The Bloop posted:

It just was automatic when I was born, the doctor just did it, like they didn't ask if you want the umbilical cord cut, of course you did. And the penis.

It definitely wasn't because my pediatrician or parents were swayed by the Big Corn Flakes lobby or whatever

Rutibex posted:

Culture books feel like a weird premise to me. why do the humans have any agency at all, they are basically pets

Splicer posted:

Why do you think it was a thing the doctor just did you doof. Being scared of kids touching their junk is why it became common, and once it was common it was normalised, and once it was normalised it was something that was just done because uhhhh well we did it to your dad so there must be a good reason for it.

The Bloop posted:

I already replied to a nearly exact post

Splicer posted:

How am I expected to read all your posts with this enormous foreskin in the way.

Strom Cuzewon posted:

This is indeed the question of a solid 90% of the books.

The Bloop posted:

Posting Phimosis is a serious topic

Rutibex posted:

Culture books feel like a weird premise to me. why do the humans have any agency at all, they are basically pets

erosion posted:

I liked a few things. The superficial way everyone interacted with each other, reinforced by the mandatory apparat devices rating things like their fuckability. The otter cheerfully interrogating the main character at customs. People using capital-p 'Political' to indicate they were crossing a line with activism. And yeah, how the main character was kind of an unlikable loser. The environment of constant paranoia and discomfort while people tried to live their lives. And the bits formatted like chatlogs, which was something I hadn't seen.

I don't read a lot of books, I guess.

The Bloop posted:

I already replied to a nearly exact post

I realize and agree the greater culture was affected but I know the motivations of my specific doctor and parents

But the AMA has standards which are generally followed and that's generally a good thing, and they change over time for a lot of reasons, mostly scientific. It's not surprising that doctors would follow common cultural practice and professional guidelines even if they don't personally have a weird motivation to do so

The Bloop posted:

I am not pro-circumcision I was just saying that everyone's direct motivation isn't about masturbation, then it spiraled into whatever all this is

Shrecknet posted:

anti-circumcision advocates have the very funny combo of
1) pretty obviously being right
2) a total inability to not be weird about it and use insane language

tokin opposition posted:

for the record i'm 100% in favor of penis spiralation

quote:

Participants worked for seven days in VR, with 45-minute lunch breaks, and were asked multiple times throughout each day to grade their VR experience compared to working in a normal, real-world office across 10 stats, including perceived productivity, frustration, wellbeing, and anxiety. Participants were also asked specific VR-related questions, like if they felt sick, or if their eyes were starting to hurt. The research team also monitored their heartbeats and typing speed.

It turns out study participants felt like they had more work to do than in a normal office and felt more anxious and stressed while trying to do their jobs in VR. This lead to a 14% drop in self-described productivity, with “frustration” increasing by over 40% compared to baseline. This all contributed to an overall decrease in mental wellbeing. And as you might expect, participants variously suffered from increased eye strain, visual fatigue, nausea, and migraines as a result of spending so much time in virtual reality.

Sardonik posted:

Sardonik posted:

I now feel even more vindicated in ridiculing one of the most moronic SXSW panels I've ever seen: Gen Z, Metaverse and the Future of Work.

tokin opposition posted:

i do not wish to be upscaled, thank you

Sardonik posted:

In hindsight they probably meant 'upskill', though the idea of Web3 douchebags trying to sell people on becoming their best 4K selves is a potent image indeed.

tokin opposition posted:

for the record i'm 100% in favor of penis spiralation

Sardonik posted:

In hindsight they probably meant 'upskill'

Bar Ran Dun posted:

my boys birth defects were relatively easily correctable because of recent advances directly coming from bottom surgeries for trans folk and genital repairs for soldiers who got thier junk blown off by IEDs.

which is wild honestly. and uh some people will still end up “circumcised” for reasons related to this, I mean they’re still using that skin.

Rutibex posted:

Culture books feel like a weird premise to me. why do the humans have any agency at all, they are basically pets

Farm Frenzy posted:

Nobody is being exploited in the culture. The whole point is that there's no sinister undertone. Everyone just wants to hang out

Tulip posted:

Every single robotics story going back to Frankenstein is really a story about the dire consequences of dehumanizing the Other, and every story that involves Turing Tests is a limited version of Descartes' demon (i.e. how can you tell that other people have interiors just because their exteriors look like yours). The implications for how you live in any society should be extremely obvious and getting really caught up the "loving magic" side of the equation is just to avoid confronting that you don't like your answers to "how do I treat other people."

power word- Jeb! posted:

in Turing's original formulation the AI was supposed to pretend to be a man pretending to be a woman

so pretending to be someone pretending to be someone of a different gender

PostNouveau posted:

https://twitter.com/flglmn/status/1537886999192883203

hobbesmaster posted:

do you exist between posts?

PostNouveau posted:

None of y'all do

hobbesmaster posted:

do you exist between posts?