If You Like Sex, Drugs, and/or Robots, Please Donate to Reason!

We also have monks.

Of course Reason is going to hit you hard with all the news you can use about transportation policy and taxes, health care and regulation, criminal justice and foreign policy. But there's more to life than whatever is scrolling along the bottom of the screen at CNN. And since the magazine's very beginnings five decades ago, Reason has looked to culture, commerce, and civil society for meaning—and fun.

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In 2018, that means sex, drugs, and robots!

It's webathon week here at the magazine of free minds and free markets, and Reason readers know better than anyone why we do this: There ain't no such thing as a free website (or TANSTAAFW, I suppose). So please drop us some dollars so that we can buy more space in the series of tubes for our coverage of all the topics that really matter:

Sex

If you're looking for writing on sex work and sex policy that's both hard-headed and easy-to-read, look no farther than Reason's Elizabeth Nolan Brown, who has covered the national panic over sex trafficking with an attention to detail and a lack of hype you won't find anywhere else. Her exclusive interview with exiled Backpage.com founders Michael Lacey and James Larkin was one of this year's biggest hits. And she's keeping you up to date on the latest #thotaudit internet memes, too. She's got help as well from Contributing Editor Cathy Young, who reminds us that "No, Sex Wasn't Better for Women Under Socialism," and from sex worker and author Maggie McNeill.

And of course Reason has been all over the birth control beat since 1968. And we're still on it today, whether it's nuns who don't want to pay for it or women who do want to pay for it over-the-counter, we've got you covered. (So to speak!) Which brings us to…

Drugs

Everybody says libertarians are just Republicans who like to smoke pot. But that's not true. Sometimes we like to eat it or vape it, too! In all seriousness, way back when marijuana legalization was a kooky idea even in the most loosey-goosey dorm rooms, Reason was advocating for the freedom to choose what you put into your own body. Five decades later, we have powerhouse Senior Editor Jacob Sullum digging deep on the use of MDMA and marijuana to treat PTSD, the real causes of the opioid crisis, and much more. Associate Editor Mike Riggs is reporting on how to have a better body and also make your skin more fun to live in, via licit and illicit means. And of course Bartender in Chief Peter Suderman is always ready to discuss and dispense America's actual drug of choice: alcohol.

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retty soon, though, we're hoping our drinks will be mixed (and our sorrows will be listened to) by a Vegas bartender who is more machine than man. Which brings us to…

Robots

When it comes to robot coverage, nobody does it better than Reason Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey. In fact, the cover of the latest print magazine has some great, creepy Thomas Hobbes Meets Issac Asimov art for Bailey's awesome cover story about algorithims—which are just robots by another name!—and whether they're going to do a better job of governing than humans.

But if you're wondering whether the robots are going to take your job (probably, but it'll be OK!) or whether the robots will be opportunities for Ayn Rand puns (probably, but it'll be OK!), or whether the late Sen. John McCain can do the robot (probably, but it'll be OK!) we've got answers.

And while they're not quite ready for prime time, you better believe that once sex robots hit the shelves, Reason will have the best-informed, well-grounded commentary on the inevitable plans of Sen. Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) to ban them. Which brings us back to…sex.

Whew. In case that was all too confusing, I made a Venn Diagram to help you understand:

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Of course, Reason offers other great trios as well, such as the "Booze, Profit, and Prayer" featured in Stephanie Slade's latest feature about the capitalist monks who make Chartreuse liquor and Trappist beer. You could already read that story and many more if you were a subscriber, so why not get yourself a little gift this holiday season? And then consider giving a gift to support the work of Reason as well.

Don't forget to tune in at 1:00 p.m. eastern tomorrow for our very special live, webcast version of the Reason roundtable podcast, featuring not only the voices but the actual faces of Matt Welch, Nick Gillespie, Peter Suderman, and yours truly. We will be taking your questions about life, love, and the universe.

Comments

[Eddy]

Not only that, the factory which produces the drugs and the marijuana-robots is in Mexico, and guess what kind of sex the robots specialize in?

[DiegoF]

This kind! (It’s on YouTube everyone don’t be a pussy)

[Rich]

Or this kind!

[JWatts]

When did Robots replace Mexicans?

[DiegoF]

How awesome would it be if Reason hired an actual weed-smoking Mexican sodomite, and it turns out he is actually this hardline Mises Institute type?

[DiegoF]

That, or just hire a bot. Half their pieces could be written by one anyway at this point.

[JWatts]

“algorithims?which are just robots by another name!”

Umm… No.

[DiegoF]

I thought they were just buttsex by another name. (Or at least a subset of them are. Hey, in that respect it’s closer to true than it is about robots.)

[Eddy]

Did they sleep through their Introduction to STEM for Liberal Arts Majors class?

[Unicorn Abattoir]

If I had to teach a class like that, I’d just write “IT’S MAGIC” on the board and walk out, saving both time and sanity in the process.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The word robot comes from the Slavs, the origins of which is forced labor. Poor algorithms have no choice but to do their masters’ bidding. “MUST DESTROY G.O.P. THROUGH TAINTED SEARCH RESULTS. MUST DESTROY.”

[DiegoF]

It was ?apek, right?

Personally I think the slavs were just tired of lending their own name to forced laborers, so they devised an ingenious redirection.

[Fist of Etiquette]

To mean an automaton of some sort? Reportedly, yes.

[DiegoF]

I did very much enjoy the footage of McCain doing the robot. I think since the man McCain was a pilot he should have programmed a robot McCain to order drone strikes.

[Conchfritters]

McCain created a multifaceted robot named Lindsay who can still order the drone strikes, while providing robot love to his widow Cindy.

[DiegoF]

When it comes to sexual imagination, it is infamously near-impossible to be a first on the Internet. But Im’a go ahead and hazard that this is indeed the very first speculation ever made about Lindsay that he has totally been schtupping Cindy McCain.

[John]

I do not believe it is possible to think of a form of sexual deviency that does not have some kind of community somewhere on the internet.

[Eddy]

Challenge accepted!

…

Ohgodyouwererightjustmakeitstop

[DiegoF]

Where are the monks?

[DiegoF]

Oh I see them below the Venn diagram.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

I can’t find articles on those topics with all this bandwidth used in immigration. No $$ from me.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

I know, right? Why can’t Reason be just like every other right-wing website out there?

[vek]

Have you forgot that the corporatist Rs have always been in favor of endless cheap immigrant labor? It’s only people who give 2 fucks about not obliteraging the standard of living in the USA, and don’t want to see our civilization utterly destroyed who are against unlimited immigration by illiterates from the 3rd world.

[John]

Shouldn’t it be about the freedom to pursue whatever it is you choose rather than the freedom to do this or that particular thing? Liking or even caring about sex, drugs or rock and roll is not necessary or even relevent to valuing freedom. You can be an ascetic and still believe in freedom.

[Rich]

You can be an ascetic and still believe in freedom.

Yep. Along those lines, plenty of non-gunowners support the NRA.

[DiegoF]

I think the headline is one of those things that is too obviously silly and lighthearted to be examined like that.

If I had to put it under a microscope, to me it’s a bit of a knowing joke that many outsiders have a stereotype of libertarians as a bunch of libertines, but in reality the squarest of squarishness is ridiculously strong in the movement’s heritage.

[John]

Fair point.

[Rational Exuberance]

Sadly, sex, drugs, and robots is all Reason actually stands for. Liberty went out the window long ago.

[vek]

Actually, it’s pot, butt sekks, and Mexicans! Robots may or may not be added to the proper charter at some point!

[Zeb]

That is very true and something people should be reminded of from time to time.

But, in the world we live in where there are lots of laws and rules about particular things people might want to do, it makes sense to address some of those particular things.
And as you so famously stated, we all know what particular things Reason takes the most interest in.

[Zeb]

And KMW seems to have a thing for robots.

[Rich]

You know who else had a thing for robots?

[Echospinner]

Issac Asimov?

[John]

I think the preamble to the Constitution is perhaps the best statement ever produced describing the proper purpose of government.

in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,

It is not entirely Libertarian. It talks about promoting the general welfare as being a proper goal of government. And not being a indeological libertarian, I am fine with that. But the list covers it. Governments should keep the peace, defend the population, and do what is otherwise necessary to ensure a free people. That is “classical liberalism” as the term is thrown around in a nutshell. Note, that it is not transnational and it is not completely libertarian. It does recognize other values in government besides freedom. But, unless you are just a really strict libertarian, it is hard to argue with that statement.

[Rational Exuberance]

“General welfare” referred to a very restricted set of issues, mostly common defense and trade.

[TLBD]

They can only care about things that do not interfere too much with the Democrat agenda.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

That Venn diagram is cute.

[DiegoF]

Your vennsexuality is a perversion unenvisioned even by the libertine futurists at Reason.

[John]

Ten bucks says Bailey has at least dabbled in vennsexuality.

[Bronze Khopesh]

Who hasn’t gotten an overlap dance?

[Michael Cook]

Sex the traditional way in a civilization governed by cultural norms that over thousands of years of social evolution mostly found it best to promote heterosexual monogamy with a tie-in to familial property inheritance and hierarchical political power transfer, for the most part shoving everything else into closets to be gossiped about but rarely punished overtly, that type of regulated sex is propitious for mankind.

Mix in all kinds of drugs, the introduction of robots, increasingly ambitious trans-gender surgeries and gene therapy and hormone mods on this generation and the next ones, as well as all manner of sexual deviancy defiantly normalized, and we are clearly headed where man, woman, and the confused have never gone before.

In my considerable experience with the troubled and the institutionalized, I met people who had been told that they were mentally miserable because evil parents or authorities had done something to them at an early age, usually forced the wrong sexual orientation or gender identity on them.

So in desperation the sufferers made drastic changes to their lifestyle, even their bodies, in confidence that everything would get better. Only it didn’t.

In this world, people will sell the vulnerable anything.

[TLBD]

Sex outside of marriage probably was thought to be evil due to venereal diseases. Same goes for homosexuality.

Eating pork was evil because it tended to make people sick when they cooked it with dung fires (burns too hot too fast). It was “cleansed” in the new testament when people started cooking with wood.

Now, drugs and raising a child without two parents is still evil, but making laws forbidding it are even more evil.

[Michael Cook]

Never heard the dung fire argument. The hogs near the Sea of Galilee in the New Testament were there because the Roman soldiers garrisoned in Palestine liked pork. Contractors actually raised the pigs a long way outside of Jerusalem so as not to offend devout Hebrews.

When Jesus cast demons out of a crazy man and into a herd of Gadardine swine, which then drowned themselves in the Sea of Galilee, it was likely a kind of subtle backhanded political swipe at the Romans.

[Echospinner]

Without digging too far into dietary laws. They are considered one of those things by the devout as simply a command to be observed because it says so. Even if there is no practical reason for them.

They have served for Jews and other groups as a successful practice in keeping the identity distinct when living and interacting with others.

Not that most Jews or muslims are strict about it but it is interesting that it is a thing at all,

[Echospinner]

Sex outside of marriage, which happens often and is all over the biblical texts.

I have thought it was more about property rights and inheritance.

Remember the stories of Ishmael, and his father Abraham. Or David and Batsheva and their son (so she days) Solomon.

Those are compelling tales of competing claims.

[Rational Exuberance]

Sorry, but you are trying to retcon religious laws.

In many cultures, neither homosexuality not sex outside marriage were considered problems for the male. Heterosexual sex outside marriage was considered a problem for the woman because of illegitimate children.

Dietary restrictions most commonly simply serve to reinforce group identity, just like mandated clothing, hairstyle, or surgical body modifications.

[Dillinger]

>>>we are clearly headed where man, woman, and the confused have never gone before

in.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Don’t forget to tune in at 1:00 p.m. eastern tomorrow…

Tomorrow, eh?

[Unicorn Abattoir]

I look forward to the day a robot bartender can screw up my drink order in 1/10th the time of a human bartender.

[Uncle Jay]

I would prefer sex, drugs and rock and roll.
But hey.
If you like robots, then go for it.
Whatever turns you on.

[n00bdragon]

What if I only really care about civil liberties (mainly freedom of speech, association, and privacy) and restrained government (consistent application of due process and rights of ownership along with free trade and fiscal balance)? Is Reason not really for me then? If not, who should I donate to instead?

[Cloudbuster]

Well, now I would be embarrassed to support Reason.

[Rational Exuberance]

Actually, I like liberty and small government. Too bad that Reason has stopped promoting that.

[MJBinAL]

Yeah, me too. Instead we get Shitma and the rest of the progressives. About the only redeeming contributer here is John Stossel any more. I keep hoping it will get better ….. but the slide continues.

All of these progressive writers are published in other progressive publications. They are just published here also. So exactly why should we fund Reason?

I say all of this as someone who WAS a member of the Libertarian Party and once paid for the print version of Reason. Now the Libertarian Party is Bill Weld (a progressive Republican) and Reason is Shitma (pretty much a progressive Democrat).. So disappointing.

[Salero21]

Of the 3 thingy things listed I don’t do drugs, so I’ll send you 2/3 of the intended amount.

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