Monday, December 18, 2006

More on pets

Sherry Turkle has come out against robot pets. She doesn't have any specific fears, but is uncomfortable with the emotional bonding and dependence that children and the elderly have been shown to develop with the neotonous mechanisms. We can presume this vulnerability spreads through our whole population.

Now, one of my more controversial recent posts -- and I have to warn you again to think twice before following the video link -- dissed the idea of pets as being dishonorable to the status of free animals. I get my politics from Wicked. But, this point is important, too. That our affection for pets -- robot or otherwise -- is something that wicked overlords can use against us. It's just a thought. But, if we can train dolphins to shoot divers, why can't we train a puppy to seduce a cabinet secretary into snapping the neck of ... well, I won't say whose. I don't want to end up in Gitmo.

And speaking of controversy! I had dinner tonight with the volunteer coordinator for the local Red Cross. I told her I had a blog, and she said she'd never seen one. When I told her mine was "Fears and Frets," she corrected herself, as she'd seen this.

This blog! For at least one person, the only blog she recalls seeing. It's not nothing! I believe it was this post, inviting you all out to Staten Island. But, the point is, at least one large sovereign body is aware of me. I'll try not to let it get to my head.

One more point! This is my first post with Blogger's new interface. It's almost exactly the same, both for you and for me. But, let me know if there are any problems.

3 comments:

Beth said...

http://www.cdc.gov/healthypets/health_benefits.htm

Rionn Fears Malechem said...

Beth,
Thanks for the URL. I can see that emotional succor is one of the tasks for which you can raise animals. And for some types of disabilities, this is unarguably a good thing.
But, I think that this generally enables some negative aspects of our culture, specifically shoving old people and disabled people off in a corner, and mitigating the adaptive disapprobation bad people get from their communities through the affirmation of their pets.
We should really engage with each other. But, we don't. And if the urge to do becomes overwhelming, we can always get a pet to dull it.
I'm further uncomfortable with the concept of owning a pet, instead of partnering with a pet. Of course, I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of ownership in general. But, we can keep returning to this issue.
Thanks for commenting on the blog! Nephos was getting lonely.

Brad said...

No technology issues here, except for the usual one of FeedBurner and LiveJournal not playing nice together. Once again, LJ just recently received a whole bundle of your entries from the beginning of the month till now.

I've requested LJ to update their "listening" feed to point directly to BlogSpot's own Atom feed:

http://malechem.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Maybe this will do the trick. Works just fine for another friend of mine who posts on BlogSpot.

So, in summary: no, Kendell and I haven't forgotten about your blog. :)