Stuff like that is for japanese people.

 

I agree, there is no utopian past, but I grew up in an era that was like the late 1940s, and I know and have personally lived the changes from then to now. So, it was not utopian, but it was far better for me than the current times. I would trade the indoor plumbing for the outdoor plumbing in a heartbeat, for with the outdoor plumbing came a different species of people. A man's word was gold, there was a much greater respect exhibited in society, and the character of people was so much higher. Those are important to me. I could make a large list of the differences, but that will suffice for now. And basically, in the 40s you had the same people that were there in the 30s, with the same behavior.

 

1. Laws passed against "stuff people find that is gross"....don't work. Else a law against nose-picking would be quite common.

2. I said it was a paradox with Americans. You'll see guys like Rush Limbaugh STILL promoting the Drug War....while himself being hooked on prescription drugs. Or Religious Right types who want to ban marijuana.....who drink a "box of wine" every night after supper while watching "The 700 Club."

3. To be a bit graphic....do Swedish women use vibrators? Okay...now imagine a humanoid-sized robot, perhaps even indistiquishable in many ways physically from a human......capable of simulated Artificial Intelligence...as well as equiped with a vibrator-style penis....capable of both sexually satisfying the woman AND cooking her meals, cleaning the house, even engaging in some form of "Siri" (IPhone) conversation?

Tell you what....you ask your female friends that question....see if it's totally "Ewwwww...never"...or do they get a slight "gleam of curiosity in the eye"

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Not a fan of the man personally....but rent and watch Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris".

The past always looks golden from a present-day perspective.

 

There were liars, cheats and crook in the 1930s and 1940s, just like there are today. I don't buy that people were better back then (I don't think they were worse either)--people are people.