RSS
As I’ve been mentioning, Martin Rothblatt, a guy with whom I went to UCLA MBA school, is now — thanks to World War T — ranked as the highest paid “woman” CEO in America. Rothblatt, though, is growing bored with this whole transgender thing that everybody else is getting so excited over in 2014 and is moving on to transhumanism and living forever via computer “mindclones.” Here’s a review at h+ of his new book Virtually Human: The Promise — and the Peril — of Digital Immortality.
As part of his latest craze, he/she/whatever has commissioned the construction of a lifesize robot bust of his wife Bina, whom a New York Times reporter attempts to interview in this video above. Bina the Robot sounds like the punky schoolteacher heroine of the TeachBad series, if she had Alzheimer’s.
This is more evidence for my recent hunch that science fiction dreams (or nightmares, depending upon your point of view) play some kind of role in the most high visibility and most puzzling type of male to female transsexuals: the highly willful, aggressive, and nerdy heterosexual men with children like Rothblatt, McCloskey, Conway, Dr. V., Colonel Pritzker, Morris, and so forth. These are the guys for whom the standard talking point “I always felt like a girl on the inside” is so obviously phony.
If Rothblatt reads this, let me suggest that you could do American intellectual life some good if you came right out and told the press that the “I always felt like a girl on the inside” line is just propaganda for most of the high profile m to f transformers like yourself.
It’s humiliating to the rest of us to have to act like we believe such nonsense. I realize that humiliating people has its pleasures, but c’mon, you’re moving past all that stuff now, right? You should be thinking about the state of your immortal digital soul. Do you want to be mindcloned with that kind of sin on your digital consciousness?
This robot’s responses sound like they could have been written by ELIZA – a chatbot from the late ’60s.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690347
“This is more evidence for my recent hunch that science fiction dreams . . . play some kind of role in the most high visibility and most puzzling type of MTF . . . highly willful, aggressive, and nerdy heterosexual men”
I can’t believe you haven’t mentioned Heinlein’s “I Will Fear No Evil”. Maybe this is one of his novels you skipped?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Will_Fear_No_Evil
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690351
You can add Ray Kurzweil to this list, although his fantasy is a little different. He has long envisioned himself as taking the virtual form of a woman he calls “Ramona .”
More: http://archive.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/16-04/ff_kurzweil?currentPage=all
HAILE SELASSIE - April 21-1966 state visit to Jamaica: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKZB7CBddmM
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690358
More: http://archive.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/16-04/ff_kurzweil?currentPage=all
Kurzweil wrote the foreword for Rothblatt’s new book.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690369
From web 2.0, Tesla, and Uber to breakthroughs in physics, in just the past few years alone, we’re witnessing a flouring of knowledge and wealth creation like never seen before. As a rational optimist, there’s a lot to be optimistic about.
From web 2.0....
Is making people stupider and extending their juvenile years into decades
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690370
Why do you feel this way, Steve? That it’s a lie, I mean.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690371
Right, I haven’t read any Heinlein novels after 1966′s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. That’s perhaps Heinlein’s all around best work, which would imply 27 years in the writing business to peak, which is impressive. Then he had major cerebral health problems that prevented him from writing for a few years. When he came out of his health funk, he was older and more of a celebrity and his books are said to be more self-indulgent.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690374
From web 2.0, Tesla, and Uber to breakthroughs in physics, in just the past few years alone, we’re witnessing a flouring of knowledge and wealth creation like never seen before.
Was that irony or parody? Because if it was serious it’s past time to make people do some sort of IQ test before they are allowed to comment.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690385
Why do you feel this way, Steve? That it’s a lie, I mean.
Because if these people really “felt like a girl on the inside”, they’d get their sex change op and then marry a man and become a house frau. Instead their goal in life is always to be a lesbian girl, preferably a high-earning CEO-type lesbian girl.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690387
Can’t bear to watch, but in that still the reporter quizzing the Benthamite auto-icon looks suitably like the smiley, early-stage Shelley Duvall character in The Shining.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690391
Spirited piece of blogging there, old man. I see you are steeped in the virtuous traditions of the “Code Duello.”
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690393
What I find weird is “Lesbian” women who date Trannies that refuse to surgically remove their penises. The whole point of being a Lesbian is that you prefer to chow down on tacos over hot dogs.
These “Lesbian” women who date Trannies with their penises intact are just basically Bisexual women who are in denial about their Bisexuality.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690398
“From web 2.0, Tesla, and Uber to breakthroughs in physics, in just the past few years alone, we’re witnessing a flouring of knowledge and wealth creation like never seen before. As a rational optimist, there’s a lot to be optimistic about.”
Uber is gypsy cab company with a good app. Check out http://uberpeople.net to get the real deal on what it is like to actually drive for them. Sooner rather than later, Habib will be picking you up.
My best friend – a millionaire, owns a Tesla. I discuss HBD stuff with him and he becomes visibly discomforted. Slick cars won’t fix what is broken in our society.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690405
“let me suggest that you could do American intellectual life some good if you came right out and told the press that the “I always felt like a girl on the inside” line is just propaganda for most of the high profile m to f transformers like yourself”
I’d hesitate to say that. It’s surprising what lurks inside people. The aggressive boss who pays a dominatrix or who wants to be a baby who needs changing … you might not get much of a clue to that if you saw them in the business world.
I’m not sure any man can know what it feels like to be a girl. But they might feel that they’d like to be one.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690409
Was that irony or parody? Because if it was serious it's past time to make people do some sort of IQ test before they are allowed to comment.
Maybe require a comment submitter to answer some timed verbal analogies before a comment can be published?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690414
There was an interesting subgenre of sci-fi novels on sexual themes during the later years of the Golden Age. I read Theodore Sturgeon’s Venus Plus X when it was serialized in New Worlds in 1961.
There was a large body of feeling among British sci-fi fans that Ed Carnell, the editor of New Worlds, should not have published a story in such questionable taste.
Western Civ. was in pretty good shape in 1961.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690418
Steve Sailer: It’s humiliating to the rest of us to have to act like we believe such nonsense.
The purpose of many things these days is to humiliate people by forcing them to pretend they’re true.
“In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is...in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”
― Theodore Dalrymple
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690420
From web 2.0, Tesla, and Uber to breakthroughs in physics, in just the past few years alone, we’re witnessing a flouring of knowledge and wealth creation
LOL. Like somebody mentioned, Habib will be on Uber in very short order, and chatting amiably with an under-employed hipster on the drive to the airport will be a thing of the past.
Tesla – apparently when their cars get in a decent wreck, they break in two and burst into flames.
If this is all these nerd-freaks have to get excited about, we’re definitely on the downslope.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690423
You made the right call, Steve. I’ve read some of Heinlein’s later work, and it is dreadful stuff , bloated and meandering. Even FRIDAY, usually hailed as a return to form, is pretty weak when compared to Heinlein’s work in the 1950s.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690427
Big deal, just another ELIZA variant. It’s simply meant to wow the credulous J-school rubes and the empty heads at various tech magazines.
That said, I just have to wonder if this freak show can be attributed to transhumanism, since it quite a inhuman field – transplanting heads onto machine bodies, freezing dead bodies, digitizing brains, etc. That’s not going to attract a emotionally healthy person to begin with but people with serious mental health issues.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690428
A White Jewish tranny is married to a Black “Lesbian” woman who likes to dye her hair blonde. A very strange couple indeed.
It’s too weird even for the show “Modern Family” standards.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690429
Heinlein wrote only one short story involving sex change operations during his long prime, “All You Zombies” in 1958, which is kind of the ultimate time travel story.
Mid-century standards of censorship and propriety infringed a lot on Heinlein’s imagination, but as far as I can tell, all that sublimation and effort to come up with innocent explanations for bringing in his kinks made him a better writer. For example, The Puppet Masters is an all time great sci-fi thriller, but quite possibly the entire brilliant set up was dreamed up in order to for Heinlein, an enthusiastic nudist, to write a scene in which the President orders all Americans to disrobe for the summer to fight space aliens.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690432
I posted an introductory reading list for Heinlein novices a while back. Since it seems germane, here it is again:
CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY, Kipling’s KIM* in an SF setting
THE PUPPET MASTERS: Top-notch SF thriller
“Magic, Inc” and”The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag” : Two excellent fantasies that RAH wrote for Campbell’s UNKNOWN.
MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS: As many others have said, probably the best-written of his novels.
STARSHIP TROOPERS: How many books published in 1959 are still being argued about today?
“All You Zombies” and “By his Bootstraps”: Heinlein does time travel.
*And KIM was derived from Twain’s HUCKLEBERRY FINN, which means that the game of literary tennis stands with England 1, Missouri 2.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690439
The exact opposite is happening. At least in America the masses are becoming stupider, less skilled and poorer and the wealthy do nothing intelligent with their hyper wealth. Of course I am generalizing. There are exceptions but for the most part excessive wealth just means grander versions of what they had before. Grander houses, wives, girlfriends, automobiles, boats, vacation houses, restaurants, more exclusive private schools for their children, fancier toys for big boys….
From web 2.0….
Is making people stupider and extending their juvenile years into decades
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690442
Sturgeon also published a rather unusual vampire novel in 1961, SOME OF YOUR BLOOD; it involves a rather nauseating variation on traditional methods of blood drinking.I also seem to recall Samuel R. Delany talking about how Sturgeon invited him to double-team his wife; Sturgeon was a gifted writer, but he also had, shall we say, perverse urges.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690452
MMM, after all this perversity, how about an edifying anecdote? Here’s Sturgeon discussing how Heinlein helped him when Sturgeon had a bad bout of writer’s block:
http://www.blastr.com/2012/10/how_robert_heinlein_once.php
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690456
… we’re witnessing a flouring of knowledge and wealth creation like never seen before.
Truly a batter world.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690463
[…] Source: Steve Sailer […]
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690515
More: http://archive.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/16-04/ff_kurzweil?currentPage=all
I wonder if there’s going to eventually be a sort of Shia versus Sunni split between Kurzweilites and Rothblattians in the tranny-transhumanist community? Who will end up being worshipped as demigod? Who gets to be the Emperor Haile Selassie in this nerd Rastafarian cult? Will the code coolies of Silicon Valley go crazy at San Jose airport upon the arrival of Kurzweil or Rothblatt’s flight?
HAILE SELASSIE – April 21-1966 state visit to Jamaica: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKZB7CBddmM
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690532
Nerds tend to be on the pervy side, or maybe they’re less inhibited in showing it off because they’re less concerned about appearances? Every other female nerd I dated wanted to be tied up, and that’s just the start of it…
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690546
The purpose of many things these days is to humiliate people by forcing them to pretend they're true.
What Theodore Dalrymple famously said-
“In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is…in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”
― Theodore Dalrymple
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690588
In TV land almost only whites are gay/tranny/whatever. There is no mileage in jewish trannies or black lesbians for that matter. Certainly not as main cast characters.
Modern Family – the gay (white) couple have an adopted Chinese daughter. Right there western civ is utterly laid waste. Even a neutron bomb attack would have left more survivors.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690660
Watching that video I suddenly sympathized intensely with Frank Herbert’s Butlerian Jihad.
As am I. I always prefer my knowledge floured and battered before a good deep frying. Preferably in peanut oil.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690685
“As part of his latest craze, he/she/whatever…”
LOL. Thanks, Steve.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690765
The purpose of many things these days is to humiliate people by forcing them to pretend they're true.
Yep.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690771
Totally nuts.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690781
@SFG: “Every other female nerd I dated wanted to be tied up, and that’s just the start of it…”
Every other woman I dated, period, wanted to be tied up, and that’s just the start of it.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690790
“he/she/whatever” – Since this blog is dedicated to truth, I suggest you stick with ‘he’.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690821
“The Anti-Gnostic says:
“”From web 2.0, Tesla, and Uber to breakthroughs in physics, in just the past few years alone, we’re witnessing a flouring of knowledge and wealth creation””
LOL. Like somebody mentioned, Habib will be on Uber in very short order, and chatting amiably with an under-employed hipster on the drive to the airport will be a thing of the past.
Tesla – apparently when their cars get in a decent wreck, they break in two and burst into flames.
If this is all these nerd-freaks have to get excited about, we’re definitely on the downslope.”
Not to mention the discovery of the Higg’s Boson, which explains asolutely everything. Everything, I tell you. How, you ask? Trust us, it does.
A golden age, indeed.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690968
“Rob says:
Steve Sailer: “”It’s humiliating to the rest of us to have to act like we believe such nonsense.””
The purpose of many things these days is to humiliate people by forcing them to pretend they’re true.”
Micro-Totalitarianism
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690971
On the topic of sci-fi writers with…….peculiar tastes……….I’m surprised nobody has mentioned Arthur C. Clarke, who skipped off to Ceylon so as to be able to roger young boys in peace.
He did however point out the dangers of a meretricious and sensationalistic media in “I Remember Babylon”.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-690973
Reminds me of the ‘eyeball’ scene in The Terminator, Ah-nold’s synthetic stunt double. Creepy, yet strangely unimpressive.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-691444
I saw better animatronics at Disneyland rides in the 1970′s.
Sheesh, can’t Martine think of anything better to do with “her” intelligence and fortune?
For example, Peter Thiel has funded this research which could become the deal maker for front-loading cryonics procedure in a way which makes neuroscientific sense:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21929343.100-heart-of-glass-could-be-key-to-banking-organs.html?full=true&print=true#.VBESKfldUue
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-691481
“I’d hesitate to say that. It’s surprising what lurks inside people. The aggressive boss who pays a dominatrix or who wants to be a baby who needs changing … you might not get much of a clue to that if you saw them in the business world.”
A recent Dutch study found most people engaged in BDSM conform to type – ie, women like to be submissive, men like to be dominant, aggressive people like to be dominant, agreeable personalities like to be submissives, liberal types tend to do more hard core stuff than conservatives.
Transvestism is a bit of an anomaly in that conservatives and liberals are equally likely to engage in it, but it’s unlikely that many conservative sissies would go the whole way and have a sex change. Indeed, there’s a sissy club in the UK called the Beaumont Club which banned homosexuals and transsexuals, before being pressured to change its rules in the 80s.
The idea that people like doing things in private which are completely opposite to what they do in public, is more of a movie/novel myth than a reality.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/interview-with-mrs-rothblatts-robot-simulacrum/#comment-692941