Robot sociality

One ventures to suggest that all teddy bears are anthropomorphized. Thank you, sir.

I say, what’s the point of these confounded droids and mechanical men? What does all this clanking come to in the end? Solenoids are all very well, but they don’t amount to a hill of beans in this world when weighed in the valence, if that’s the word I want, against the restful competence and quiet service and, dash it, feudal spirit of my man Jeeves. Aside from letting me wear the ties I like, if you follow me, what?

I strongly considered not posting this. I don’t recommend reading it on a full stomach. However, if we can not appreciate horror on Halloween, when can we?

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2011/12/19/xenosexuality-consent-is-the-only-limit-on-what-sex-can-be/

The terrifying part is
A) if you accept the premise, then it is hard not to accept the conclusion
B) How many people accepted both and ran with it.

The realize the full horror of the situation, be sure to read the comments.

I do think we are ripe for a revolution in robotics. But using inanimate objects built for such hedonism (even in my darker moments) fills me with horror and disgust.

Zen, your links remind me of Brave New World, coupled with Asimov’s The Naled Sun (sequel to Caves of Steel.)

My gut says that any philosophy that doesn’t discourage such a thing is doomed for the ash-heap of history, but I should say society instead, because societies are perfectly capable of effectively discouraging things that their philosophies say they should embrace.

Is my gut right? If robot lovers happen and become accepted, it means the family will be pruned back on a large scale. Single women will take up some but not enough of the slack.

So where else can children come from? I can theoretically envision two kinds of social systems that could work. The one would be massive governmental intervention to raise children in creches. There are about 4-5 million births needed each year to maintain the current US population. Assume the Bureau of Population Stability has to raise about half those children to compensate for the Sulvans. If the cost per child is $50,000/year (it could easily be more than this), the total yearly figure is about $100 billion, which is a big number but actually somewhat feasible. My $50k SWAG could be off, of course. In addition to the $100 billion, you’d also a number of additional expenses associated with paying for childcare, education, and health expenses for the single women who do have children, and for the associated social pathologies. You’d also have to heavily incentivize childbearing for the input children to the government creches, or make it mandatory (selective reproductive service drafts). So the end result is a very large and intrusive social welfare state. Judging by current welfare states, its cost structure may not be very sustainable long term, but my suspicion is that with reduced living standards and economic stagnation, such a society could last for a long time at the price of technical stasis and social decay.

The other alternative would be slavery: corporations and other institutions could take the costs of raising children in batches if they could reap the profits from them in their adulthood. This alternative is pretty unlikely for a number of reasons.

Finally, there’s the alternative of massive growth in robotic innovation in the economy that keeps up with, and more than keeps up with, falling populations. But social breakdown and falling populations are unlikely to lead to great innovations.

So the natural end-state of liberalism is a literally cradle-to-grave government-run static society. This is probably a feature, not a bug.

Some days, I wonder if the greatest danger of abortion, is not the death of innocents, but how it teaches us to play fast and loose with how we define life for the rest of us and society.

Not to worry; South Asians (India), Africans, and Muslims world-wide are keeping Earth’s overall birth-rate up there, sufficient not only for replacement, but growth.

Last I checked, Pakistan is producing 4 children per woman, or has an annual population growth rate of 4%, I forget which.

China could remove their one-child policy tomorrow with the stroke of a pen. If they don’t do so soon, India will overtake them in terms of population by 2030, if I correctly remember the factoid.

Other factoids: India’s middle class is greater in number than the population of the US.

China has more geniuses currently attending college than the total number of geniuses in the US.

Zen, it likely already has. Note the increase in child abuse, specifically disappearances, murder, and sexual abuse, since Roe v Wade.