Monday, June 11, 2007

Government silences robot rights activist

This poor guy got arrested for carrying an "Equal Rights for Robots" sign at Kutztown University. An aggressive Christian anti-gay group had infiltrated the campus and was protesting and he tried to lighten up the increasing tension with his own funny sign and was arrested for his trouble.





He says -
In fact, according to one student who spoke to school officials right after my arrest, the school had me arrested because '"We didn’t want any jokers."
When will our authorities finally be willing to face the Robot Rights issue with integrity?

This reminds me of the
Larry Niven short story Cloak of Anarchy (mentioned previously) where a guy with a blank sign joins a group of protesters who beat him up for having the blank sign. The characters in the story point out to him that perhaps the real protesters beat him up because they thought his blank sign diminished their cause. Here it wasn't the protesters that turned on him, but the administration, for much the same reason of not appreciating the seriousness of the situation. Perhaps they could just lighten up.

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