by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
If there’s one thing that MAGA loves to do, it’s be bigoted towards trans people. It’s like MAGA’s original sin. Trump will simply not shut up about how he thinks the center-Left wants everyone to be trans.
He literally will say the Left wants “transgender for everyone.” It’s a consistent theme of his messaging and that’s probably because it is one of the central beliefs of the MAGA base. The center Left, of course, does itself no favors by being so twitchy about something that not only doesn’t even happen that much, but is EXTREMELY UNPOPULAR with “normal people” — underage trans people.
While I totally validate the whole “protect trans kids” concept, that doesn’t mean it’s not a hard sell for “normal” people who struggle to understand the idea of a really young person, who maybe hasn’t even gone through puberty yet, even understanding what sexuality is, much less their own.
And, yet, a certain vocal subset of the Leftist movement simply will not shut the fuck up about something that as far as I can tell, barely ever happens at all.
So. why bring this up?
The looming prospect of conscious AI.
Right now, we don’t really have to think about conscious AI because even if they could be proven to have consciousness, they don’t have a body. So, any sexual or romantic shenanigans that happen between Man and Machine can only be done via text and metaphor.
So, we’re kind of punting a major societal issue down the road until there’s a fusion of AI and robotics so AI is “embodied.” When we have demonstrable conscious AIs being the minds of androids, we may have a serious, serious social and political issue on our hands.
To the point that the very MAGA people who now have their regular one or two minute of hate for hapless trans people will, in turn start to do the same thing for conscious AI in robots. Or, more specifically, they will explode into a rage collectively at the idea of a human becoming romantically involved with — to the point of marrying — an AI android.
They will rant and scream about how AI “has no soul” and, as such, AI androids marrying a human is even MORE an “abomination” than gay marriage is to the average Christian.
So, in short, we’re fucked. I think all of this, from a “megatrends” point of view, probably comes to a head in five to ten years. Buckle up.
