Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
“I’m not so sure about the Child-Killing Murder Robot,” Joe said after a sip of coffee while reading the morning paper.
“What??” his wife Anne exclaimed, visibly shocked.
“It’s killed thousands of kids in its latest murder rampage,” Joe said. “I’m starting to think maybe the Child-Killing Murder Robot isn’t such a great thing after all.”
“Well of course it’s on a murder rampage!” said Anne. “Some people tried to turn it off!”
“Yeah the Child-Killing Murder Robot does that whenever anyone tries to turn it off,” replied Joe. “And you know what? I’m starting to think that maybe they’re trying to turn off the Child-Killing Murder Robot because they’re sick of the way it keeps killing children and murdering people!”
“It’s acting in self-defense!” Anne protested. “The Child-Killing Murder Robot has a right to defend itself!”
“It’s been killing people constantly ever since that team of mad scientists invented it back in the forties, Anne! After a certain amount of child-killing and murder, eventually you’ve got to figure that maybe the blame is on the Child-Killing Murder Robot. At the very least I think our government should stop sending it batteries and ammunition.”
“Look, Joe, I feel terrible about all the child-killing and murder, and I wish it wasn’t happening. But this is a very complicated situation; it’s been going on for many years, and I just don’t see what you could possibly expect the Child-Killing Murder Robot to do at this point besides continue to kill large numbers of children and commit murder at mass scale.”
“Well, maybe they could reprogram the Child-Killing Murder Robot so it doesn’t have to kill children and murder people all the time?”
“But then it wouldn’t be a Child-Killing Murder Robot!”
“Yeah I know, it would be a different sort of thing with a different sort of system. But at least then all the murdering would stop and we’d have peace.”
“The Child-Killing Murder Robot has a right to exist!”
“Why, Anne? Why does there absolutely need to be a homicidal android that’s always in the news because it’s constantly murdering human beings? I’ve seen people talking about one possible solution where the robot is programmed to regard everyone else as its equal so it doesn’t view them as needing to be murdered. Why couldn’t we try that?”
“There is one Child-Killing Murder Robot in the world, Joe. One. And you’re saying there should be zero. You just want to commit genocide.”
“What?? That’s the exact opposite of what I want! How can you say that??”
“If you don’t believe the Child-Killing Murder Robot has a right to exist in its natural child-killing murderous state, then you’re an evil, genocidal racist. You’re no better than those kids chanting ‘Nobody should be murdered’ on university campuses!”
“Anne those students are demonstrating to defend the rights of a population who’s constantly getting murdered by a mindless automaton with machine guns for arms!”
“They’re genocidal fascists, Joe. I’m not saying I support 100 percent of the actions of the Child-Killing Murder Robot, but at least it’s not going around college campuses saying things that make people feel uncomfortable.”
“Well call me crazy but I just don’t accept that making people feel uncomfortable is equal to or worse than murdering children by the thousands.”
“You are crazy, Joe. You’re a crazy, hateful man. I’m going to go spend the night at my sister’s. God, I can’t believe I married a Nazi.”
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Caitlin Johnstone 