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.

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?

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.

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

Let the churches do it

Kim Davis, the county clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, is not the only public official to refuse to perform or certify marriages. This should come as no surprise; marriage has always been both religious ritual and legal contract. It was inevitable that the two would collide in a republic in which citizens disagree about the appropriate degree of separation between church and state. We can resolve this conflict by getting government out of the business of recognizing marriages.

Civil marriage is becoming obsolete. Human beings invented marriage to legitimize sexual relationships in order to hold parents responsible for the care and upbringing of children. Our idea of legitimizing sexual relationships is becoming providing documentation that both parties consent to a sexual encounter. The state now enforces child support, whether a child’s parents have ever been married or not.

When a county government issues a marriage license, it takes on the responsibility of adjudicating division of property and pensions when the marriage ends in divorce a few years later. More of us now circumvent the dating-to-divorce pipeline.

Marriage can remain a religious ritual or sacrament for those who wish to participate, but county and state governments do not need to keep track of who marries and who divorces. We will still need the courts to administer division of property and pensions when a couple decides to go their separate ways, but the courts can handle such problems as contract disputes.

Removing the certification of marriages and the performance of weddings from the job descriptions of public officials would be an important step in the separation of church and state. The churches should welcome such separation. The greater degree of separation, the less the government will interfere with religion.

The Future of Employment

You can get good help, these days.

Overview

If you have ever owned or leased a household robot, you may have wondered whether the cost and maintenance were worth it. It may have been when you learned that no one sells a robot that can fold clothes.

This is just one of the myriad tasks that still require a pair of human hands. However, hiring a pair of hands can be more trouble than it’s worth. If you have ever hired someone to care for an elderly relative, you have probably wished for a robot when you heard excuses for absenteeism.

We can provide a customized solution to your unique needs. We provide the precision of human hands with the reliability and efficiency of a robot.

Who We Are

All Hands is an employment agency specializing in placement in:

• Domestic Help
• Nursing & Medical Assisting
• Entertainment
• Hospitality
• Personal Services (Hairdressing, Childcare)

Our advantage over robot leasing organizations is that we provide human hands when the job requires it. Our advantage over other placement firms is that we provide workers that work as efficiently and reliably as robots, for much less cost than other placement firms. We take care of all the training, payroll and scheduling.

How It Works

All of our workers are shareholders. They receive shares of stock when they have our patented Training Receptor™ hardware installed in their sensorimotor cortex. This memory chip gives the shareholder the ability to directly download Task Library™ software from our vast library of specific tasks.

By downloading the Hand Movement™ data directly to their sensorimotor cortex, our shareholders avoid time-consuming training. A shareholder can report to an assignment within 60 minutes in most cases, and begin work immediately - with minimal or no supervision.

Our Task Library™ includes instruction on Effective Listening, for tasks not in the database. The memory chip keeps track of deadlines and work completed, and streams virtual reality entertainment to the shareholder.

The memory chip enables our shareholders to know when and where to show up for work each day. Our shareholders receive dividends, a stipend and medical care. If one shareholder is ill, another shareholder can take his or her place for that day.

If your specific task is not in our Task Library™, the shareholder may require some orientation. Once he or she learns the task, the muscle memory is banked in the shareholder’s memory chip. It can then be uploaded to our Task Library™, so that the precise muscle movement data can be downloaded to any of our shareholders.

If you have a task that requires a pair of human hands, but you do not want the expense or headache of hiring, visit our order form. You can place your order, have your work completed, and not have to think about it again until you receive our bill.

Some workers have criminal records, but this won’t be an issue for clients. All actions are recorded by the shareholder’s memory chip, so if there is an allegation of theft, damage or injury, the file can be reviewed by all interested parties. No worker with a criminal record is ever assigned childcare tasks.