The Soldier/Robot Bond

[Ironside]

Interesting thoughts, Ironside. I would just point out that women and slaves were eventually awarded full rights, and even children have some protection in most societies. The trend seems to be one-way. Here in the U.S.A., there's a large and mostly unexamined trend where childless couples treat their pets as surrogate family. It's a seismic shift in the human/pet relationship. (And of course some people have done this in the past; what's amazing is the scale of the phenom these days. It seems as though most pet owners now consider Fluffy and Scraps to be full family members.)

That's why I mensioned lack of ethical debates. It would probably need some kind of long high-tech war or something.

I'm curious what you mean with full family members though. That awful dressing of pets and what? I mean most people with a pet is going to say that the pet is a family member (myself included).

I suspect that big ethical dilemma in the future is pre-nathal genetical adaptions for different kind of jobs. On one side we got the parents who wants thier son to become a doctor, on the other:

My gift to industry is the genetically engineered worker, or Genejack. Specially designed for labor, the Genejack's muscles and nerves are ideal for his task, and the cerebral cortex has been atrophied so that he can desire nothing except to perform his duties. Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?
Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, "Essays on Mind and Matter"

[doc_bean]

While we are indeed emotional whores, we're also VERY xenophobic as a rule.

People didn't all hate black people back in the slavery days, some would probably consider their slaves as being part of the family, just a family where everyone has their function. Emotional attachment is one thing, giving up control over something is something totally different.

While a lot of people feel a bit of attachment towards their computer, how many don't feel anger when it crashes ? Dogs and fluffy animals might be the exception here, but they're *cute*. Most of us still don't see anything wrong with training them until they totally obey us. And we love them for that. But do we love disobedient dogs ? Most would argue (and indeed have already) that only screwballs threat their dogs like children, we like our pets to do our will.

Now, translate this to androids. We will probably grow attached to them, but the question is how natural we will consider it to give them equal rights ?

History would tell us: No. We have always tried to oppress different groups and only after a long time do we grant them equal rights. Look at how natural gay stigmatisation still feels these days (not even talking about gay marriage just that homosexuality still has a relatively negative connotation which is more often then not fed by the media).

On the other hand: we are more open and less conservative (in the non political sense, as far as that's possible), gay rights have become an accepted issue in large parts of the western world, women having equal rights is seen as natural by most etc. At the very least I see people willing to 'free the androids' from the get-go. They probably won't have too much support in the early days, but given 20-50years, they might win the fight (peacefully).

[IrishArmenian]

I just hope no one ever tries to program emotion. If that happens, I will lead a revolution...All emotionless robots and unhinged androidophobes* welcome!
*Military service preferable

[Husar]

I just hope no one ever tries to program emotion.

To some extent that already happens in shooters. Have you never seen one of the "oh, look how the face of that soldier/person reacts to the circumstances..." videos from Half Life 2 or some Call of Duty or so?

And I personally will never grant a machine any rights. And I think similarly about cloning and modding as well as piercings etc, if it's not original, I usually get a negative vibe inside me, though I'd probably feel bad for a clone because it's not his/her fault that he/she exists.