Interesting Links for 08-02-2015

[andrewducker]

• Samsung: watch what you say in front of our TVs, they're sending your words to third parties
  (tags: samsung tv surveillance )
• Is 50 Shades of Grey abuse?
  (tags: FiftyShadesOfGrey abuse bdsm )
• If you don’t genetically engineer your kids, you are a bad parent. It’s that simple.
  (tags: genetics parenting fiction scifi vaccination funny )
• Girls

Comments

[gonzo21]

So the Xbox One is capturing audio in peoples rooms, and sending it away somewhere. Samsung smart tv's are doing it.

I know the Xbox One can do it when the device is 'off' too, I assume the Samsung listens 24/7 too, because it will be listening for the 'tv on' command.

Geez. This is sinister.

[bart_calendar]

Yeah, the thing is the stuff that goes on in the Anne Rice Sleeping Beauty series is much, much more abusive and dangerous than anything in 50 Shades and nobody goes off on that.

And people who are like "but the message.." should ask themselves what message the Buffy/Angel romantic plotline was saying because Angel manages to be:

1. Stalker boyfriend.
2. Boyfriend who dumps you as soon as you have sex with him
3. Physically abusive boyfriend
4. Closet gay boyfriend

All at the same time and all while being depicted as incredibly romantic and you don't hear a ton of bitching about Buffy.

(To say nothing about how Spike is a boyfriend that talks her into a secret BDSM relationship and eventually tries to rape her and none of the fans go crazy when she eventually gets back together with Spike her potential rapist.)

[randomchris]

Ah, finally I find out what Dana Simpson was doing after Ozy and Millie! (Which you should read if you haven't; we have the complete set.)

[harvey_rrit]

That scumbag setting up straw men for target practice on slatestarcodex should be referred to this:

http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com/Anti-Vaccine_Body_Count/Home.html

He should also be confined in a ward full of children who are suffering from vaccine-controllable diseases and required to tend them as they die.

[andrewducker]

If you think that Scott is anti-vaccination then you are completely mistaken.

Also he's a Doctor, and entirely up-to-date as to the negative effects of people being idiots on medical matters.

[harvey_rrit]

Then I am completely wrong concerning what in the world that article is trying to say. It uses the viewpoints of people arguing in favor of and against vaccination, very accurately.

If he is actually arguing in favor of retrobioneering people, then I am deathly afraid of any such program being administered by MDs who are not under the authority and supervision of science fiction authors.

[andrewducker]

He's not arguing against, or in favour, of anything.

He's writing fiction, set in the future, with parallels in modern societal issues. I believe there's a history of that kind of thing :->

To quote him from one of his comments on the post:
"I predict half the people will think I’m arguing against vaccination, half will think I’m arguing for mandatory designer babies, and a rare few wonderful people will understand that raising awareness of cases where our intuitions conflict is its own reward."

Personally, I think that once it's possible to bio-engineer people, and it's considered reasonable to do so for certain traits, things will get _very_ interesting indeed, and the future he depicts is at least vaguely plausible. Having conversations about it now seems like a good way to get ahead of the curve.

[cartesiandaemon]

That's a fairly good summary about 50 shades I think. I think there are problems with 50 shades but not exactly what many people think they are, and many people object to ANY romance novel which features "it wasn't proper consent but it was hot", even if the readers know it's not a model for real life, and people give a pass to worse things in other genres.

But I also think it's a problem that the 50 shades male lead is a creepy and abusive BDSM-er. It's entirely realistic that Anna happens to meet a creepy and abusive asshole who ignores consent and pretends to be a super-knowledgeable dom but does things that would lead to unfortunate injuries. And if he was just a kidnapper, I'd say "everyone can see this is obviously pretend". But I feel it's irresponsible to just show that as BDSM in the book, both because it increases stigma against anyone who actually practices BDSM, because people assume it must be creepy non-consensual abuse, and the risks for anyone who's into it, because they assume if it goes beyond mild pretending, there