Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Retro VR promo: Give Thanks for Soft Hearts

Retro VR promo: Give Thanks for Soft Hearts: A news article about a man making sex robots inspired me to write “ Retro VR .” I had to ask  myself why the topic interested me. I c...

Friday, November 11, 2016

Open letter to President-Elect Trump

Dear President-Elect Trump,

You asked for suggestions in your acceptance speech.

Growing up during the Cold War made me into a nihilist. I believed that we would obliterate the Soviets, and they would obliterate us, before my 30th birthday. Our destruction was mutually assured. I saw no point in building a career or a family life. Loved ones helped me get over this attitude, but I still have a preference for being vaporized at Ground Zero over succumbing to radiation sickness.

I now have a young son who asks questions about your remarks on nuclear weapons that you made during your campaign. As a parent, you know that questions always lead to more questions. My challenge is to avoid passing along my nihilistic attitude.

I request two things: Explain your remarks about nuclear weaponry to our kids, and apply your deal-making skills to achieving a world free of nuclear weapons. I would not expect you to do this goal in one or two terms, but any progress you make will make it easier for our children to have hope that all humanity will not be lost.

It would also help if you could explain to the kids the remark about shooting people on Fifth Avenue and not losing any voters.

Sincerely,


John C. Stevens

Thursday, September 8, 2016

Real Human Blood








REAL HUMAN BLOOD

By John C. Stevens







Larry,

Please explain your recent scheduling actions: You approved Darwin Durwood’s Request Off for December 21 and 22, the Friday and Saturday before Christmas, without my authorization. We are considering disciplinary action against you and Mr. Durwood after the Holiday Sale fiasco at your store. You knew the scheduling needs, and Darwin signed a document when he started last month, acknowledging that he understood that he was not eligible for a day off from a mandatory shift except for the death of an immediate family member. The reason listed on his request reads “Family Business.” I saw that you submitted the request for my authorization while I was on vacation, but you didn’t wait for an answer before you told Darwin to go ahead.

I am quite puzzled at your decision, Larry. This is the same guy for whom you had to make a pretty convincing case in order for us to hire him, given his criminal record. Then, you invested quite a bit of time coaching him on interacting with customers. You were right about Darwin’s ability to talk about the new household robots in terms anyone could understand. He just needed to watch his tone so he didn’t sound impatient or condescending. Your bet paid off. Darwin has exceeded expectations, impressively.

My guess is that you owed Mr. Durwood a big favor, or something. Please let me know what’s going on.

Howard


Howard,

I didn’t owe Darwin a favor, but his parole officer convinced me that doing this particular favor was critical to Darwin’s rehabilitation. By extension, I figured that having those two days off would be critical to Darwin’s continued success.

As you know, Darwin was a successful robotics engineer before his incarceration. He was a partner in a company that made robots that worked in conjunction with virtual reality systems. They started out making these systems to help train medical personnel. The robots provide a life-like feel to a virtual patient, and the virtual reality goggles help the medical personnel practice interacting with patients. The business really took off after they made such a system to train gynecologists. Darwin said after that, he and his partners felt like they had to consult psychotherapists to offer diversion programs on virtual reality that might help people overcome their sexual problems.

Darwin’s problems started when his partners asked him to design a blood victim robot. This would be for people who like to be a vampire in virtual reality, but want to drink real human blood from the neck of a life-like victim. Some of them already have sharpened incisors. It would be similar to the robot they made to train phlebotomists, but the vein would be in the neck instead of the arm. It would have a tank and a pump to send the blood through the robot’s jugular. The customers would insist on real human blood, so Darwin would have to take that into account in order to design it in such a way as to make it as easy to clean as possible.

Darwin refused to design the blood victim robot. He told his partners at the time that he had moral objections against it. They asked him why he didn’t object to taking his profits from the sex robot sales. He told them that vampires are evil. Masturbating with expensive toys like robots and VR goggles is just kind of pathetic. Darwin also told his partners that he didn’t want to be part of any scheme involving rich people buying blood from poor people just for sport.

What Darwin didn’t tell his partners was that his 17-year-old son, Arthur, had become obsessed with vampires. It worried Darwin, because the boy talked about getting his teeth sharpened. Darwin felt guilty about this because he’d put in long hours at his job when Arthur was very young. He wasn’t around to answer questions about mortality and death and the afterlife, and it looked like Arthur had gotten confused ideas from TV and movies. Arthur would get mad and storm out of the room when Darwin tried to remind him that vampires are fictional.

Darwin and his wife, Samantha, had had a lot of disagreements about how to raise Arthur, starting with naming him. Darwin thought Samantha’s names were too trendy or special, and Samantha thought that Darwin’s names were dull. Darwin thought Samantha helped Arthur too much when he needed to learn to do something. He thought she shielded him from the consequences of his actions. Samantha thought Darwin neglected Arthur.

Samantha loved Halloween. She loved to dress Arthur in a vampire costume every year, starting when he was four. Darwin didn’t object to this. It was one thing that Arthur and his mother could do together without yelling at each other. He didn’t think of it as evil. The first thing he thought of when he heard about vampires was either a counting puppet from a children’s TV show, or a nutty old grandpa from a black-and-white TV situation comedy. Darwin never took an interest in the vampire movies and TV shows that came out after he grew up, but Arthur and Samantha watched some of them together.

I asked Darwin about his crime in my initial interview with him. He said that when he continued to refuse to work on the blood victim robot, he and his partners got so angry with each other that they couldn’t work together anymore. They voted to oust him from the partnership and sue him for failure to perform his duties. His lawyer told him that the moral objection argument probably wouldn’t hold up in court, and advised him to show that the market for blood victim robots wasn’t big enough to justify the outlay of capital to develop the product.

Darwin surprised Samantha and Arthur one evening by getting home in time for dinner. When Darwin told them that he wouldn’t be going back to the office anymore, and why, they both got loud and angry with him. He hadn’t told them about getting kicked out of the partnership or the lawsuit before that day. Samantha was furious that Darwin lost a fantastic job because he wanted to spite his own son. Arthur was mad because he wanted a blood victim robot, himself.

Arthur told Darwin that if he wasn’t going to build a blood victim robot for him, he would have to drink Darwin’s blood. Darwin laughed and asked how he was going to do that when he still needed his mother to cut up his steak for him. The laughing enraged Arthur. He moved in to strike Darwin. Darwin stopped him with a slap to the face, but Samantha moved in to protect Arthur.

Darwin backhanded Samantha across the face. Samantha was a big woman, so she couldn't hold her own weight to keep from falling backward down the basement stairs. She ended up with a broken wrist and heavy bruising on her back.

Arthur lifted a kitchen chair over his head to hit Darwin. Darwin kicked Arthur in the ribs and broke three of them. Samantha called 911 and told them that her husband was trying to kill her and her son. Darwin didn’t resist when the police arrested him, and didn’t say anything about Arthur or Samantha trying to hit him first.

Arthur graduated from high school and had his incisors sharpened while Darwin was serving his time. He bought some VR goggles and played vampire role-playing games on the computer. This thrilled for Arthur at first, because it looked like he was right there in Transylvania or 19th-Century London.

After a while, role-playing a vampire, even with the VR goggles, got old. He started stalking a young woman in his neighborhood who liked to jog at night. He wanted to try to seduce her, but she told him to get lost as soon as she saw a creepy tall guy walking up to her. He attacked her the next night. It didn’t go well for him. He had never learned any fighting skills, and he was weak and out of shape. The jogger knew how to get his legs out from under him, and did so quickly. She called 911. She let him get up and run away before the cops got there, but he didn’t get far.

Arthur got sent up for assault and attempted rape. His sentence overlapped with Darwin’s sentence by about six months. Darwin was on cadre at the intake center when Arthur got transported there from the county jail. Darwin worked a few favors, and arranged for a 30-minute private visit with his son.

Darwin told me he told his son not to discuss his business with anyone. He told him if he had to tell someone something, to come up with something better than what actually happened, except for the prison psychologist or the chaplain. He told him that the other prisoners don’t treat sex criminals very well, and Arthur wouldn’t want to let on that he couldn’t tell the difference between fiction and reality. Arthur told Darwin that his mother had told him something pretty close to that when she made him get his incisors capped while he was still out on bond. Darwin told his son to stay away from drugs, gambling and prostitutes while incarcerated, and he would avoid 95 percent of the trouble he could get into.

Arthur participated in some recovery programs while incarcerated. When he got his release date, he told the chaplain and the prison psychologist that he wanted both of his parents there to meet him when he got out, and then have extended visits that day and the next day. Arthur’s release was scheduled for December 21st, the Friday before Christmas. The chaplain had to work hard to get Samantha to agree to include Darwin in the visits.

Darwin told me and his parole officer that he felt that the extended visits would be his last chance to salvage his relationship with his son. He got the impression that Arthur listened to him during their visit at the intake center, and he saw some hope in the fact that Arthur had requested the visits. Darwin isn’t interested in getting back with his wife, but he wants to be able to get along with her to help with Arthur’s rehabilitation.

I didn’t wait for an answer from you on Darwin’s request mostly because of the timing. He needed an answer before you were scheduled to be back from vacation. Also, I thought you would say no, and I was thinking about my store’s long term profitability with Darwin there. I really want to keep him, and I think letting him go on his visit will do that.

Yours,

Larry


Larry,


Thanks for the explanation. We won’t start any disciplinary action against you or Darwin, but I can’t very well give you a year-end bonus after your dismal Holiday Sale numbers.

By the way, has Darwin said anything to you about the visit? He’s put up some pretty good numbers since then, so I hope the visit accomplished what you hoped it would accomplish. A friend of mine is also interested. I ran into one of my fraternity buddies on New Year's Eve, who happens to be one of Darwin's former partners.

My friend said that he wished Darwin would have said something about the situation with his son at the time. He said if they had known about the kid wanting to get his teeth sharpened, they might not have gotten so angry at him. They might have worked something out - like dropping the blood victim robot idea - if they had known that Darwin was so biased that he needed to recuse himself.

The suit turned out to be a pretty bad idea, anyway. The partners had just put down a big retainer when Darwin got locked up, and they lost contracts because Darwin wasn’t there anymore. I thought you would want to know.

Howard



Howard,

Darwin is doing well. It looks like the visits accomplished what he hoped. As a matter of fact, he asked me about Arthur coming to work at the store. He said that Arthur is pretty knowledgeable about virtual reality systems, and he picked up some interpersonal skills while he was locked up. He said he seems to have a better idea of the difference between fiction and reality now.

I’ll have to meet with Arthur to evaluate his interpersonal skills myself. If he’s like his father, he’ll probably be productive. I’ll also have to find out about his state of mind. I mean, some of the customers who buy the VR units are into some dark stuff. They might appreciate an ex-vampire as a salesman, but would it mess Arthur up if we ask him to dress up as a vampire or other monster on Halloween? I wouldn’t want to be responsible for him going back to a dark place.

Larry





The End






To read another story about sex robots and virtual reality, please download Retro VR

You do not have to register to read the story.

If you follow the link, you'll see a synopsis of the story. Look to the right of the screen. You should see a DOWNLOADS OPTIONS menu. I prefer PDF, but READ ONLINE works just as well. You can download it to a Kindle or ereader.


Retro VR

Thursday, July 21, 2016

Unfriended and Blocked

I got unfriended and blocked on Facebook last night for being racist. Specifically, I shared a video that had side-by-side comparisons of clips of speeches by Deval Patrick, John Edwards and Barack Obama. These speeches were loaded with quotes, by the way. I added a comment: "There are probably examples galore, Republicans and Democrats alike."

Apparently, Melania Trump's speechwriters cribbing from Michelle Obama's speechwriters is "rhetorical blackface," but Barack Obama's speechwriters cribbing other politicians' speechwriters is Advancing The Cause, and using Barack Obama as an example of politician's speechwriters cribbing each other is racist. A high school friend chimed in with text and photos about Donald Trump helping and being helped by African American politicians and celebrities. He got labeled as a racist, too.

Big Oil representative George W. Bush stole an election and got us into a war in Iraq, but I have to give his speechwriters credit for making me ask myself if I engaged in "the bigotry of low expectations." I think Barack Obama was too stiff-necked and too ivory tower to work with Congress effectively. However, I admire Barack Obama for something for which other people hate him: he apologized to the people of other countries for our imperialistic behavior toward them. That took courage, unless it was written into the First Black President script.

I may be cynical, but I'm cynical about politicians of all races. I think of them as employees of the Plutocracy. They help the Plutocracy put on a good show that helps us think that we have a voice in how we are governed. They all have their roles to play. Donald Trump is acting out the Asshole Who Gets Things Done script. Hillary Clinton wants to act out the First Woman President script. It doesn't matter which of them gets elected, since anyone who gets elected to the office of POTUS is merely a figurehead. He or she will be acting out a script. Same for just about any elected representative. They don't represent us, they represent the Plutocracy to us.

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

WTF, Dad?

The boy threw me a curve ball today. He didn't intend to, he just asked a question. He's been asking me many deep questions this summer, about mortality, what "obscenity" means, what are blood transfusions, and why people have a mid-life crisis, among others. I started preparing for such question before his birth, and I like to think I've done an adequate job answering them. He stumped me today, though.

We went for a hike at Sharon Woods MetroPark. When we stopped to use the restroom, the boy asked me why someone would do a # 2 in the urinal. I had nothing.

Can anyone help an old dad out?

Thursday, June 2, 2016

Retro VR



Retro VR is a science fiction story about a guy who gets recruited to beta test a system that combines virtual reality with a sex robot for a fully immersive experience. Adult themes, would probably earn a PG-13 rating.

If you follow the link, look to the right of the screen. You should see a DOWNLOADS OPTIONS menu. I prefer PDF, but READ ONLINE works just as well. You can download it to a Kindle or ereader.

Here are the rotating hashtags I’m using when I Tweet the story:

#abusiverelationship #adventure #AI #allegory #Alzheimers #analogy #Ariadne #art #artificialinsemination #artificialintelligence #artmuseum #autism #autismspectrum #ASD #avatar #brainwashing #CatherineDeneuve #cheating #Christmas #christmasspirit #divorce #doppelganger #dream #erotica #eyecontact #fath #fatw #fetish #first #firstandtrue #firstlove #gaming #gaslight #GenePerret #GeorgeEliot #GeorgiaOKeeffe #girlfriend #guywalksintoabar #guywalksintoabarjoke #gynoid #haptics #hardhearted #hardnessofheart #HRI #humanrobotinteraction #humantrafficking #husband #immersive #immersiveexperience #introvert #Jesus #JesusofNazareth #jokes #KamaSutra #labyrinth #love #LoveAmericanStyle #Luddite #machinehaptics #MarkTwain #MarleneDietrich #marriagetherapy #MaxFrisch #mechanicalprostitute #media #metaphor #mindcontrol #Minotaur #museum #mythology #natural #naturalman #NewYears #NewYork #objectification #OHolyNight #pickup #pickingupwomen #politicsofchristmas #porn #pornography #prostitution #psychotherapy #quotes #repentance #robot #robotics #romance #RPG #sexdoll #sexfantasy #sexrobot #sextherapy #sextrafficking #sexualadventure #sexwork #shy #shyness #slavery #solipsism #soulmate #sublime #SusanSontag #tantric #tantricmassage #teledildonics #Theseus #TheTombs #truehusband #truelove #truespouse #truewife #uncannyvalley #videogames #virtualreality #VR #vrerotica #vrgames #vrporn #wife

Just be quiet



If we have zoos to educate us about animals, why are we still uneducated about animals?

I'm in no position to question the decision by workers at the Cincinnati Zoo to kill a gorilla, because I don't share their responsibility to provide safety to zoo visitors. I also can't say anything about the parents of the boy who fell into the gorilla's enclosure at the zoo. I'm just grateful that I somehow managed to keep my own kid from running into traffic when he was little.

What grinds my gears is the screeching and hollering by the onlookers at the Cincinnati Zoo. To me, it looked as though the gorilla had no intention of harming the boy. He even pulled the boy's pants up for him, for crying out loud. It looked as though the gorilla became agitated by all of the noise raised by the onlookers.

The best thing we can do for most animals is to simply leave them alone. I don't much like the idea of keeping them trapped in zoos, but I can see some justification for zoos if they can educate us about animals. If we don't have enough sense to realize that a silverback is a gentle creature that just wants to help a child, we haven't learned anything. That gorilla need not have died if people had simply noticed that the boy was not in danger, and kept quiet and waited until zoo workers could extract him from the enclosure.

Saturday, May 7, 2016

Exploring the Uncanny Valley



Freeditorial published Retro VR as my entry in their Long Short Story Contest.

The story addresses adult themes, including pornography addiction, human trafficking and hardness of heart.

I got the idea for the story when I read a New York Times article last summer about a guy making sex robots. This paragraph caught my attention:

"One of the challenges that Mr. McMullen will have to contend with is the so-called uncanny valley. It is a concept first written about in 1970 by a Japanese researcher, that says people’s responses to robots will shift sharply from empathy to revulsion the more closely the robots resemble humans. In other words, something robotic that looks alive, but is not completely convincing, will creep people out." ("Sex Dolls That Talk Back," Emma Cott, The New York Times, June 11, 2015)

I experienced an uncanny valley a few years before I read the article, when a coworker showed me an ad in a newspaper insert. The ad was for dolls that were very close replicas of newborn infants. I never saw one of the dolls in person, but the photograph in the ad made me cringe.
To download the story, follow the link and look for the DOWNLOADS OPTIONS menu on the right side of the screen. READ ONLINE may be the easiest option. You do not have to register to read the story.

If you like the story, please recommend it to others.

Thank you