Avatar of Penny

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Recent Statuses

20 days ago
Current Ethical issues aside, AI prose is just really bad.
3 likes
28 days ago
She wanted to read, she wanted to write, but the main thing she wanted was something to fight
4 likes
1 yr ago
Make it clear that you don't need him to be reading Dante tomorrow. Also suggest it would be fun if you had a private language that you could use to mock English speakers in secret.
5 likes
2 yrs ago
Luckily history suggests an infinite ability for people to be shit heads ;)
1 like
3 yrs ago
Achmed the Snake
1 like

Bio

Early 30's. I know just enough about everything to be dangerous.

Most Recent Posts

Junebug considered the proposition for a moment turning the problem over in her mind.

"No," she said after a long moment of reflection. According to the reports the shipyard engineers had provided her the Highlander wouldn't be fully space worthy for another few days. In fact, several of them had reacted with a kind of fascinated horror to the fact that the ship had been in hard vacumn, let alone the RIP only a few days ago.

"Taya you are best suited to chasing down the footage and the data streams, and the Highlander shouldn't lift till the repairs are finished." As if summoned by the words the sound of a power tool slicing into metal reverberated through the hull. Neil cast a gaze out the viewport clearly wishing he could be there to oversee the work.

"Cheng gave us an expense account so hit the shops and...." the girls eyes lit up to an unreasonable degree... "Get what equipment you think will be useful. Don't go to crazy because Cheng's geneorisity isn't unlimited despreate though he might be if we bankrupt him it wont do us any favors." Taya nodded her agreement clearly happy to remain behind at the saftey of a console.

"And what will we be doing?" Neil asked skeptically. A slow smile spread across Junebugs face.

_______________________________

"For the record, this is a galaxy class piece of shit," Neil said, repeating the theme of the last few minutes as he looked up at the small mining barge Junebug had chartered after a quick call to Cheng. The thing looked like an ugly tick compared to the Highlander's majestic greyhound as it squatted in the small docking bay. Its panels were covered with rust and coolant stained the paper thing hull plating in a hundred different places. It was basically a twenty meter long metallic box, with the vast bulk of the thing being given over to six massive thrusters arranged in a rectangular bank,and a pair of large gripping pincers. The ship, techincally it was a tug, was designed for the task of accelerating small asteroids along fixed trajectories for recovery. Hundreds like it were at work in the asteroid belt even now.

"Let the record show," Junebug replied as she stepped under the nose of the thing to pull at an unyielding ladder. Painted across the left side of the nose cone, in peeling glory was an improbably busty woman astride an asteroid with the name Hakim's Whore written underneath it in barely legible Imperial. Unwilling to trust the ships atmosphere system Junebug was in her airsuit with her breastplate and helmet fastened awkwardly atop it. Custom fit airsuits might not be a bad thing to spring for after this job was done because even the generic suit she was wearing was tight in places and too loose in others. A mass of equipment was carried in her duffel bag, more than she should realy need, but, she might as well admit it, she had really wished for her gear back on the unnamed jungleworld when things had dropped in the fire.

"There are plenty like her Neil," she explained, and then smiled impishly.

"Besides I'm sure a hotshot pilot can get us aboard this Kramer Station no problems right?"
@POOHEAD189
Particularly seeing the number of people who would take advantage of this option would be relatively low. I only bought it up because I couldn't find a firm moral reason to object to it. In fact if it wasn't for the issue of children (the issue of issue?) I don't think I could find any objection and even then if they were given the same counseling as people with the aforementioned genetic diseases, it would be hard to exclude one group and not the other and remain consistent.
Social and pseudo-genetic engineering aren't adequate reasons to deny people the right to marry (at least not morally). The exact same types of arguments were deployed against interracial marriage and gay marriage.
<Snipped quote by Penny>
I'm talking about the future of the species if society deems it ok, and any kind of coupling that bring offspring, not just marriage.

<Snipped quote>
It would still be icky in society, and we as a species would naturally be disinclined to it because of our evolutionary history and instincts. However, if the genetics were modified for their children, there was no religion against it, nor cultural taboos, then if I had to guess there would be a small population of genetically odd individuals that don't have the same genetic coding as most do, so they find their sister fuckable!


So is the purpose of marriage to enforce some arbitrary genetic control? Should marriage rights be determined by that genetic scheme? If that is the case then you should have no objection to incestuous marriages that produce no children right? Also you should be concerned with people who are passing along genetic diseases. Why stop there, why not pick genetic traits that you personally like and select for them?

This again assumed that the purpose of marriage is genetic. If we teleported into Cathamber's magic wonderland of easy genetic engineering would the moral objection still exist? What if they were sterile? Is there any grounds to object to it other than social taboo because that same taboo applied (and applies) to same sex marriage.

"Oh..." Cheng looked a little embarrassed at the question.

"Of course, I cannot actually seize your money merely aquire the account and require you to sign some paperwork before you access it," he explained, clearly more comfortable to be in an area where he did apparently have some expertise. Sayeeda, far more comfortable on a battlefield than at a garden party could understand completely. Cheng produced a data pad and passed it to Junebug. She squirted a copy of it to Lonney who declared it to be free from legal trickery and in common usage on the station before digitally signing.

"We will need any information you have on your wife's disappearance," Sayeeda declared once the paperwork was done. Cheng smiled wanly.

"Everything I have is on the disc your pilot stole captain," he said, "If you need anything further, anything at all you have only to call." Nodding her acceptance Sayeeda stood, a little chagrined by the hope on the mans face.

"We will do what we can sir," she said in a professionally neutral tone.

________________________________

"It has to be this Kramer crew," Taya declared. The girl looked a good deal more human now that Junebug had forced her to drink several liters of water and accept a rehydration pack. By the way the girl kept looking at her and blushing and giggling, the aristocrat remembered more of the previous night than Junebug did.

"Why what have you found?" Junebug asked, looking up from her own fruitless attempts to go through Cheng's many investors.

"Nothing," Taya declared. THey were all sitting around the Highlander's consoles, linked into the local data net and with Lonney's sorting power it was the best place on the station to be. Plus the monitors could be set dim enough not to wake Sayeeda's nascent headache. The moment dragged out before Junebug rose to the bait.

"Nothing?" she asked, turning her chair to face Taya. It wasn't a particularly helpful gesture as the girl had her display set to mono directional so that only someone directly infront could read it.

"Nothing," Taya confirmed, "Name and a reistrey number but no client list, no sales pitch, no stock holder reports."

"Could they just be fairly low key?" Sayeeda asked skeptically.

"Maybe but I ran the profile of every other similar company that operates of this station and it flagged abnormal. Even the little mother and cub operations are screaming their virtues from the asteroid top." Leading troops gave you an ability to judge when a people were confident about something, and when a specialist was confident in her specialty area, it paid to listen.

"Sounds like a lead," Junebug said, eager to be up and away from the data crunching that had filled the last several hours.

"One more thing," Taya said and touched a button to turn her display to omni directional. A holo of Nia Cheng flashed into existence, rotating slowly.

"This has been doctored," Taya declared, clearly proud of the deduction.

"Doctored, you mean like altered with image processors?" Junebug asked. That was strange. SHe cast a glance at Neil.

"Any ideas?"

@POOHEAD189

The gist of the argument in all of those sources seems to be that polyamory has historically worked out poorly for women and low status men.

Ok? I don't see that as a particularly compelling argument against it in the here and now. Marriage in general has been a pretty pro male power structure in most places.

They also cite genetic concerns.

Ok? Is the purpose of traditional marriage some sort of low key genetic control program?

(Pedophiles and age of consent laws very wildly around the globe, let alone US. To explain my sarcasm.)


Im down with establishing 18 as an age of consent for marriage seeing I am talking about the legal rights derived from it.

Society kind of matters though.


In an abstract sense sure. This same fear mongering went on with gay marriage and lo the sun still rises.

Also on tradition marriages...the thing that best guarantees personal health and happiness and financial stability being in your term "a mental death trap" I disagree strongly...


Not advocating for traditional marriage to be abolished. To my knowledge no straight person has been forced into a gay marriage since the supreme court decisions, despite the right wing fear mongering.

I'm glad you'd like that...frankly the fact you added the caveat of being controversial...but your original quote actually doesn't exclude incest...I wonder if you've really thought about what you're advocating for here.

[/quote]
My quote is questioing wether there is a moral ground for precluding incestuos relationships between consenting adults. Paricularly seeing there does not seem to be an analogous argument being made against people with heritable genetic disease.

marketwatch.com/story/low-fertility-r…

worldview.stratfor.com/article/fertil…


The purpose of marriage is not to provide children. If so you wouldn't have a moral case for sterile people to be married or for homosexuals or for people who just flat out didn't want children.

You should be. It's not just because it's "icky". Society didn't want too many of the population fucking their relatives, because babies are born risking more horrible problems with health/birth defects. To spare sounding any more politically incorrect I won't get into all the other examples that don't exactly produce offspring. Something that has potential to end civilizations...


The argument that there is an increased risk of genetic problems applies equally well to a whole range of people with heritable genetic diseases so unless you want to fire up the eugenics program...

I get that its a little icky.

I'm open to a counter argument that wouldn't apply equally to people with inheritable genetic disorders.
So how far is too far for you? Incest? People marrying their 3DS? (if only this was a joke.) How about sex? I feel like when you start going..."Yeah, polygamy is probably sustainable and mentally healthy." I don't even understand why'd you deny anyone love at that point. Go full progressive. For lack of better term.


I start from the premise that all relationships take place between consenting adults, a DS, however mature and cute, cannot consent. It doesn't really matter if I think its mentally healthy or not. I've certainly met poly people who are in seemingly healthy happy relationships and traditional marriages which are clearly mental deathtraps which shouldn't exist in a just universe. I don't think we can use whether they are 'mentally healthy' as a metric.

At the risk of being somewhat controversial - Incest is actually sort of an interesting case and I'd like people to keep an open mind about it. On the one hand there is an ick factor which society assigns to it but I'm not sure that is all that valid as an objection. On the other hand there are the very real genetic dangers faced by offspring of those unions. Its tempting to disqualify them on that basis alone but there are plenty of genetic conditions which offer similar or worse threats to potential offspring. While we counsel people with these genetic markers we don't have any legal mechanism to preclude them from having children. Then again not all relationships have producing children as a goal. It creates a sort of moral double standard. I'll admit that I suffer from the same social ick factor as most people but I'm not sure that should be controlling.
Well here's hoping you never claim, you don't want to ban/take guns away.


I would hope that from my posts it is clear that I DO want to ban/take (some) guns away.

Also not that I would ever impeach such stirling and balanced sources as the Daily Mail and the very impartial sounding Bearingarms.com...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-guns/australia-data-shows-gun-controls-a-huge-success-20-years-after-mass-shooting-idUSKCN0XP0HG

It is possible to own a gun in Australia but it is very tightly regulated.
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