Why Should That Be True?

Feminists in Sweden want a ban on sex robots, although the language they're using suggests to me that it would be a much bigger ban than that practically.

They're demanding legislation targeting technology that "reproduces ideas about exploiting women's bodies".

Three Swedish feminist organisations, Sweden's Women's Lobby, the National Organisation for Women's Shelters and Young Women's Shelters (Roks) as well as the empowerment organisation Unizon have published a joint appeal in the newspaper Expressen, in which they demand a state ban on "dangerous" sex robots for men.

The debaters noted that today's sex robots often have the "appearances and attributes typical of the objectifying, sexualised and degrading attitude to women found in today's mainstream pornography".

"Why are men willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a robot that obeys their smallest command?" the feminists asked rhetorically. "A female robot cannot say no to something that the man wants, if she is not programmed to do so", the feminists complained.

"Technology that reproduces ideas" is not just "robots." That's properly speaking a ban on the printing press, for example; the internet, especially given its role in forwarding pornography; television, movies, etc.

However, what strikes me immediately is that the thing might go the other way. They seem to think that people (well, "men") won't be able or willing to make a distinction between women and robots that look like women. It may very well be that people do make the distinction, though, just as they make the distinction between reality and make-believe. In learning what you can do to a robot that you can't do to a real person, the distinction that women are real people who can't be mistreated is reinforced.

Japan seems to do something like this with its manga cartoons, which are hideously violent. Japan's real life, however, is not hideously violent at all. It's stressful and competitive, and these intense violent fantasies manifestly do arise in that context. But they put them in the make believe space, and the society remains mostly peaceful (though suicide is an issue).

I'm not advocating the reading of manga, and I suspect many people will reject the idea of sexbots as disgusting (as, frankly, is the manga). However, I do think that pushing the bad stuff into the world of make believe can be a stopgap measure during times when whatever is producing 'the bad stuff' can't be fixed. Japan also has Buddhist monasteries where you can go and leave the stressful society behind you, but if you aren't ready to do that -- if you feel compelled by the pressures of family and society to keep up the rat race -- pushing the anger and such into the make believe space may be better for everyone than acting it out on real people.

Of course, I don't know that it would work that way -- but neither do these Swedish women know it'd work out the other way. The idea that we should ban something in the absence of any demonstrated actual harm should be rejected, even if we find the conduct disgusting. Let people be free, even if they do things you may not like.

There remain other ethical issues, of course; obviously unless these things are made to be able to reproduce, they'd be indefensible according to Catholic theology (and likely even then, though I haven't worked that argument out in my head).

UPDATE:

Locating your violent fantasies in make believe isn't just for men! From FB:

Why the long face?

A Quillette article examines why technological and other progress is so often seen as stalling. My first thought was "risk"--we've developed a bizarre approach to it.  We're doing everything we can to uncouple risk from reward, and we're increasingly willing to accept paralysis rather than suffer risk.  A few paragraphs down, I found this:

The last 200 years have seen a shift from what moral sociologists have described as the ‘honour’ or warrior culture pre-dating the 19th-century—to the ‘dignity’ culture of the 20th-century—to the emergence of a ‘victimhood’ culture in the 21st.

Part of this shift includes the increasing adversity to risk.

Turning a Corner?

A few weeks ago we discussed a Houston police raid in which the police killed two fellow citizens, with five police officers shot. The description of the event suggested, even then, that the police had shot each other while killing the citizens. Now, it turns out, the alleged 'drug buy informant' lied, the investigating officer lied, and there was no reason to run the raid at all.

The police seem to be responding to this better than previous suspect events. First, they've declared an end to no-knock raids.

Second, they're preparing charges against 'one or more officers.'

Good. Discipline is the soul of the army, and while police are not properly an army, they're increasingly trained and acting as if they were.

The Devil Hates a Sleeping Bag

Willie Nelson this time.



I always think of The Quiet Man when sleeping bags come up.

Negative, AZ, FBI

Arizona would like its citizens to be forced to give up their DNA for a massive state database, and pay $250 for the privilege.



American governments have gotten to big for their britches. Especially the law-enforcement branches, to include (as that essay does) the FBI and DOJ.

We need to break them to saddle.

You can't fire me!

It's a cry you hear from union workers, civil servants, and people with ironclad employment contracts.  Usually not so much from restaurant workers.  New York is out there on the cutting edge, considering laws to prevent restaurant operators from firing a worker when they conclude they can't stay in business if they have to pay him the new minimum wage.  Will New York force the restaurants out of business?  Will we then learn that the market has failed, so the government has to step in and supply this essential service?  At least that way the worker can get civil service protection.  Of course, the restaurants may be about as good as the DMV and siphon off a lot of New York tax dollars, which will spur Cuomo to complain even more bitterly that Florida is stealing his citizens.

MAGA Hat Threatens Armed Man

It's perfectly understandable self-defense given such a provocation.

Police in Bowling Green, Kentucky, say James Phillips was arrested after witnesses said he pulled a gun inside a Sam’s Club outlet because the victim was wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat.... Police reported that store surveillance video substantiates Phillips’ story and that he never laid a hand on the Trump-hating assailant.

Officials said that when he was arrested, Phillips had a .40 caliber Glock handgun with a bullet in the chamber sitting in his pocket . He also had two extra loaded magazines on his person.

I have seen people wearing MAGA hats on rare occasion around here, but they're not common. I suspect the sense that you might get shot for wearing one -- or beaten, or robbed, or become the subject of a nationwide Three Minutes' Hate -- is one reason they are not all that popular even in the rural South.

Selective taboos

At Powerline, a refreshing look at when the concept of personal responsibility is allowed to intrude on policy discussions, and when it can be dismissed as cruel.

In the case of “Detroit,” we must decide how far to go in order to improve, in the short term, the material condition of the population. How much should we spend on welfare? How lenient should we be with criminals? Should there be monetary reparations? Should there be forced integration?

In the case of rural America, the policy questions prompted by Carlson are different. How much trade protection should certain American industries receive? To what extent should we limit legal immigration?

The answer in both cases depends in part on how much weight we place on the concept of personal responsibility. Those who take the concept seriously will be less inclined to transfer vast amounts of money, or to tolerate high risk associated with the early release of criminals, than those who don’t.

They will also be less inclined to think Americans should pay more for consumer goods as a result of trade barriers and restrictions on the number of people who can work in the U.S. They may ask how much more they should pay for cars because males in rural America are making irresponsible personal choices.

The best answer might well be “somewhat more.” Even for conservatives, the concept of personal responsibility isn’t absolute. We are willing to spend a considerable amount of money on welfare even though we know that if recipients made better choices, we would be able to spend considerably less.

Storm memento

A too-infrequent guest from Houston arrived this year with a bowl turned from a downed oak trunk that he took home with him last year.  I'd forgotten he took it, so the gift was a delightful surprise.

Citizenship Tests

Perhaps we should consider stripping voting rights from anyone who can't pass the test? I am saddened to see that the South does particularly badly here, although only Vermont has a majority with a passing score (and that barely).

Seizing and pouncing

Or is it pouncing and then seizing?  Let's go to the video:



Whatever it is, I'm sure it's very unfair to tasty Democrats.

Get To Work, Fellow Oppressors

Apparently we're really letting some people down by not being out there beating and harassing our opponents. I blame myself; I haven't threatened anybody in at least a week or two.

Well, not intentionally. Some people seem to be threatened by our very existence, but apparently that's not enough.

UPDATE: And then there were two.

Small Victories

The border fight we've been having has faced stiff opposition from both Democrats and some Republicans, a few because they fear convincing Latinos that they are racists but most because they are interested in helping their donors depress the price of labor. Nevertheless, all the news isn't bad; there have been some compromises.

Trump and GOP negotiators led by Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and his team blocked several moves by Pelosi and other Democrats to fill the deal with anti-wall moves like lowering spending for ICE and slashing the number of “detention beds” to hold criminal illegal immigrants.

“Pelosi lost. She knew her position on detentions beds was unsustainable and only playing to her fringe. She also said no new miles for the wall,” said the source. “She had to step back from all positions.”

Compared to a simple continuing resolution, or CR, with nothing extra beyond current spending levels set in fiscal 2018, Trump gained extra funding for the wall.... “nearly three times as much as would have been available under a CR,” said the source.

On detention beds, the number increased 13 percent over fiscal 2018. And when another $750 million in transfer and reprogramming authority is added in, it represents a 44 percent increase, said the source.

What’s more, the bill provides historic funding levels for ICE and Customs and Border Protection, a rejection of liberal efforts to kill the agencies. It was a 7 percent budget increase for a combined $21.5 billion.

In addition, the NYT reports, the tough border policies are causing some people to give up and go home -- or to choose life in Mexico, which offered them asylum.

[T]housands of caravan members who had been waiting to seek asylum in the United States appear to have given up, Mexican officials said, dealing President Trump an apparent win after a humbling week for his immigration agenda.

About 6,000 asylum seekers who had traveled en masse, many of them in defiance of Mr. Trump’s demands that they turn around, arrived in Northern Mexico in late November as part of a caravan that originated in Honduras. Since then, more than 1,000 have accepted an offer to be returned home by the Mexican government, the officials said. Another 1,000 have decided to stay in Mexico, accepting work permits that were offered to them last fall, at the height of international consternation over how to deal with the growing presence of migrant caravans.

There's reason to be annoyed that the Republican Congress never ponied up money for a wall, and there's reason to be annoyed about the use of unconstitutional emergency powers that no president should really have. If you believe that a nation has to control its borders to remain stable, however, there is some good news too.

Rye Whiskey

Gringo raises the similarity between two different folk songs in the comments below. In fact there's a fair number of folk songs who have similar lines. I like this one because it pieces very many of them together.



"Jack of diamonds, Jack of Daniels.."

They know a lot of the old songs.

Dwarves and Elves

Doc Crawford on Norse Mythology.

Cultural Appropriation!

No, no, that should be a good American version, like this:



Er, no, wait...

All those old Prohibition songs end up being better advertisements for a drop of the pure.



It's because they were wrong, of course. But that was an American song first, you Irish cultural appropriators!

UPDATE:

Not that cigarettes are good for you. Tex Williams is dead now, more's the pity.

The Man Who Strangled a Mountain Lion Gave an Interview

I haven't found the text yet, but it looks like he's doing all right.

What's with these crushed Asians?

(Who remembers that Gilda Radner skit?) Actually what I wanted to write about is a Department of Labor lawsuit against tech giant Oracle for discriminating against the usual suspects.  This caught my eye as a complaint about how Asian-heavy the tech jobs are at Oracle:

Some of the new claims also substitute broad statistics for refined analysis. For example, as the Wall Street Journal points out, the DOL relies for its hiring discrimination claim on evidence that 82 percent of employees hired by Oracle for technical positions are Asians, whereas Asians were “only” 75 percent of applicants.

It sounds to me like being in the ballpark if the racial quotas for applicants and hirees are within 10% or so, so I can't get too excited about the ratio of 75% to 82%. But seriously, 3/4 of the applicants are Asian? Are we not supposed to notice this? Are we supposed to think that's irrelevant to questions about what aspects of race might be important in job statistics besides allegations of racism?

And this is what the Asian statistics look like even with the Ivy League schools grinding them into the dirt as hard as they know how.

Got That Gentrification Problem Licked

I had thought that it was part of a Congressperson's job to try to obtain investment in their communities, but apparently that's wrong.

“Anything is possible: today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers & their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world."

Yeah, you sure showed him.

Lufthansa sues passenger

Okay, with a headline like that, you know it has to be good stupid.  Oh boy, is it.

https://www.npr.org/2019/02/13/694352593/lufthansa-airlines-sues-customer-who-skipped-part-of-his-return-flight

In short, the passenger booked a round trip flight from Oslo to Seattle (with a layover in Frankfurt) for about $741.  While returning from Seattle, he then got off in Frankfurt and thence flew to Berlin on a completely separate ticket.  Lufthansa says that the cost of his flight ought to have been about $2300 more if he had bought it "properly", and wants him to pay the difference.

So let's make this simple.  Let's say you want to get from New York to LA.  But the flights are more expensive than a flight from New York to Lake Tahoe that has a layover in LA.  So by buying the NY>LA>Tahoe ticket and just getting off in LA, you save money.  But then the airline catches wind of it and demands you to pay the difference since you really wanted a NY>LA flight.

One would hope you'd tell them to pound sand.  You took advantage of their pricing.  "But then they can't sell the seat from LA to Tahoe!"  Wrong!  That seat was sold, you paid for it.  Whether you use it or not is immaterial, it was paid for in full by you.  And this argument is doubly rich from an industry that thinks little of double-booking seats because they expect passengers to miss flights or not fly for some reason.

But what truly amuses me is that Lufthansa's argument explicitly says that if you buy a ticket you are obligated to use all parts of the ticket, or else they'll sue.  Which leads me to the idea that if they believe that missing (or not taking) a flight grants them the right to charge you for the price of a ticket from your origin to the layover city you actually stop at, then that allows them to demand money from every passenger stranded in a layover city every time there's a weather cancellation, or mechanical problem, or other flight delay.  Talk about perverse incentives!