( — TheMadFool

"I was just wondering if we might see a little bit of our painful history as slaves in the way we treat (mistreat?) robots

Are you serious?

I can tell you are a tool-user and X is a tool. The only question is whether X is natural born or not; and that might will tell something more about you. — 180 Proof

An air conditioner. A fan. — khaled

Is it me? I'm not sure but my point is there's an overlap in the traits that define slaves and robots. Commonalities tend to elicit a sense of oneness, unity, camarederie, brotherhood, kinship, between categories that relate in this way. For instance, we call primates our cousins and once we view apes in this light, we immediately become reluctant to do bad things to them, things we have no qualms over doing to other animals.

Let it not be forgotten thought that this is not a hard and fast rule - chimps are test subjects in the dangerous phases of drug trials, bush meat sells, etc., as the following character in Shakespeare's play Macbeth laments,

The near in blood, The nearer bloody. — Donalbain

Setting the exceptions to the more or less general rule of acknowledging our genetic closeness aside, it's safe to say that we do mind harming/hurting our less-evolved cousins.

If so, we, as scions of slaves ourselves, should feel, if our heart is in the right place, some degree of distress when using robots. That's all.

Are you serious? — Prishon

Yes. Are you serious?

Read above.

serious — TheMadFool

Do you really think we treat robots likes slaves? That presupposes robots experience. But they don't. You cojld ask how I know but I know...

Do you really think we treat robots likes slaves? That presupposes robots experience. But they don't. You cojld ask how I know but I know... — Prishon

Then this is where we part ways...Good luck, fellow traveller.

presupposes — Prishon

I can smash every robot in the world without feeling remorse.

presupposes
— Prishon

I can smash every robot in the world without feeling remorse. — Prishon

Please, please, don't do that. Take this as a plea, a earnest, heart-felt entreaty. :pray:

don't — TheMadFool

If that hurts you I wont do that. Unless the robots become too many. Threatening Nature.:wink:

If that hurts you I wont do that. — Prishon

There is light at the end of this tunnel :sweat:

end — TheMadFool

"There is light at the end of this tunnel :sweat:
"

No! Its another train...:gasp:

My question: Will/Should the descendants of slaves (basically all of us) use robots? — TheMadFool

Thanks for the laugh.

"There is light at the end of this tunnel :sweat:
"

No! Its another train...:gasp: — Prishon

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Thanks for the laugh. — Olivier5

:smirk:

Why? "Robots" (e.g. electric can-openers, department store escalators, clocks, vaccines, seeds) are not sentient in any functional, or recognizable, manner.

Why? "Robots" (e.g. electric can-openers, department store escalators, clocks, vaccines, seeds) are not sentient in any manner recognizable by us. — 180 Proof

On target 180 Proof, not something new to you. I guess I'm trying to draw a rather disturbing similarity between machines - the most popular term for AI (The Matrix/Terminator/others) - and slaves. We treated one (slaves) as we treat the other (machines).

Of course, there's a very good reason why we do this despite our own slave heritage (black/white/brown/yellow) - machines aren't (as of yet) sentient. Nonetheless, this :point: sex dolls suggests that once we have humanoid robots, it's going to get pretty hard not to get emotionally attached to them, sentient or not. If I can engage in coitus with a sex doll and experience pleasure even if only submaximally, I still am treating the, rather unfortunate sex doll, as a person; if this isn't true what happened to perfectly reliable old-fashioned handjobs?

If one abuses oneself via an activity which involves ab/using another sentient (e.g. sex with a sheep) or ab/using a nonsentient (e.g. sex with a robot gyn/andr-oid), then that's immoral within a negative utilitarian and/or aretaic moral framework. The latter is 'the lesser evil', so to speak, as there is no proximate collateral harm (i.e. a victim) as there is with the former.

(Btw, I hope to live long enough to "see" fully functional, nonsentient / p-zombie & customizable (adult-form only!) sex dolls sold at an affordable price on Amazon. :party: :yum:)

If one abuses oneself via an activity which involves ab/using another sentient (e.g. sex with a sheep) or ab/using a nonsentient (e.g. sex with a robot gyn/andr-oid), then that's immoral within a negative utilitarian and/or aretaic moral framework. The latter is 'the lesser evil', so to speak, as there is no proximate collateral harm (i.e. a victim) as there is with the former. — 180 Proof

Point made, point taken!

Nonetheless, sex dolls probably give a man an experience superior to wanking, you know, like as if in bed with a real woman - that's it's selling point if I'm anywhere near the truth. Therein lies the rub.

(Btw, I hope to live long enough to "see" fully functional, nonsentient / p-zombie & customizable (adult-form only!) sex dolls sold at an affordable price on Amazon. :party: :yum:) — 180 Proof

May your dreams come true, 180 Proof, may they be,

Realer than real (Hyper-reality). — Bernardo Kastrup (on psychedelic experiences)

:up: :lol:

disturbing — TheMadFool

You ARE serious!? :lol:

Btw, I hope to live long enough to "see" fully fu, nonsentient / p-zombie & customizable (adult-form only!) sex dolls sold at an affordable price on Amazon.
@180Proof :lol:

As long as you don't have to blow (them up) yourself...
:lol:

You ARE serious!? :lol: — Prishon

Serious, bad sometimes, good sometimes. Seriously sick, always bad. — Confucius

:smile:

Aristotle was of the rather deplorable view that slaves were living tools.

The saving grace:

If Aristotle were alive today, in the age of automation, there is no reason to believe that he would defend slavery.

If every instrument could achieve its own work, obeying or anticipating the will of others, like the statue of Daedalus...if, likewise, the shuttle could weave and the plectrum touch the lyre, overseers would not want servants nor would masters slaves — Aristotle

Aristotle was of the rather deplorable view that slaves were living tools.

The saving grace:

If Aristotle were alive today, in the age of automation, there is no reason to believe that he would defend slavery. — TheMadFool

Perhaps, instead, Aristotle would deplore automation (à la Heidi's 'ontological ludditism') as even more dehumanizing – contra the "telos" of the "zoon politikon" – than (what he calls "natural") slavery.

:point: "Commerce is our goal here at Tyrell. 'More human than human' is our motto.
~Dr. Eldon Tyrell, Los Angeles, 2019"

What I want to bring to your attention is a rather simple fact. Slavemasters were treating human slaves back when slavery was the norm the same as we intend to treat robots in the future. The sentience of human slaves was completely ignored i.e. human slaves were treated as if they weren't sentient. In other words human slaves were equivalent to robots for all intents and purposes.

Thus, I was just curious about how all of us - white, yellow, black, and brown - having a family history of slavery would feel about using robots because there's no difference between slaves and robots. The fact that slaves were/are sentient human beings is irrelevant because they were treated as if they weren't. That's the whole point of slavery and robotics - in the latter case, sentience is absent and in the former case, sentience is deemed absent. — TheMadFool

Yes.

What I'm seeing here are two things:
1. You display more sympathy and empathy for other people than average humans.

2. Your line of reasoning seems to work on the premise that people (should) internalize the identity as ascribed to them by others.
E.g. that if a slave owner believes that slaves are in some essential way subhuman, and expects his slaves to believe this about themselves, that the slaves will or should believe it.

To what extent is one what other people claim that one is?

A person's identity is not autonomous, and is to an extent determined by other people's claims about said person's identity. One cannot escape other people's ideas about who one is.

A non-sentient robot is a tool. A sentient slave used like a non-sentient robot is not a tool but is, in effect, a torture victim, a slave. The latter is dehumanizing. So they are not comparable (i.e. category error); sentience, acknowledged or not, makes all the difference. — 180 Proof

Is it indeed dehumanizing if there is disagreement about what is going on?

The slave owners didn't think they were dehumanizing the slaves. Probably many slaves didn't view their treatment as dehumanizing either, but, depending on the particular system of slavery, as a punishment, or "just the way things are".

Is it indeed dehumanizing if there is disagreement about what is going on? — baker

This question makes no sense to me.

The slave owners didn't think they were dehumanizing the slaves.

What a stupid thing to say, baker. So fucking what? Millennia of 'devout Christians' didn't think marital rape was "dehumanizing" either just as many 'devout Hindus' and 'devout Muslims' still don't think honor killings are "dehumanizing". What the slave owners thought – rationalized – they were doing doesn't mean shit in light of what they knew – what we know – they were actually doing: forcibly, violently, rapaciously enslaving other human beings.

Probably many slaves didn't view their treatment as dehumanizing either ...

Fair to infer from this statement you also believe that "probably many slaves" weren't as human as the "slave owners". :shade:

Fair to infer from this statement you also believe that "probably many slaves" weren't as human as the "slave owners". — 180 Proof

It's a type of reasoning you're well familiar with and do not shy back from practicing.

Look at yourself, the disparaging things you say about me. You surely expect me to believe them, to see you as the person who defines me.

No ad hominems on my part, just apt observations readily corroborated by your often incongruous and cynical posts.

No ad hominems on my part, just apt observations readily corroborated by your posts. — 180 Proof

There you go. Exactly like the slave owners, religious people, etc. etc.

You define me.
Objective reality is on your side.
I am whatever you say that I am.
You speak The Truth.

Only your own words define you here. This ain't for the prickly thin-skinned because 'dialectics' ain't beanbag.

Externalize, externalize, externalize.
Always use you-language.

Millennia of philosophy down the drain.

1. You display more sympathy and empathy for other people than average humans. — baker

I' not sure how to respond to this comment. I may have my quirks though.

2. Your line of reasoning seems to work on the premise that people (should) internalize the identity as ascribed to them by others.
E.g. that if a slave owner believes that slaves are in some essential way subhuman, and expects his slaves to believe this about themselves, that the slaves will or should believe it. — baker

Nope, that's not the way I see things. However, I'm not denying that that's not the way it is. Our self-worth seems tied to how others view/regard us. I think, despite how annoying it is, there's a really good reason why it's like that. Speaking for myself, hypothesis non fingo.