I always thought it was a little silly how people were so fixated on future robot rights/treatment in sci-fi (I, Robot, The Matrix, Star Trek) -- I couldn't believe that people would ever are behave in such a hideous manner to something that looks and acts so much like we do. But I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that a good deal of response I comments I'm seeing from Youtube and such to Actroid videos display just such behavior.

Actroids are gynoids -- androids with a human appearance, made by a Japanese company called Kokoro. There are several models, but most share similar characteristics: cute, petite, Japanese features (this seems like a no-brainer).

And perhaps predictably, the Actroid videos -- which generally depict them delivering a short speech about themselves and their proximity to humans -- garner loud wishes to fuck them, reveling that "we won't need women anymore", sneering about Japanese penises (never heard THAT one before -- bravo), and so on. What is terrible is that these androids -- which are, when you get right down to it, neither women OR ethnically Japanese -- must be the recipient of prejudices against both. And because they're "not really human", they can be treated even worse than their "real" counterparts.

Alright, so YouTube isn't exactly where I'd look to find the brightest lightbulbs in the drawer. But Christ, it looks like nothing brings out the bitterness and hatred out of middle class white guys like an innocuous multilingual android.

Whatever happened to treating others with respect and (I know, it doesn't sound like me at all) a little kindness?