April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

Debra

Sex with Robots? Does not compute

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Sex with robots?

Shocking but utterly convincing, Love and Sex with Robots provides insights that are surprisingly relevant to our everyday interactions with technology. This is science brought to life, and Levy makes a compelling and titillating case that the entities we once deemed cold and mechanical will soon become the objects of real companionship and human desire. Anyone reading the book with an open mind will find a wealth of fascinating material on this important new direction of intimate relationships, a direction that, before long, will be regarded as perfectly normal

Levy goes so far as to imagine relationships, reproduction and child rearing with your robotic significant other.

Levy wouldn’t exclude robots from child rearing either. “You can’t envisage traditional reproduction with a robot, but technology will develop and there will be some sort of process that involves a robot contributing to the personality and psychological makeup of a child,” he said.

Now this could lead to some interesting scenarios. Would this put a new face on the sex trade? Could they be used as surrogate wombs?

…I believe that one of
the most widespread reasons humans will develop strong emotional attachments to robots
is the natural desire to have more close friends…

Presumably they would be computerized what happens when your partner crashes? Will we have anti robot marriage protests?

Levy suggests that the child quality of imbuing inanimate objects with feelings is not lost when we become adults and that the strong attachment people have to such things as their computers will easily transfer to friendships and partnerships when such items are endowed with human qualities.

It is certainly an interesting theory.

ASIMO is physically anthropomorphicImage via Wikipedia

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British-Romanian Benefactor ensures 11 year old Receives Abortion

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Rape is a life altering experience. Perhaps all the more so when you are 11, find yourself pregnant and are subjected to laws which seek to further impact your body without your consent.

So it was for a Romanian girl raped by her uncle and denied an abortion under Romania’s strict reproductive laws. The same sorts of laws the anti-choice crowd here would like to impose on Canadian women. Anti-choice groups in Romania have sought to impede the girls access to an abortion even though the church has stated that this was an unusual case and the decision was best left to the family. In the words of her mother. “”Panel after panel, meeting after meeting. In the meantime, my poor girl gets more and more terrified.”

Fortunately for the girl involved a “Romanian woman in Britain who has come to her rescue.” She will be flying to Britain shortly to have the pregnancy terminated. Now perhaps the family can get on with the process of healing.

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Support Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Programs

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I’ve long been a supporter of apprenticeship programs. Years ago I wrote a paper that no one read extolling the virtues of such programs and how they could very well help with not only a dwindling skilled trades market but also provide opportunities for youth who might otherwise just drop out and create a harder future for themselves.

I was therefore, surprised and dismayed to see this news

TORONTO, June 26 /CNW/ – Potentially thousands of young Ontario
pre-apprenticeship program graduates could be forced out of work as summer
begins because of unfair and misguided provincial rules. The apprenticeship
jobs are being lost even though contractors have numerous unfilled vacancies
amid a fast-growing shortage of skilled construction trade workers in Ontario.
A campaign launched today, Support Ontario Youth, seeks to draw public
attention to the unnecessary job losses, and to advance a simple and cost-free
provincial government remedy: reduce the ratio of certified electrical trades
persons required for each apprentice from 3:1 to 1:1. The facts are presented
on a new website, www.supportontarioyouth.ca, that went live today.
The situation is most pressing in the electrical trades, where numerous
jobs across the province go unfilled. Other skilled construction trades face
similar challenges. In a requirement almost unique to Ontario, contractors
must have three certified electricians for every apprentice. By comparison,
almost every other province and territory requires just one certified journey
person per apprentice.
Ontario’s ratio imposes tight limits on the number of apprentices
electrical contractors can hire in the province, which means fewer
opportunities for those wanting to work.
The impact hits hardest right now, at the end of the high school year,
when numerous Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program (OYAP) graduates face the
loss of pre-apprenticeship jobs. Prior to graduation, they are allowed to work
in apprenticeship roles because OYAP job positions are not subject to rules
governing apprenticeship ratios.
“It’s disheartening to see the door closed on young people when there are
so many job openings available to them,” said Richard Cullis, President, Dial
One Wolfedale Electric of Mississauga, Ont., and a Director of the Ontario
Electrical League (OEL), a non-profit electrical industry association that is
spearheading the Support Ontario Youth campaign. “Instead of pink slips,
Premier McGuinty should offer apprenticeship candidates new rules that will
let them work.”

Go to this link to send an email to show your support for the Ontario Youth Apprentice Programs http://supportontarioyouth.ca/1_speakout.php

Judge Rules U.S. Violated Human Rights

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The treatment a U.S. official said Omar Khadr received at Guantanamo Bay to prepare him for an interview by a member of foreign affairs was a violation of international human rights, a Canadian federal court judge ruled on Wednesday.

It is no great surprise that human rights violations are going on in Guantanamo, it is damning however that two governments of countries who pride themselves on rights and freedoms allowed the torture of a child. In Canada Khadr if charged with a crime would be protected under the Youth Act. And yet Canadian officials raised no alarm when they found out he was being subjected to torture.

Canadian and American governments bear an enormous responsibility not only in setting back human rights but also in ensuring there will continue to be terrorist incidents. Some of course find the torture of a child perfectly fine. The comments at both CTV and CBC are disgusting and as one commenter said “makes me less and less proud to be Canadian”

Scene of the Firefight in which w:Omar Khadr was capturedImage via WikipediaSome have argued that he was responsible for the death of a soldier. To which I wonder is that not the risk our governments are willing to take when they send troops to war? Is the new war rich countries sending troops to rob poor countries of their resources and the people of those poor countries rather than protect themselves are supposed to say OH HAI! and serve tea/beer/crumpets?

How does one murder a combatant in the heat of battle? In any case the original details of the incident were shown to be wrong. Khadr was not the only person who could have thrown the grenade and likely wasn’t.

It is time our government showed some respect for human rights, the Geneva Convention and basic decency. Bring Khadr home. As commenter carlbailey said to another commenter with the mindset of the conservatives;

quote mr.calgary:
“I knew what was right and wrong when I was 15.”

so, how old were you when you forgot the difference?
or did you just decide to ignore it altogether in favour of blind ignorant hatred.

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Abortion – Terrorism Link?

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prise_de_la_bastilleAccording to an article in the Peterborough Examiner Janine Krieber “an expert on international relations and military strategy” (and also wife of Opposition Leader Stephen Dion) stated that the abortion issue is “the next potential domestic terrorism threat”.

Some are spinning this as meaning that pro-choice groups are potential domestic terrorists even though the clinic bombings, doctor shootings and raving lunatic lineups spitting at women and shoving gory pictures in children’s faces has all come from the anti-choice side.

Antonia Zerbisias is following this story, go here for more info

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