[BIO] Further development of a society with no qualms about (ab)using bioroids

[Victor Maxus]

I guess a society that used bioroids with out problem could be just like a modern industrial society. It needs to be looked at from an economic stand point. If the Bio's are being made, who ismaking them? If some private corporation is doing it, then they will want to make back the money they are putting into it plus a profit. Otherwise, why bother making them? Now, who wants to buy an Bioroid that is free willed, can do what it wants, work the job it wants, and go where it wants? NO ONE. Think about it, how many of us will pay $20,000 or $30,000 dollards for a car that is going to go where it wants, leave you behind when you need to get to work, not go when you want to go somewhere? No, we get a car to do what we want it to do. So, if the Bioroids won't do what we want them to do, who is going to buy one? If no one is going to buy them, then it goes back to the private business, why are we making them? Now, to justify them doing the jobs we want them to do with out calling it slavery? Easy... hey, if they didn't do what we wanted them to do, we would have never made them in the first place.

Now, another way to look at it was alrady brought up. Society suffers from underemployemnt, not enough people to fill jobs. Every one graduates from college, every one has a nice desk job, no one wants to be the janitor, the servant, the cook and so forth. Some one has to fill these roles and no one wants robots to star at, they want something very human. So, the government steps in, starts making them, and now the real issue comes up. How do you keep them doing their jobs with out problems or looking at it as a form of slavery. Best solution this time might be a very arrogant society, a "we are better than them" one. In fact, if every one takes the desk jobs and no one wants to do more menial tasks, then the society as a whole may already have a frame of mind that says "Hey, we are better than the bioroids and they just should do what we say."

Two ways of looking at this, just kind of putting them out there.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

No qualms, means "no qualms". And there's no real reason to make them nonsapient because the uses for a nonsapient android are so limited.

Right. I assumed that the OP meant sapient creatures.

To my way of thinking, creating and then enslaving thinking bioroids is horribly evil. If we did create such beings, wouldn't we have a tremendous responsibility to care for them, teach them, help them? We should be very wary of this kind of thing. We human beings all-too-often do wretched things to our own kind and to essentially defenseless animals. I get a little sick thinking about what some of us might do to thinking bioroids.

The OP's hypothetical society sounds very, very scary.
That might make for good gaming.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I never noticed anything in the Bible which explained why slavery wasn't wrong. It just seemed to be taken for granted as a part of life.

It specifies exactly who can be enslaved and why. It says that the enslavement of Jews by others is wrong.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

It specifies exactly who can be enslaved and why. It says that the enslavement of Jews by others is wrong.

Regulation and rationalization are two different things.

[SuedodeuS]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Regulation and rationalization are two different things.

Rationalization can easily include regulation. After all, any society with bioroid "slaves" but no human slaves is going to have to rationalize why bioroids are OK but humans aren't. That's the whole point of rationalization in this context - to come up with a morally acceptable reason why they are slaves and we aren't.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by SuedodeuS

Rationalization can easily include regulation. After all, any society with bioroid "slaves" but no human slaves is going to have to rationalize why bioroids are OK but humans aren't. That's the whole point of rationalization in this context - to come up with a morally acceptable reason why they are slaves and we aren't.

Yes, and I'm having trouble seeing the difference here between that and why Caanites are slaves but Jews aren't (unless they sell themselves, or if a girl are sold by the father) or why Toltecs captives are, but Aztecs aren't, or why someone with one black grandfather is and so on.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by SuedodeuS

Rationalization can easily include regulation. After all, any society with bioroid "slaves" but no human slaves is going to have to rationalize why bioroids are OK but humans aren't. That's the whole point of rationalization in this context - to come up with a morally acceptable reason why they are slaves and we aren't.

It's actually very simple to explain why bioroids and no humans. Bioroids make better slaves and humans have a self-interested reason to not want the enslavement of humans to be legal. There's no moral reasoning involved in that at all. When back in the old days it was "not our tribe, but other tribes", that's not a moral justification because it wasn't a moral question. It was a question of self-interest.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Right. I assumed that the OP meant sapient creatures.

To my way of thinking, creating and then enslaving thinking bioroids is horribly evil. If we did create such beings, wouldn't we have a tremendous responsibility to care for them, teach them, help them? We should be very wary of this kind of thing. We human beings all-too-often do wretched things to our own kind and to essentially defenseless animals. I get a little sick thinking about what some of us might do to thinking bioroids.

The OP's hypothetical society sounds very, very scary.
That might make for good gaming.

Yeah, it certainly might end up being so scary that I'll never add the option to any settings I GM. Then again, if could be no worse than historical humanity.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

It's actually very simple to explain why bioroids and no humans. Bioroids make better slaves and humans have a self-interested reason to not want the enslavement of humans to be legal. There's no moral reasoning involved in that at all. When back in the old days it was "not our tribe, but other tribes", that's not a moral justification because it wasn't a moral question. It was a question of self-interest.

"Not our species" vs. "Not our tribe". I don't really see how one is different in kind than the other. Perhaps we must agree to disagree.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

"Not our species" vs. "Not our tribe". I don't really see how one is different in kind than the other. .

Did you see how I didn't suggest that they were different?