#8733: Aaron M — 11/11  at  09:14 AM
Once again, sci-fi got there first.

#8737: — 11/11  at  10:07 AM
Sybian.

#8738: Andrew Brown — 11/11  at  10:33 AM
well, at the quoted price of $17,000, I think I have a small advantage, at least with women who don't go for conspicuous consumption.

#8739: — 11/11  at  10:36 AM
I, for one, would welcome our new female overlords, except that I don’t think they’ll be particularly interested in us.

Yes, science-fiction got there first (in another area), as it often does. See the 1950s British science-fiction writer John Wyndham's short story "Consider her ways" - http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/wyndham/wyndham1.html. (Oh, and there's Frank Herbert's "The White Plague", though I vaguely recall that is more thriller than thought-provoking science fiction.)

#8742: — 11/11  at  11:14 AM
Aren't women potentially dispensable, too? Why wouldn't there someday be an artificial womb?

#8743: PZ Myers — 11/11  at  11:36 AM
It's a little easier to get rid of the male functions, first. The thing is that males have the necessary plumbing for the first steps in procreation, but females have all the gadgetry for every step in the process. Our functions are more easily circumventable.

But yeah, I think someday men will be able to reproduce autonomously, too. I hope I live to see it, just so I can watch the Republicans explode.

#8744: — 11/11  at  11:42 AM
You science goobers are really bummin' my mojo today;)

#8745: — 11/11  at  12:08 PM
Well yes, I did know that women do a lot more of the reproductive heavy lifting.

#8746: teep — 11/11  at  12:35 PM
Talking about stuff like this only encourages all the people who are here for the tentacle porn. You know that, right?

I think most women genuinely like men without bringing orgasms into it. See, if it was all about orgasms, women could stay home with any one of a surprising variety of battery-operated objects, all of which can be stowed in a dresser drawer when not needed and none of which leave the seat up, drink out of the container, or want us to watch inane action movies with them.

There's gotta be more to it than just orgasms.

#8747: — 11/11  at  01:03 PM
I'd say that we guys are screwed, except that we might not be.

#8750: — 11/11  at  01:44 PM
A man is just a slightly more complex variety of object that can produce an orgasm in a woman. So, the fact that women still go after men still promotes the "all about orgasms" theory.

I mean, come on. A man can (and does) stay at home and do it by himself, plus he doesn't need any special equipment (except the internet). But, he still does yearn for a woman (or man), because it's a whole different kind of orgasm when you think that another human wants to help you get there.

#8753: — 11/11  at  03:37 PM
.. as Andrew suggests, at least on a bang-for-the-buck basis we may have an advantage.

But, it sure is a good thing I know how to fix cars and plumbing and build things and other such 'manly' arts, just in case.

#8762: bill — 11/11  at  05:54 PM
Well, on the reproductive side there's the procreative stump - it just makes use of the part of a woman that is actually needed to make more humans (very cheap upkeep). And on the artificial pleasure side, there's always a tasp or a droud - these are gender-neutral pleasure solutions...

#8806: Selva — 11/12  at  01:51 PM
Reminds me of the book "The Fragile Male" (link below) I read during college.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1852835249/qid=1100288800/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_10_3/026-5993421-5466045#product-details

#8816: — 11/12  at  03:22 PM
Holy crap! A conservative law buddy of mine has been laughin his ass off about you boys for months. I didn't get it till I got to this page. Good god! Female overlords? Artificial wombs? Autonomous male reproduction? Not about the orgasm? What kinda deadass women you got up there to put up with a buncha sissy crap like this. No wonder we can't win a damn election with half the party made up of guys like you. Go support Nader and let normal people have the damn party back next time. And I thought James Carville was bad for screwin Mary M.

#8820: PZ Myers — 11/12  at  03:28 PM
For all of the promise of biotechnology, I'm afraid we'll never be able to implant a sense of humor.

#8957: — 11/15  at  01:56 PM
Humor implants? Would that be 31 Double A's?

#8963: — 11/15  at  04:04 PM
TexDem,

These science geeks here ain't touched a female breast since the f##%@ing Jurassic age. And, they are a humorless bunch, so don't be wastin' too much time on them

#8968: Hank Fox — 11/15  at  04:48 PM
Paul, you have my respect in every other aspect of your site, but I think you're making a significant mistake in not ousting this sheer dog-in-the-manger who contributes nothing but sneers, jibes, and continuous pin pricks at your other posters.

I love visiting here, and I love posting what I always hope are thoughtful and helpful comments. It feels like ... working together with friends to build something worthwhile.

Bob Flynn is not one of those friends. He seems to exist solely to ridicule and belittle others.

I've tried to ignore him, but I find that what I'm really attempting to ignore is my own honest feelings: I feel angry after EVERY ONE of Flynn's posts, and the smallness and meanness of tone in the things he writes is infectious -- I want to reply with something hurtful after every one of them. I gave in to that feeling once, and I felt lousy afterwards; I stewed about it for two days.

I don't like feeling this way. I'm enjoying your website progressively less.

I think you should consider this site as your own intellectual home, at least as much as you do a public forum. You wouldn't let this ill-mannered child into your home to insult and belittle every one of your other guests, would you? And even in public forums (fora?), there are things you can't do without being hauled up by the Sergeant-at-arms and tossed out on your offensive ass.

Would you PLEASE kick this annoying little weenie out?

Really, you aren't doing even him a favor by assisting in the reinforcement of this behavior.

#8971: — 11/15  at  06:02 PM
(in a past life chapter) To augment my meager salary as a science teacher, I brought salad to America, 23 tons at a time. Truckers are mostly socially disfuctional but very intelligent (excellent spatial analysis and risk/benefit skills). Some of the CB conversations were quite spirited until one reached Newberry Springs, in the Peoples' Republique of California del Norte. There, a tiny-brained pervert/pedopile with a base-station handle of "Pinky" would bash his sick, over-Watted way into relevant conversations and post horrifying filth to aggravate the drivers. But you could always tell when this horrifying repugnance with the simpering voice had been bested by one of the knights of the road, as he would hold down the key and scream "Stupid, stupid trucker" endlessly until the wit had disappeared from the area. Most folks who frequented this stretch of the Mojave would change channel in Ludlow or Barstow to avoid him but occasionally he would follow us onto other channels. The FCC has done nothing. Eventually someone will DF him and who knows what will result. Perhaps M. Flynn is Pinky.

#8972: DarkSyde — 11/15  at  06:07 PM
Hank he's probably not over 16 years of age. He's a kid making prank phone calls.

#8973: DarkSyde — 11/15  at  06:14 PM
Sorry hit send to soon. Everyone has his uses. In this case the aforementioned troll is like an episode of COPS. You think maybe you could do something more with your life, and then you watch an episode of COPS in which a drunken toothless loser beats his equally drunken toothless wife and she runs out of the trailer home covered with blood and smoking a cigarette babbling incoherent gibberish. It's nasty but it does make one fell like 'you know what? I'm a pretty together guy afterall!".

Joe-Bobbly serves as our drunken toothless loser. He's such an outstanding bad example of an idiot and what we oppose, it would be almost necessary to create him in effigy if he didn't grace us with his actual existence.

#8975: — 11/15  at  06:27 PM
No, I'm not 16 or Pinky from the boondocks.

Why is everyone pounding on me today? TexDem was way more imflammatory. He says you folks aren't "normal"

Go support Nader and let normal people have the damn party back next time.

All I'm saying is that if you write a post about the "orgasmatron," followed by numerous geeky comments, it's probably a good bet that some of you boys don't have girlfriends (or vice-versa). Is that not a reaonable inference?

Calm down and don't get bent all out of shape.

#8976: Hank Fox — 11/15  at  06:30 PM
DS, read what you just wrote: "drunken, toothless loser." It was a mean-spirited slur.

It doesn't matter that it was richly-deserved. What matters is that you -- and I, as I noted -- are moved to think and say such things after being exposed to this ... human carcinogen. What matters is that we are (most unfortunately) coming to feel GOOD after aiming a low blow at another human being.

THAT'S what I care about. That's the effect I don't want visited on the mostly good-hearted, intelligent people who visit and contribute here. And that is exactly AND ONLY what Bob Flynn is doing.

#8978: Hank Fox — 11/15  at  06:39 PM
There, see? Another Bob Flynn sneer. He's good enough with language that he can always make it seem like it's YOUR fault for getting irritated. And I'll bet some of you buy into that.

But is there any person here who doesn't feel annoyed / needled / irritated / deeply angered by every single post of his?

He knows what he's doing. And he's doing it to hurt. That and nothing else.

Allowing him a forum to hurt people, over and over and over, is bad for me, bad for us ... bad for him.