SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
Elderly people living in care homes could soon be enjoying the company of specifically designed sex robots, according to a leading organization in the field.
The freakishly realistic robots could be widely available within the next decade, used not just by fetishists but as a tool for sexual therapy and communication.
[...] Professor Sharkey, who was speaking on Wednesday at the launch of a new consultation report, said it is time for the government to step in and start regulating sex bots.
“They are being proposed for the elderly in care homes, which I think is controversial. If you have severe Alzheimer’s you can’t really tell the difference,” said the researcher.
Source: RT
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Sex Robots Could Provide Therapy and Treat Loneliness in Care Homes
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 57 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
"History is a tool used by politicians to justify their intentions."
-- Ted Koppel
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 06 2017, @06:47AM (27 children)
You there on the high horse, how much reproducing have you done?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday July 06 2017, @06:57AM (26 children)
Zilch. Lesbianism is 100% effective birth control, unless I get chosen to be the next Virgin Mary (or turned into a whiptail lizard).
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 06 2017, @09:13AM (23 children)
From a Darwin perspective, I find it interesting that homosexuality hasn't self-selected itself out of the gene pool yet. Must be an extremely common but recessive combination of genes for those who're born to it rather than choose it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by unauthorized on Thursday July 06 2017, @11:36AM (3 children)
Oh screw it, I'm going to burn some karma on this.
Homosexuality seems to be an "optional feature" that is at least partially triggered by environmental factors. One of the strongest predicting factors for homosexuality in males happens to be the number of older brothers the child has [scielo.cl], which makes a lot of sense when you think about it since the gay sibling does not represent sexual competition for it's brother but still helps propagate it's genes through family kinship and helping it's nephews/nieces survive.
When it comes to lesbians, the simple truth is that most of them aren't. Among females who are not heterosexual, only a minority have lifelong interest exclusively in other females, most are either bisexual or tend to have shifting attraction over their lifetime. It is entirely possible that female homosexuality is supposed to be "toggleable" and that sometimes it just gets stuck for some reason, through I don't know if that's really the reason.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday July 06 2017, @11:55AM
Stereotypical Euro middle ages nobility for a couple zillion middle ages generations shoved the extra brothers in the priesthood, and they had a lot of sex with villagers.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday July 06 2017, @05:20PM (1 child)
Well call me little miss outlier then. Never had any attraction to men. I can appreciate a well-built man but in the same way as a well-sculpted statue or nicely-engineered piece of machinery. I'm not FtM or even at all butch, either, waaaaay more Portia then Ellen. So there's a fly in that jar of bell-curve ointment...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Thursday July 06 2017, @07:16PM
Assuming it's true in the first place (not established), it'll still be a curve or at least some kind of peaky distribution. You'd just not be in the middle or peak of it. No flies. :)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday July 06 2017, @11:51AM (15 children)
There's a belief that some fraction of the spread is from abuse, not genetics or personal choice. Whenever its proposed "Sure there's a million anecdotal examples but that proves nothing because here is one opposing anecdotal example" which kind of misses the point of epidemic math. At least some significant fraction is spread via genetics. Its just most is spread from weird uncles, stranger in the park, priests, and so on. Its analogous to influenza, it should and does breed itself out of the population, but the mutation rate is high enough that there's enough nuclei of the next outbreak... Most people with the flu got it from someone else with the flu although obviously it evolved somewhere. AIDS/HIV is an even closer analogy.
There's also the slippery slope, in that in many cultures being a "pitcher" especially a bi- pitcher, didn't count, only being a catcher counted, and genetically speaking a dudes own hand vs once in awhile some other dudes mouth doesn't matter, although the slippery slope argument is occasional pitchers tend to become catchers or become exclusive, at which point reproduction becomes very unlikely. The Greco-Romans had a variety of opinion over the centuries but one opinion kind of looked at it like alcoholism, in that being predisposed to alcoholism never helped grow successful kids, but but as long as the women are getting knocked up (by someone, anyway...) and society staggers along with a survivable level of alcoholism, its not a big problem. Arguably that's a very modern gen-x libertarian outlook.
The two outlooks don't necessarily coexist, I'm more a fan of the first outlook although there are aspects of the second that are reasonable.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday July 06 2017, @05:24PM (14 children)
So why is my sister, who was violently raped at 14, still straight as an arrow? Why was I never anything but gay--my mother says she knew at *4* when I asked to marry *her* instead of my father like apparently a lot of girls do?--despite NOT being abused?
Or are we only talking about men here?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday July 06 2017, @05:48PM (13 children)
OK, two, whatever. The point being its far more than 0% and probably much less than 99%
Theres also a classic cause/effect problem. AIDS can be spread by blood transfusions but simultaneously virtually no blood transfusions spread AIDS. A SN car analogy would be virtually all car passenger deaths involve taking a trip in a car, but statistically almost zero car trips end in death, usually most people take many car trips and only die in a car accident once.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday July 06 2017, @06:47PM (12 children)
Thanks for conflating gays with AIDS. God, that's so completely fucking transparent...do you even know who gets most AIDS these days?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 06 2017, @07:37PM (1 child)
Not him, he doesn't sanction these back-door shenanigans. /sarc
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday July 07 2017, @12:57AM
You sure? He had to have had *some* kind of anal training to get his head that far up his ass. Good grief, the guy could probably eat his own dinner again if he wants to.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 06 2017, @10:08PM (9 children)
Homosexuals.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday July 07 2017, @12:55AM (8 children)
So predictable, and so wrong. Read: https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/global-statistics [hiv.gov]
Granted, here in the US it's mostly gay and bisexual men getting it (we lesbians are the cleanest of ANY group across the board aside from, IIRC, one minor strain of chlamydia, and I will bet my Indigo Girls CD collection some bisexual girl brought that one in...). But worldwide? Children. Of HIV-infected mothers.
And even here in the US this is a disease more of poverty than anything. It's breaking down along racial lines, because race tends to be a good proxy for economic injustice here.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 07 2017, @01:26AM
I salute you for standing up to the trolls for as long as you did in this thread. *salute* It appears you can over-feed a troll.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 07 2017, @03:25AM (6 children)
Sooo... homosexuals.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday July 07 2017, @04:26AM (5 children)
You don't read so good, do ya boy? Linky. Clicky. Worldwide it's mostly newborns and presumably straight women. Here in the US it hits "MSM" harder, and stratifies by poverty and ethnicity.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 07 2017, @12:35PM (4 children)
Absent people who have zero control over what happens to them, and your presumption, what we're left with is... homosexuals.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday July 07 2017, @04:30PM (3 children)
So what's your point? "Haha, faggots, get what's coming to them?" And it's *male* homosexuals, and male bisexuals.
You seem to have a problem with these people just being what they are. Is there something you'd like to share with the rest of the class? Like, for example, a repressed desire to smoke more sausage than a German butcher shop? :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 07 2017, @09:14PM (2 children)
My point is made by letting you talk yourself into a corner after trying to hide a fact that you don't seem to like very much. Your weapons of projection, deflection, and ad hominem are powerless.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday July 08 2017, @03:36AM (1 child)
Er, what? No, no, see, in the grown-up world we use facts.
It is a fact, sourced above, that worldwide most new cases are babies and their presumably straight mothers. In the developed world, it's the "MSM" (male homo and bisexuals) who get most of it, but that population also stratifies by socioeconomic class and race).
So one of us has talked themselves into a corner and it's not me. Go back to ogling the weightlifters.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 08 2017, @06:21AM
*cough* [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday July 06 2017, @12:18PM
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13674-evolution-myths-natural-selection-cannot-explain-homosexuality/ [newscientist.com]
The kin selection hypothesis mentioned in that article can also be called the "gay uncle effect" [wikipedia.org] (.
http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/scientists-discover-evolutionary-advantage-homosexual-sex/ [iflscience.com]
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26089486 [bbc.com]
Anything natural about the selection could have been rendered moot by civilization or even recent and soon-to-come developments. For example, it's now socially acceptable in most Western countries to no longer pretend to be straight (think the gay/lesbian taking a heterosexual partner in the 50s, having kids, etc.). Now a gay/lesbian couple can have kids using surrogacy schemes or donor fluids without much fuss. And in the coming decades (maybe sooner) we'll see the ability to create artificial fertilized eggs from the DNA of two men or two women which will definitely change the equation since the gay or lesbian couple will (likely) be selecting genes from the two of them with no involvement with the DNA of heterosexual people.
If the resulting kids are "weak" for some reason, that will hardly matter since there is very little selection pressure anymore (barring a nuclear apocalypse or global pandemic bringing us back to the Dark Ages). There's also the possibility of creating designer babies with genes that confer an unusual amount of latent athletic ability and intelligence.
Here's an idea: a 5-parent baby with a mix of genes artificially chosen from 5 polyamorous men and women. Everything under the sun is possible with a little genome sequencing and synthesis.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 06 2017, @01:06PM
Many reasons why this can be the case. The catalyst may not necessarily be genetic, it can be environmental. For example, the exposure to hormones at various levels in utero. There are reasons why this might be beneficial evolutionary, thus the pattern persisted.
Say it may be beneficial that in a line of male off-springs, each successive one has greater chance of being homosexual, thus providing the oldest with more potential mates due to reduced competition. An older male might be preferable to younger male as he has proven his genes are more fit for longer survival, even though in theoretical sense survival only matters to the point of procreation (and a bit after for purposes of providing for newborns). So an older brother may always be a better mate than the younger one, if he is available. But these are just hypotheses as I do not actual study this stuff.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 06 2017, @10:46PM
Because,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/12/why-are-there-gay-men_n_1590501.html [huffingtonpost.com]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday July 06 2017, @06:04PM (1 child)
How do we know you're not a shark [nationalgeographic.com]?
(Score: 5, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday July 06 2017, @06:49PM
Because I haven't got a frickin' laser beam on my head, duhhh :D
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...