Saturday, February 02, 2008

Love and Sex With Robots on Colbert

Three more minutes of video: In researching material on David Levy's book called (I am not making this up) Love and Sex With Robots (I may do an BBC interview on this topic), I found a three minute video clip from Colbert, who is, apparently, a big deal on the intelligence attenuator (TV) and has a book on the best-seller list.

This is really odd stuff on multiple levels. Levy plays it straight. He researched the various dimensions of human-robot sex. Colbert, of course, is glib, playing for laughs, and tries to insult and humiliate the author (who deserves it in a way, since he finds no difficulty this new activity which is, I suppose, a hydrid between onanism and bestiality). The subject is profound, really: out of control technology meets postmodern loneliness, pansexualism, and amoralism. Colbert and his cackling crowd have no idea. It is all kinky giggles to them.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

That was certainly a strange dialogue (if one could call it that) about a strange (to say the least) topic.

The Daily Fuel said...

Greetings Dr. Groothuis.

Stephen Colbert hosts a nightly show (Monday through Thursday) of political and social satire. His television persona is patterned to mock several talking heads of the right (Bill O'Reilly being the main target) and to make fun of their pompous and ill-conceived ideas.

While I really did not care for this particular exchange, my opinion of Stephen Colbert is that he is one of the brightest satirical voices, if not the brightest, on television. He has an uncanny ability to sniff out lies, preposterousness, and duplicity, and we are very lucky to have someone with his intelligence and sense of humor on television.

Of course, that is only one man's opinion.

Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D. said...

Sir Fab:

Perhaps I should scandalize my curmudgeon readers and watch an episode of Colbert and report back. I do appreciate much satire. However, I have never seen O'Reilly!

The Daily Fuel said...

You can watch all of the clips from his show on the Comedy Central website.

He can be a bit much sometimes, but you have to keep things in perspective and know what/whom he satirizes.

Best,

BJS said...

I agree with SirFab:

Colbert is simply brilliant. His speech at the correspondance dinner from a couple years ago was genius.

But, it might be hard to appreciate the depth of his satire if you are not familiar with his targets (like O'Rielly).


Although I haven't seen this particular clip, my bet is that Colbert is not the glib fool he appears. My guess is that his silliness in the clop is designed to uttely mock this robot-sex guy and his absurd position. (That is usally his move, anyway).

The Daily Fuel said...

B.J.:

Thanks for mentioning the Colbert's appearance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. It was simply priceless! (Although I understand why it would not be to everyone's liking).