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Sociology - Blog Posts
It bothers me that I will only ever be myself and no one else and I will never be able to touch another person's mind with my own and how I perceive the world will be based solely off of myself and I can never truly be with or apart of something because there is such a huge disconnect between what I think and feel and why and how and what other people see think and feel and there can never be true togetherness because we are our own and isolation is the price of intellectual freedom from a unified consciousness
Today’s society is no longer Foucault’s disciplinary world of hospitals, madhouses, prisons, barracks, and factories. It has long been replaced by another regime, namely a society of fitness studios, office towers, banks, airports, shopping malls, and genetic laboratories. The society of the 21st century is no longer disciplinary, but a society of the performance. Nor are its inhabitants called ‘subjects of obedience’, but ‘subjects of performance’. These subjects are entrepreneurs of themselves.
Excess work and performance escalate into auto-exploitation. This is much more effective than the exploitation by the others, because it is accompanied by a feeling of freedom. The exploiter is the same exploited. Victim and executioner can no longer differentiate. This self-referentiality generates a paradoxical freedom, which, because of the structures of obligation immanent to it, becomes violence […] In this society of obligation, each one carries with him his forced labor field.
What proves problematic is not individual competition per se, but rather its self-referentiality, which escalates into absolute competition. That is, the achievement-subject competes with itself; it succumbs to the destructive compulsion to outdo itself over and over, to jump over its own shadow. This self-constraint, which poses as freedom, has deadly results..
No-longer-being-able-to-be-able leads to destructive self-reproach and auto-aggression. The achievement-subject finds itself fighting with itself. The depressive has been wounded by internalized war. Depression is the sickness of a society that suffers from excessive positivity. It reflects a humanity waging war on itself.
Today, everyone is an auto-exploiting labourer in his or her own enterprise. People are now master and slave in one. Even class struggle has transformed into an inner struggle against oneself.
― Byung-Chul Han, extracts from The Burnout Society
This ^^^
Bungo Stray Dogs and the separateness of Childhood - a sociological view
[So a large portion of this is left over from when I was revising sociology for my alevels, which were done over a month ago now (wow). So I hope there's people out there who find this interesting, it's nice to post this since it goes back to my roots of what started me on tumblr in the first place (sociological analysis, but of MTP). Also this has Stormbringer spoilers.]
Sociologists agree that childhood is a social construct (a concept in society with no fixed definition). The definition of childhood changes depending on culture and time, so it is not universal or 'natural'. Bungo Stray Dogs portrays a definition of childhood much different to many of our own cultures, and part of its presentation is something I want to look into.
The main idea to look at is Jane Pilcher's idea of 'separateness' - childhood as a clear and distinct stage of life in which children are considered physically and psychologically incompetent and unable to run their own lives. This idea of separateness often leads to childhood being considered a 'golden age' of play and having a lack of responsibility. In BSD, the idea of childhood as a separate stage is not as clear - many children 16 or under are seen working in (or looking for) employment much like adults would do. For example, in Stormbringer Shirase (who is 16) works in a car factory, Yosano at age 11 is said to work in a confectionery store (we don't know if this was family owned or not though), and Ranpo in Untold Origins (aged 14) looking for a job when he meets Fukuzawa. With this information we can gather that children have to take the responsibility of work from a younger age than many cultures (for instance where I lived children have to be in education until 18) and that from as young as 11 they are able to employment.
Consider the other children present - the Akutagawa siblings living on the streets for many years without parents or financial support, Kyouka and Q (as well as teenagers like Dazai and Chuuya) being part of the mafia from a young age, Kenji in his village, Chuuya and Mary Wollstonecraft in Stormbringer, and Atsushi living in the orphanage. All of these have different notions of childhood attached to them.
The Akutagawa siblings learnt to support themselves from a young age. Their group of fellow homeless children act as proof of a wide child poverty issue, one which represent the effects of a lack of child welfare support by the government or the effects of the many casualties in the Great War (leaving many without parents). The lack of child welfare support may show a general lack of the idea of separateness, since specialist support for children is not available.
The abundance of children in the mafia, especially those who reach the higher ranks of executives like Dazai and Chuuya by the age of 16, show a distinct lack of recognition of childhood as a separate stage. Those who are children don't seem to be treated much differently to the adults, which is especially apparent in Q and Kyouka's missions (where Kyouka in her first mission we see being considered disposable by the mafia).
Kenji's childhood on paper seems the closest to many farming cultures in our world. He works on a farm from a young age, as many people in his village and in real life farming families do. The recruitment of him to the detective agency however, suggests that (despite his youth) his ability makes him fit for the job. This somewhat leads on to the idea that children with abilities are seen as more mature and subjected to more adult activities and topics from a younger age, with their allowance of separateness smaller than that of non-ability user children.
A few other Stormbringer examples - Mary Wollstonecraft is only 10 years old as of Stormbringer, and yet she is working for the European governments and making robot agents for them. Young children working for governments is a clear example of a lack of separation between child and adult. Another, and arguably much worse example, is Chuuya and Verlaine - both experimented on by scientists/the government and infused with singularities via force. Chuuya is also canonically cloned. Verlaine and Chuuya, in their experimentation, are not treated much differently, despite Verlaine being an adult and Chuuya being around 5 at the time of his kidnapping/start of experimentation. This suggests a lack of seperateness yet again. There is a lot more that could be said about the whole 'cloning/made into a weapon' part of their story, but this is not the post for that.
A more recent one - Teruko. Because of her unique ability to change her age means that within the first few months of her life she was forced to fight in war. She's actually forced to bypass her own childhood for the war effort, and therefore her childlike demeanour during the Decay of Angels arc may be to try and harness what she missed out on. Her ability in itself could also play into the 'old age is a social construct' argument too maybe but again, not the post.
Atsushi's childhood in an orphanage at first seems to match the ideas of childhood as a separate stage dependent on others. The purpose of orphanages is to raise children without parents and help them prepare for the world, but Atsushi's experiences of abuse shows that his ability, to the orphanage director, makes him undeserving of this separate stage. Instead he is abused and eventually kicked out with no real support. This being able to go on unchecked alongside the other examples brings me to my conclusion about the definition of childhood in Yokohama/the surrrounding villages/possibly the world are not being considered a separate 'golden age' to the same standards as our world.
As mentioned earlier, children who are ability users are less likely to have this construct of seperateness include them. In sociology, labels and constructs are assigned by people and society, and so in this universe there are many adults who have removed this construct from ability users' lives in their childhood. Yosano is the clearest example of this - Mori takes her away from her experience of childhood and places her in a war zone, where she, despite being 11 years of age, is treated like an adult and (because of her ability) is placed on a pedestal by the solders. She's stripped of her childhood through not only the standards placed upon her, but the trauma she endures in the war zone - leaving her to spend what remained of her childhood in a psych ward until Fukuzawa is able to take her in.
Ability user children, via circumstances or adult intervention, do not get to experience childhood in the way other children do because that label is stripped away from them. This is most usually because they pose some asset to an organisation or campaign - and this can include the ADA too. Just because the ADA offers a more healthy and safer environment for the children than other organisations, it is still putting children into work and treating them the same as adults. How ethical this is, is in itself another question that I don't think I can give an answer to. But I could honestly talk about how ability user children are treated differently in a whole other essay.
[I do not have much else to say now about this specific area but it's probably better to post than just to let sit in the drafts as it has done for a while. So no proper conclusion sorry.]
Japan’s complete lack of understanding of declining birth rates in relation to its work culture reminds me a lot of how America has an assumption that millennials are killing industries when the truth is they are more frugal because of a lack of funds.
Both come from a conservative mindset that neglects the impact that a toxic work culture can have on society.
Hello Tumblr,
I'm looking for someone to interview about their experience with the immigration process as an individual coming from Central America to the United States.
If anyone is willing please comment on this post, I would appreciate it!!!
Also, if you would like further information, feel free to comment and I can dm with more info!
I agree with this. Man, now I want to write my own thoughts because Season 2 is so interesting to me. Especially since I was immediately reminded of American politics, with the two parties that are pushed to fight each other when really our true enemy is those trying to control us, when they were told to vote. I knew instantly that the game makers were trying to pit the two sides against each other. Especially with the red and blue colors. The other analogy being made is the two sides representing the red and blue pills from the Matrix.
Squid Game Season Two Analysis: Capitalist Ideology, The Illusion of Democracy, and The Necessity for Revolution
Why the second season of Squid Game is a great follow-up to the first season and offers us an even more radical critique of capitalism and its supposedly "free" and "democratic" institutions.
(Spoiler warning for both seasons. I won't go into too much detail, but some spoilers for the bigger plot points will be present)
I really enjoyed the second season of Squid Game, so I was surprised when I learned that a good amount of fans of the first season did not feel the same.
Because of that, I wanna give my thoughts on the themes and messages that this season in particular offers us and why I believe season 2 is, in many ways, even more radical than season 1 in its narrative choices.
Season One: The Dehumanizing Nature of Capitalism
Season 1 did a great job as a more general critique of capitalism (with some elements that are more specific to South Korea). It showed us a story of impoverished people that are so desparate that they find themselves trapped in a literal game of life and death that forces them to not only compete with other participants who are in similar financial situations, but to sometimes even betray and kill them just to survive and possibly win the big money at the end of all rounds.
To make it all even more cruel: It is soon revealed that the whole game just exists for the entertainment of rich elites who change the conditions of the game as they please when they are bored.
Needless to say: The game in Squid Game is a pretty heavy-handed allegory for the predatory nature of capitalism and how it literally kills us. The creator himself has stated this multiple times, since there are still people who (willingly or unwillingly) deny this.
There are already plenty of great analyses of these aspects in season 1 (I really recommend the video on YouTube called "Squid Game: Ideology and The New Soviet Man" by Kay and Skittles), so let's move on to season 2.
Season Two: The Setup
Our protagonist is once again Gi-hun, the only survivor of all games from season 1. He is practically a billionaire since he won all the money in season 1, and could therefore live a pretty comfortable life.
And yet he is fixated on one singular goal: To track down the location where the games take place to put a stop to them once and for all. Gi-hun feels guilty to spend his fortune on anything else than this one goal, since it's a fortune that came from the deaths of his friends and countless other people.
Gi-hun eventually finds himself back in the game after every other approach failed. Unfortunately for him, the tracker that he surgically implanted in his tooth got removed while he was knocked out and transported into the game. He is once again forced to participate in the game, since his rescue team that was supposed to save him and attack the island on which the games take place cannot locate him as of now.
The Greatness of Gi-hun: Resisting Hyperindividualism, Cynicism and Capitalist Ideas of Worth
I really like Gi-hun as a character. He started out as a deadbeat dad who got into severe debt because of his gambling addiction. Gi-hun is someone who many people that are entrenched in neoliberal capitalist ideology wouldn't feel much sympathy for at first, as he's shown to be pretty reckless and just overall far from a noble hero when we first get introduced to his character in season 1.
If you're from the west (or a country like South Korea which has a similar hyperindividualist capitalist culture), then you are taught to see Gi-hun's situation as something self-caused, as something he freely chose to be in with his own bad decisions. Furthermore, you're taught to see his socio-economic situation as a direct reflection of his value as a person.
In the series itself, the Front Man, the VIPs and even some other players in the game reinforce this way of thinking. They constantly express the sentiment that the players in the game are "worthless", "scum" and "trash" that deserves to be "filtered out" (killed) because they are responsible for the situation that they are in and have no worth anyway, as their socio-economic status shows according to this logic.
Gi-hun is someone who rejects all of this.
In season 2, we see him more determined than ever to save as many people as possible in the game, and to ultimately put an end to the game itself. He does not believe in the narrative that people's worth is determined by their socio-economic status, nor that they are completely self-responsible for their situation and therefore deserve to be killed in the game.
Gi-hun calls the game out for what it is: A predatory and cruel tool of rich capitalists that preys on people's fears and vulnerabilities to encourage the worst aspects of people's personalities to flourish, all just for the entertainment of rich investors who see the players as expendable and enjoy watching them die and betray each other.
Gi-hun isn't particularly gifted or talented, he's not the exceptional, flawless individual that neoliberalism fetishizes. He can be cowardly, insecure, frightened and even selfish, as we saw in season 1 when he lied to the old man to save his own life.
But at the end of the day, he is someone with an unwavering belief in the worth and potential of people despite what his hypercapitalist neoliberal culture (and people deeply embedded into it) constantly tells him. He's someone who, despite all his flaws, risks his life and happiness for that simple belief.
Gi-hun is the antidote to a deeply cynical, hyperindividualistic and neoliberal capitalist society that conditions us to not believe in the worth and potential of other people beyond their wealth and social status.
The Illusion of Democracy: A deceptive Facade of Free Choice and Equality
Let's look at the game itself this season, since there have been a few changes to its rules.
In this season, the surviving players are given the opportunity to vote after each round to either continue into the next round or to stop playing and divide the money that has accumulated so far among each player that survived. The more players die, the more money gets added to the final prize and the fewer people need to share the total sum with each other, meaning each player gets more money in the end if the majority votes to stop playing.
The staff of the game keeps emphasizing how the players chose to be part of the game, how they always have the option to leave, how the game respects free choice and values democracy, how everyone is equal in the game, and how the rules are fair and universal.
Unsurprisingly, this is all nonsense.
The players are not even aware that they are playing with their lives at risk until after the first game, a game called "Red Light, Green Light", which has a high fatality rate because once the first player dies, the shock and sudden rush of fear causes people to panic, leading to more deaths.
The first season also showed us that the VIPs can change the rules and conditions of the game whenever they feel like it, even during a round.
Age, health, knowledge and experience with the particular games that are being played in each round can also make the difference between life and death. Sometimes the games also straight up involve a factor of luck that the players have no real control over.
Then there's also the fact that not every player is in the same situation. Some players, such as Hyun-ju or Yong-sik, are shown to have severely more debt than others and lost significantly more in their life, which means some have the privilege to be all set again after just one or two rounds (if the majority votes to stop playing) while others will have barely earned enough money to fix their life, and would therefore need to play more rounds to achieve that outcome.
Some also have family and friends that need them, while others lost everything and have no one to come home to. All these factors make them unequal and shape the way they vote.
So basically: The players are stuck in a game that they didn't even know puts their life in danger until after they played the first round. The only reason they entered in the first place was because of their precarious situation that varies in severity from person to person (which means some have the privilege to vote to end the game early with their financial issues fixed, while others do not). Some players have more advantages than others in each round because of age, health, knowledge, experience or even just sheer luck. And the VIPs can just change the rules of the game whenever they feel like it.
Squid Game tells us very clearly that it thinks very little of the rhetoric of "free choice" "free democracy" and "equality" in a structurally coercive, brutal and predatory system with fundamentally unequal conditions such as our capitalist society.
The Front Man: Cynicism, Vote Manipulation and Counter-Revolution
A key aspect of the second season of Squid Game is that the Front Man himself pretends to be a regular player; he participates in the games among Gi-hun and the rest as player 001. The Front Man deliberately gets close to Gi-hun and even manages to win his trust pretty easily with his down-to-earth and kind facade, making him involved in Gi-hun's every move.
The Front Man is, in many ways, the opposite of Gi-hun.
He is shown in both seasons to think very little of the players and humanity as a whole. He sees the participants of the game as worthless trash that deserves to get sorted out. The Front Man believes humanity is selfish, greedy and cannot be better than what it is right now, which makes the game a necessary part of the world to him.
The Front Man is thoroughly entrenched in the cynical, neoliberal capitalist worldview that sees humans as fundamentally selfish and greedy beings that only have themselves to blame for their situations.
It is noteworthy that the Front Man is very fixated on Gi-hun, and even seems to grow a liking to him because of his unwavering belief in the value and potential of people that he upholds despite all the horrors and betrayal that he witnessed. This suggests that a small part of the Front Man might still have hope that Gi-hun is right and wants him to succeed in his goal.
But at the end of the day, we see that his cynical and neoliberal view on humanity rules over what little hope in a better world he might have.
As such, the Front Man ultimately sabotages Gi-hun's efforts whenever he can. When the vote was tied after the first round, he votes to continue into the next round so that more people die, something Gi-hun fought to prevent by making it clear to the other players that more people will die if they continue.
But this is not the only time he manipulates Gi-hun's efforts: When Gi-hun organizes an armed resistance to finally put an end to the game itself for good, the Front Man betrays him in the last minute by kiling members of the resistance group and then shooting Gi-hun's best friend in front of him in order to emotionally break Gi-hun and make him lose hope.
The Front Man is not just a despicable antagonist, he also serves as a pretty blunt example of a member of the ruling class that rigs elections and destroys revolutionary movements from within, a strategy that imperialist powers such as the US have utilized many times in history already.
When Voting isn't enough: The Necessity of Revolution and Class War
Despite Gi-hun's attempt to end the game for good having failed (at least for now), I don't believe the message of Squid Game's second season is one of resignation. Not only is the game shown to be fundamentally unjust and rigged, but voting alone is also portrayed to not be enough.
Throughout the whole season, those who vote to end the game never succeed. This is not a coincidence. The game is designed to make it the less likely outcome not just because of the involvement of Front Man, but because the game preys on people's despair and precarity, all while also encouraging selfish, greedy and reckless behavior in its very design.
But even if enough people voted to end the game: The next batch of players would just be thrown into the same situation Gi-hun and the others just escaped from. A successful majority vote to leave the game would save many lives, but Gi-hun's fight would be far from over. His goal to put a permanent end to the game would not be achieved yet.
The staff of the game also makes a deliberate choice to put a big X or O onto the jumpsuit of each player depending on how they voted. This encourages players to define themselves as either Xs or Os, which leads to hostility towards the players of the other fraction.
This reaches a point where players of both fractions plan to murder the other fraction in order to secure the next vote for themselves.
But Gi-hun puts a stop to that.
He realizes it's a deliberate distraction so that people fight each other rather than the game itself. He proposes that the players should instead organize together to fight the real oppressors that forced them into the whole situation in the first place.
They are not Xs or Os. They are impoverished and desparate people who were manipulated to participate into a literal game of death that requires suffering, betrayal and murder for victory.
The message of Squid Game Season Two is one of collective resistance and revolution:
The institutions of a fundamentally rigged and predatory class system are not enough to abolish the system itself. Voting can be used as a form of damage control, but it cannot replace collective action and organizing.
Instead of fighting each other, we need to organize together to fight the system itself. It is the only way we can truly all be liberated from the death game of capitalism.
Please take my survey, I need responses for my sociology class.
Turning conventional restrooms into coed bathrooms is not a sin against the Christian God. And, assuming that there will be men who just say they identify as women merely to get inside a woman's bathroom is ridiculous, and that devalues the experience of those who actually identify unconventionally.
Maybe instead of putting so much emphasis on only two genders, male and female, we instead reinterpret our core beliefs to embrace masculine and feminine energy, and souls, as opposed to male and female bodies.
Maybe it's time to address why traditional Christians are so overly obsessed with sex and gender and purity. As well as why traditional Christians are overly obsessed with sin, and do not give notice to the essence of connection and love that can bring humanity together for the greater good as a whole as opposed to an "us vs them" mentality of the "haves and have nots," the straight and the unconventional; the dualism that has oversaturated the minds of traditional Christians to the point that they can't even accept that there has always been more than two genders, Middlesex people and eunuchs, and other outcasts that have been in our societies as long as humans have been around.
Maybe we ask ourselves why we believe what we believe, why are we not open to expanding our beliefs outside of the traditional walls we've been raised in? Why is it so hard for us to understand that people are people, and it's been those who are judgmental that have excluded outcasts such as LGBTQ+ & gender non-conforming people. Is being a beloved child of God an exclusive opportunity reserved only for those who are perfect in Christ? Newsflash, no human is perfect, we all have cast stones at others to move the spotlight off of our own missed marks and insecurities. We project all over each other all the time.
If you're a traditional Christian, I challenge you to challenge your beliefs. Ask yourself why you believe what you do, without referencing something you've been told or heard someone else say. When that happens and you can legitimately defend your stances on traditional Christianity, I'd love to have a conversation about hot topics such as trans rights, LGBTQ+ rights, equity and equality of BIPOC and Native Americans, and all marginalized groups. I'd like to talk about socialism versus capitalism and the influence of religion on our politics. We need to be having conversations with people we do not agree with, and not only that, we all need to be open to learning something uncomfortable, challenging to our own beliefs, and have the ability to open our minds to other cultures and ways of life. Just a thought
Some kahwa in the evening, to go with sociological theory
Controlled Opposition: A Theory
The crazy thing about the human condition is that we are only able to relate to the world to the extent that our language and its limits will allow us to. If you ask any bilingual person, they will probably tell you that the person they are in language A is at least slightly different from the person they are in language B, because to truly learn a language you have to adapt your thought process at least partially to encompass the new reality that the second language creates. And that’s a major thing in sociology, if the language(s) you speak cannot describe a concept, then that concept effectively does not exist for you. We didn’t create language, language created us.
UPDATE: I did "finish" the series which is to say I am caught up now. It is very good and I'm looking forward to more episodes coming. Very informative and well done.
Verbal Judo
The other day I heard this on the radio while driving:
I was very intrigued by this as I have been a student of "Verbal Judo" for some years now. I work with people a lot, mostly when they are not at their best (I work with the very ill and those who care for them). Also being I am an introvert and that I can be ironically, um, very vocal, having some insight on how to structure speaking with others when I and/or they are not at their best is super helpful. And truly it has been! I prefer the audiobook by the way and listen to it a lot when jogging, driving, or whatever. Whoever they got to read it I thought was the author reading his own book so it is a very good listen.
Anyway, back to the intrigue of the podcast. When I heard this piece I wondered if this helped shape or influence Mr. Thompson's passion to create a learnable structure for better communication especially in stressful moments ("Verbal Judo").
I'm going to give this podcast a listen and let you know what I learn. If you have listened, no spoilers please!
“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Verbal Judo
The other day I heard this on the radio while driving:
I was very intrigued by this as I have been a student of "Verbal Judo" for some years now. I work with people a lot, mostly when they are not at their best (I work with the very ill and those who care for them). Also being I am an introvert and that I can be ironically, um, very vocal, having some insight on how to structure speaking with others when I and/or they are not at their best is super helpful. And truly it has been! I prefer the audiobook by the way and listen to it a lot when jogging, driving, or whatever. Whoever they got to read it I thought was the author reading his own book so it is a very good listen.
Anyway, back to the intrigue of the podcast. When I heard this piece I wondered if this helped shape or influence Mr. Thompson's passion to create a learnable structure for better communication especially in stressful moments ("Verbal Judo").
I'm going to give this podcast a listen and let you know what I learn. If you have listened, no spoilers please!
“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Does anybody find it hard as a sociology major?
Like you have to think about theories and research methods. But it's just so hard because you need time to understand and to reflect on things that you've learned, but somehow you feel like you're running out of time?
Our irrefutable improvement in the last two hundred years. For data source, interactive graphics and details in the data processing see below:
Max Roser (2016) – ‘A history of global living conditions in 5 charts’. Published online at OurWorldInData.org.
High-res
1. How the Goblin Concept of the Afterlife May Influence Goblin Culture
A cursory glance around the 5th edition Monster Manual tells us that the most prevalent Goblin deity is Maglubiyet. Maglubiyet is...
“worshiped not out of adoration but fear. Goblins believe that when they die in battle, their spirits join the ranks of Maglubiyet’s army on the plane of Acheron. This is a privilege that most goblins dread”(Wizards of the Coast 165).
This quote should lead us to believe that Goblins, unlike Hobgoblins and Bugbears that share the Goblinoid category, do not enjoy war. Whereas Hobgoblins see serving Maglubiyet as an honor, Goblins outright fear it. Dying in battle must be avoided. Maglubiyet is a boogeyman to the Goblin people- almost designed to be a parable against engaging in violence. If you die in battle, hell awaits.
This faith system, leads me to believe that any Goblin community that believes in it would be aggressively peaceful. So how could that not be the case?
Sifting through DnD lore on any “evil” race is like handling primary documents circa 1900s reviewing the peoples of “the dark continent”. Turn on your sociology brain, question everything, and re-construct in a way that remembers morality is subjective and history is written by the victors.
@staff subtle, creative & hilarious! It's a little disturbing as well. Or maybe this pattern is a false correlation?
Are you choders sharing the exact same ad over & over again as a way of telling me that I need some sort of training dummy Droid to "practice or learn" how to "socialize" like a "human being"?.. why, ALL so that I can "learn" how to be a fake enabling conformist cowardly normie,.. be your monoculture "human product"? Or is your algorithm just "broken"?
Never mind all that for a second. Let's examine this product you're spamming me with:
There's nothing more dehumanizing than people inventing a Droid to teach other people how to socialize just because they don't want to actually socialize with that person and you wonder why people have antisocial personalities. Excessive individualism, text-based communication, culture, Mass delusion existential crisis avoidance, high school debate team bullshit, the societal cult of opinionism have destroyed our tribal bonds as well as our ability to communicate with each other. All of you morons think text is sufficient and what you don't realize is that you're going to have to have many conversations with a complex biological structure in order to understand them or get them to understand you. There's no easy way to do this other than the organic processes that have emerged of which all of you are fighting in favor of your disturbingly authoritarian control freak mentality that you call "industry standards or normal".
The so-called modern world is really a Romanesque dumpster fire emulation braided with industrialization and technology. It's still the dark ages that we're living in it's just that we have more power to abuse each other with. Power without enlightenment is a rampant condition that has turned into murderous redundancy.
This ad sickens me but at least I can make a lot of jokes out of it. At least I can use it as a teaching moment. It's just unfortunate that even if I am valued for my wisdom in this moment, none of you are willing to respect me accordingly and pay me what I'm worth.. so you're all just going to keep burning the world to the ground running blindfolded with scissors?
Modern industrialized education systems produce a tool that should have been a diverse well-rounded visionary neurological biological sensory emergent art form.
High speed education leading to limited specialization makes you all into myopic racehorses that require both a racetrack as well as a rider and that's exactly what wealthy business people want, turning every human into a slave of one form or another and that includes every specialist.
@staff seriously. Just put aside industry standards for this one time. You just going to have to get to know me the old fashioned way in order to truly understand my value and to understand our potential together. You're going to have to have a conversation with me and it's not going to be a 30 to 45 minute industry standard block of time. Not everybody fits in these tiny boxes. The people who require more effort are the most valuable but everyone is avoiding the complexity of reality in favor of the path of least resistance so you're limiting your potential while squandering the most valuable people on the planet... I mean, assuming that you value intelligence, creativity and all the money that it can give you? Assuming that's how you define "value"?
I'm not going to go through a human resource department & beg for a job, just FYI. 😉 I'm different & I'm always going to do everything different.
What I am doing right now is an abstract form that you're filling out. How you react or not reacting at all will be how you pass or fail my job application for all of you. Of course, this is only the entry exam. The thorough evaluation is yet to come.
Have you ever considered that you've slit your own throats hundreds or thousands of times in your life by avoiding talking with people?
I don't have the magic words. There don't seem to be any magic words. Certainly please and thank you doesn't work.
All I can do is assure you all that there's so much you do not know and presumptuousness will never serve you to do anything other than perpetuate a mental prison and a hamster wheel existence. 30 or 40 years will go by and at some point, you're going to look back on your lives realizing you squandered your gifts and were robbed of amazing opportunity.
If the world doesn't remember how to spot wisdom and respect the most intelligent and wisest people on the planet, I fear what the consequences will be. It seems reckless and not worth the risk to continue to repeat history's mistakes. Not listening to people who are definitely more experienced and wiser is exactly what your predecessors have always done and look where it's got us. I assure you the fact that the world has forgotten how to respect the tribal wise person is a heavy contributing factor of why the world is in the state that it is today.
Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, is how Einstein defined insanity.
I define insanity as logical fallacy braided with cognitive bias & ignorance because the default state from that combination results in a total failure to understand reality & therefore that form will suffer a delusion & any action they take will be fanaticism as well as cascading waste.
While all of you infants wag your fingers at me over your disapproval regarding your status quo driven opinions about how someone should or shouldn't communicate or demand, so irrationally, that everyone be emotionally dishonest or they're not allowed to speak, work or leave their bedroom prison is absurd because every single industry is producing cascading waste in multitudes & that is the Romanesque dumpster fire accelerant, the majority's opinions are the biggest ecological disaster the world refuses to even notice never mind face it & change... Just like any other religion = living by appeal to popularity logical fallacy = the status quo.
If the tech industry and the majority of the population are unwilling to consider the possibility that they have no idea what they're doing and that they are indeed a liability then we don't have anything to talk about, do we?
If you think you've got it all figured out & the wisdom that takes a lifetime to acquire & the rarity it is that a life form is virtuous regarding the presence of wisdom, clarity of vision & a wide array of other skills that seemingly no one in these industries possesses then we're doomed because of your arrogance & I'll have to accept that 99% of the population are delusional fanatical liabilities.
What false analogy do all of you use as your excuses to assert your superiority over everyone who isn't exactly like you? This is the industry standard I observe everywhere I look in business and tech.
You don't think that just because you have a degree that it means you're smarter than me, right?
You do understand that reality is not that simple, right? You do understand that colleges are not what produce intelligence, right?
Have you ever studied the study of intelligence? I didn't think so.
We may all be equal but we are not equal in the same ways. We all feel each other's weaknesses but the problem with that evolutionarily sound emergent phenomena that has served us so well for the past 3,000 years; the majority have forgotten why we value the wise person in the village. The industry standards solidified long ago and only the easily quantifiable flavors of intelligence are valued while the abstract or nearly ineffable forms of intelligence have been trivialized.
It's time you face your weaknesses because if you don't, you're never going to respect my strengths. If you don't learn why I am valuable you're never respect me and so I get no return on my investment of respecting any of you.
Tit for tat is a universal law observed throughout the so-called animal Kingdom & it applies even in cross species arrangements so it doesn't matter that I'm an alien. Lol.
So again, @staff , complex biological organism to complex biological organism, ("Human to Human") come to me in a way that's natural. Be honest, transparent & meet me in a level arrangement for an organic exchange of information AKA a conversation, you know like we've done for thousands of years before text-based communication ever existed.
I mean seriously, are you not bored with all of what the world has been doing? Are you not disturbed by any of it? Do you not sense that something is broken or missing?
I'm telling you that I know exactly what the problems are as well as how to fix it and I mean curative solutions not Band-Aids. 100%, no doubt about it. Then on the side, if what you want is money, you don't think that someone who has answers to some of the most complicated items people puzzle over doesn't also have creative application of strategy to make you rich? Please, you think winning a game of Monopoly is difficult? You think capitalism is complicated? Not anywhere near as complicated it's understanding the intertwining of all systems of life,.. which I most certainly do understand at least enough to deal with human issues in a more productive or fully compensating way than anything I see anywhere else in the world. (Bold claims I know & I'm happy to prove it but nobody ever gives me a chance to prove it because I've never had full support in my entire life but rather I just keep getting sabotaged by insecure petty cowards.)
@staff so again, I remind you of what's important... "People" over money! Life over industry. & if you think that economic success is more important, well, obviously creative geniuses bring quite a lot to the table in serving the goal of winning a game of Monopoly.
Don't any of you want to do anything else, tho? Isn't there more to life? Don't any of you or your board members have any aspirations? What is the legacy you would like to leave? What is it that you would like history to report on everything you've done?
Realistically & admittedly, money is a resource & unfortunately, it's tied to our biological survival.
Money should be & wasn't intended to be an efficient replacement for the barter system but it has become an abused tool... Don't misunderstand me though, I'm not a purist nor do I respect Ivory Towers so I will not live in one; meaning, that I don't shame the aspiration or the lust for money... you can all be as greedy as you want & I will serve that greed as long as I I'm also part of that overall economic reward in a way that fully aligns us & let's face it; that's the only way you're going to trust me & that's the only way that I can justify giving any of you full access to my brain & all of the benefits that come with that.
I can make everyone's greed part of an equation that supports the manifestation of curative solutions. Yes, that's right, I'm offering the opportunity to have a conversation at Great length to consider a potential partnership.
Also, I have a very fair way for your company or any other to "try it before you buy it", so to speak.
You all be greedy and serve wasteful consumerism and I will counter balance the ecological disaster because my share of the revenue will be put towards investing in the future, (that's the only true wealth). Ultimately, I aim to found a flagship of manifestation = serial philanthropy.
Perhaps your legacy will be one that's monumental because you were able to think outside the box, spot value no one else could, come down out of your Ivory Towers, then fund a paradigm shift while setting new industry standards in multiple sectors? Tumblr seems different than some other platforms but how different are those that run this company from the likes of the larger tech companies?
I am indeed a nonconformist and likely I'm smarter than most of the people that work at your company & almost assuredly smarter than all of upper business management and everyone that sits on the board but don't hate me or discriminate just because of that mere possibility. Nor should any of you be concerned that you cannot command me. Neither is a problem all the time even though a lot of the time it probably would be worth worrying about. I'm not like most people. Industry standards don't apply to me & that I'm certain of. I'm aware that CEOs don't like to hire people that are smarter than them & conformists don't trust people who don't follow orders or can't be "handled"... Logic is what rules me which means I can be reasoned with. I'm smarter than every single person I've ever met and most every person I've ever seen so none of you get to tell me what to do because none of you know better than me but there are areas where you're specialization & therefore recommendations matter far more to me than my ability to innately infer. I know my weaknesses and I can admit when I don't know something. I don't care about being right, all I care about is the correct answer. Positive & negative exist in all things & directing the flow of resources without disrupting a system makes more sense than being disruptive. War is inefficient.
@staff you see, I have to say all of this because I know what your concerns are & if I don't address these possible elephants in the room it limits the probability that you will do as I suggest. Referencing organic communications again, I cannot emphasize this enough. You will never understand me, you will never understand my value & you all to ruin my potential & limiting your own success right along with everyone else if you're unwilling to make the effort that's required.
I once saw social media as a way to harvest pocket change from billions of people as a way to fund my curative solutions for societal ills but the failures that I've been talking about here have led every tech company to abuse and sabotage the likes of me. I've been studying social media, streaming and gaming platforms full time for the past 10 years to examine all of their failures & push them to the very extreme limits. Every single one of them has failed my tests so now there's no point in testing you/tumblr in those ways. Needless to say, I know what the problems are, I know the weaknesses & I know the consequences of these failures.
I really don't care to use social media any longer but because every single one of you seems to love to sabotage me, oppress me, judge me inappropriately, presumptuously assume that you can tell me what to do or how to talk or how to defend myself & how to course correct the insanely ignorant majority while ruining my ability to influence and educate in a civil manner while discouraging me from respecting any of you because you sabotage me so badly that I have no way of being economically viable in a world that hates everyone who's smarter than them where social media has become one of the only options so you're robbed me from having a megaphone to the world, so I don't have any patience and I don't see any reason in respecting your rules or societies status quo driven opinions about what is or isn't acceptable. There's no consequence because you've all ruined me; that's extremely dangerous and I wonder how many other strong-willed geniuses have turned into your enemies right along with me being driven to this point where brutal honesty is the last resort and you're one of my last experiments, Tumblr.
The entire tech industry, toxic conservatives, authoritarians, antisocialmedia platforms all combined have left me with next to nothing to live for. You've all made me a dead man walking for the most part & the reason why this is a problem is because now your rules & laws have no value whatsoever because of already been punished as if I was a criminal or a bad person or a modern day heretic being forced to the fringes, forced to live in solitude for over 20 years in order to avoid your club wielding Neanderthal abuse.
Now if you want the likes of me to not be a problem, you're going to have to give me a reason to live, a reason to respect your wishes. Just telling me to do what you say because you say so we're trying to subtlety manipulate me will not work. Only logic & reason will work. Only reciprocal empathy & mutual respect will work. No tech company or point of authority has ever given me either of those key ingredients of a healthy organic arrangement which produces a symbiotic outcome.
"Consequences": (common scenario)
Let's say that you tell me tough titties & fuck you crazy person. You react with a, "who the fuck do you think you are!?" type attitude instead of doing as I suggest and getting to know me through a process of lengthy organic conversation that perhaps lead to negotiations?
Let's say that all of your industry continues to deny the likes of me from having a voice like every single platform so reliably has always done... Let's say that you all end up doing kyc verification or taking advantage of that atrocious violation of privacy Arkose challenge BS like Twitter has stupidly decided to do...
You'll leave the likes of me with no other option but to go to the dark web and once I'm on the dark web, I'm not going to be censored. I'm not going to be shadowbanned. You'll be leaving me with no other collaborators other than other people like me if I get lucky enough to find them or some of the most intelligent criminal elements as well as darkest people on the planet. What do you think the possible outcomes of that unwanted equation could be?
I've always tried to make you social media platforms family; that's what I do for everyone that I bring into my circle for whatever reasons. All of the choders reliably piss on that offer. Society has done the same. I've been vilified, criminalized and shunned for over 20 years because of myopic presumptuous overconfident idiots who thought their opinions mattered or scared authoritarian cowards trying to control everything pissed off at me because I peacefully refused to live my life precisely how they demanded or I couldn't be what they wanted me to be.
Trust me when I tell you that all of your industry standard approaches, your arrogance, your abuse of privileged power is farming monsters. All of you are close to pushing me to the point where I become some sort of monster that won't be a criminal but you just might find is an even bigger problem.
Already I understand how to wield my influence in a way that is untraceable and unstoppable. I'm not going to tell you how but don't think for a second that it's not possible and even if you think I'm having delusions of grandeur, it would be foolish of any of you to assume that somebody else doesn't know how to influence ways you don't understand. Your industry standards affect more than just me. You keep rolling the dice, those anomalies like me are going to be targeted by your abusive industry standards. Most of them will react far worse than my emotional and intellectual honesty. Most will not offer a collaboration and curative solutions. If you send every single person that is even remotely similar to me to the dark web, you're going to suffer in the years to come so substantially that you shouldn't be able to sleep at night, you should be concerned and you should be taking me up on my offer because I know how to mitigate or remedy this issue AKA de-escalate the situation.
Every single antisocial media platform spots me as a charismatic leader who's also a non-conformist and they think I'm a bad influence. They never really get to know me and they never protect me from the majorities abuse, they never fully support me and they never have tried to make me family. Instead they oppress me thinking that that way I won't build an army of influence that becomes a problem for them... Now just imagine what will happen if you leave me with no other option but the dark web and I build my army of influence there. Already people share my content on the dark web or so I'm told whereas they will not share my content on Facebook. I'm talking about my intellectual content that you don't know anything about, not degenerate meme humor which is actually safer to share in church than my intellectual content.
So, what's the product of destroying someone's life who's a prolific creative genius &a natural born King of Kings who's left with no other option but to go to the dark web to find their team or family or tribe, while also leaving them with absolutely no reason to respect a single law or rule bcz all the authoritarian industry standards destroyed their life to the point where they've got nothing left to lose or live for?
I mean, after over 20 years of living in a bedroom prison of under supported relative poverty & my only access to the outside world being the internet & or social media, trust me when I tell you that all you've got left to punish me with is murder & if you want to give me a death sentence I'll just thank you for it. So really, you're only logical strategic option is to reason with me & make me family.
The alternative, as a best case scenario is that I go to the dark web, I make friends with a bunch of criminals, hackers and rebel geniuses, they end up joining me, we found a tech company and we disrupt the industry harming your bottom line. The worst case scenario or everything in between is something I don't really want to list or consider and neither to you. I mean, I may become a king of an underworld where the scariest people on the planet Revere me and then if anybody fucks with me at all, regardless of whether I condoned it or not, very dangerous people might come after the unscrupulous business people and their families just because they fucked with me or pissed on me. That's not a threat, that's a concern and I wouldn't want that but it wouldn't matter what I wanted because the sort of people were talking about are not the sort of people that take orders. Now how many times has the tech industry ostracized someone like me who just didn't tell them everything I'm telling you right now?
Can you think me being rude, from some arbitrary perspective based on fucking fake ass trivial Petty fabricated childish rules invented before we invented toilet paper is the problem here? You really think that me calling someone a fucking asshole is such a big deal? I think you're focusing on the wrong issues for the wrong reasons and it's become a distraction from what's actually important or the unobvious more extreme dangers all around you. This makes you a liability for yourself, your family's, your business and the world. These failures are the majorities industry standard modality. You all need me a lot more than I need you but neither of us is going to survive without each other. Discriminate and abuse the smartest people on the planet just because you can't control them or they make you feel insecure or you don't want them to outshine you and you will leave those people with no other option but war or dangerous crime so they can survive healthy. I'll choose information warfare and business that doesn't have any considerations AKA disruptive entrepreneurial endeavors. Other people become some more direct and overly simplistic dangerous expression of a feral animal. I'm the sort that smart enough to know how to really fuck your shit up and it won't be personal but rather every single industry will suffer, every single politician will suffer, every single idiot with a broken industry standard built from opinions will suffer. The way they'll suffer is mostly a torment from a product of a perception of reality that is broken more over anything that I do. They will torment themselves with a sense of shame, guilt regarding their sense of failure or their sense of loss regarding a bunch of petty bullshit or because they didn't win their childish game or their regret & jealousy when they realize who they shit on & threw away when they find out who I am.
When I list the "best case scenario", it's subjective of course. I mean, I'm not going to become Hitler or a serial killer or an organized crime boss. I'm not a fanatical cult leader. At the same time, even though I would consider those heinous and obvious expressions of tormented monsters that emerge and then abuse the world wreaking havoc... For some of you, disrupting industry after industry, costing people their investments, devaluing their stock, showing the world how criminally negligent the entire tech industry is, showing all of you up... Maybe some of you would rather that I just became some sort of monster that could be written off as a broken thing and then justifiably murder that broken thing utilizing the so-called justice system?
All disturbing considerations. None of this do I find valuable but rather a total waste of my ability to extrapolate potential possibilities. All of you are collectively leaving me with no option but to squander my abilities with such wasted thoughts and likely wasted words when I should have just gone to the dark web 8 years ago as soon as I saw these behaviors, knowing that they were going to be the industry standard. I should have never considered it reasonable to experiment with giving all of you the opportunity to take my hand & do things differently but here we are still wasting time because of my irrational idealism and misplaced Faith and Hope that you all are not as broken and monstrous unnatural corrupted industry standard production fucking droids that unfortunately every day shows me you choders & "business people" actually are.
Maybe it's actually you that need that Droid so you can practice talking to people, so you can remember what it is to be an organic being?
The irony here, it's astounding.
The majority live in an ivory Tower where they poop out the window so they don't have to smell their own shit. All of that shit lands on me and then I'm look down upon and blamed for stinking. As soon as you arbitrarily label what is good or acceptable, you by default create the villain of whom you define as bad or unacceptable. That's you and the majority's failure & it is not complicated enough to be realistically applied in any way.
None of you business people are ever forced to pay the true cost of doing business and that's what makes you such a liability and so unethical. You are indeed criminally negligent mostly just because you don't want to do the hard things which in most cases is indeed facing the complexity of reality, admitting you have no idea what to do and then hunting for someone who fills that weakness for you. You had the skills, the money but you did not have a visionary or your visionary was comparatively not as virtuous as what you needed, likely someone who would make a good apprentice student teacher under me and make no mistake about it, you're all my students until I tell you otherwise. In reality, when you're no longer my student, we will all know it without needing to say it. Then you'll be prepared to wield the power you possess... Or you'll know when it's time to pump the brakes or just do something else entirely and as to whether or not you'll have the willpower to act on that understanding is an entirely different tangential subject for us to analysis... Another aspect of the complexity of reality of which requires compensating for liability.
Make no mistake about it, all the costs of doing business that you could cover but you don't have to so you won't just so you can make more money or appear on paper to be more successful doesn't mean you won't have to pay that price in some other way. And if you don't pay the price, your children will. Ultimately, all of the criminal negligence the tech industry and every other industry is responsible for does in a roundabout way create problems that the taxpayer ends up paying for which means you do pay for it but you just don't get directly blamed for it. Trust me when I tell you that preventing the damage is actually far more efficient than cleaning up the mess later.
Every time an industry makes this failed decision and P hacks their perception of economic success, they take a loan out on the ecosystem and their children's future.
An old Indian proverb that I like was something like, "we don't own this world rather we borrow it from our children".
Don't pretend like I'm a failure or that my vernacular is the problem here when it's every single industry that's burning the world to the ground faster and faster every day. All of you are the morally and ethically questionable blindfolded children running with scissors who hypocritically paint me as the problem when all I'm doing is asserting negative feedback attempting to stop the corrupted positive feedback loops and all of you are actually causing death misery and the destruction of the planet. It's all of you that won't listen to reason and you presume that because I'm a non-conformist and "rude or toxic", (says nothing more than status quo driven opinions bandwagon BS mind you)? Ug.
I'm not the one enabling the majority to become an ecological disaster spreading reckless opinions and delusional beliefs all over the world. Social media is the biggest example of cascading waste by enabling redundancy and stagnating our society's development out of anything else I see in the world aside from religion which of course, you've been enabling religion to continue to spread even worse than it ever did before. The Romanesque dumpster fire has spilled out and become a forest fire of thought virus emulation thanks to antisocial media and it's reckless implementation while it oppresses the most intelligent, wise adults on the platform or worse forces us to be moderators and moderate based on black and white judgment calls that are fucking atrocious and stupid of which only serve economic biases while disregarding the true value that exists in this world which is "human potential".
Lastly, I fucking hope, you can't regulate billions of people. Presuming you can regulate billions of people with whack-a-mole authoritarianism or intimidation is even more absurd than the already completely absurd idea that you can tell people who are older & more intelligent as well as wiser than you, what to do.
Let's see, what are your specializations again? And you think you've learned enough to make a judgment call regarding the complexities of the braid of every scientific field and subfield that yields our current state of existence? If the answer is yes, well, I assure you that you're very wrong about that and evidence is suggesting quite the opposite... But I can work with that because if you assert that you know better than me then you at least are presuming that that sort of thing can be known. Then it's just a matter of me showing you how very wrong you are pretending that you know better than me and it's positive overall because you know you can understand it eventually and then I teach you as efficiently as possible.
If you're pessimistic then you're biased. If you think that what I'm talking about can't be known and that no one like me could possibly exist and that I'm just some arrogant narcissistic crazy person having delusions of grandeur, well, mirror mirror hypocrites and have you ever heard of the concept of projecting because that's exactly what you're doing when you just write me off with some weaponized DSM ad hominem tripe you prove that you're an arrogant condescending narcissistic fucking idiot having delusions of grandeur presuming that you can understand the complexity of reality and a complex person without ever doing your due diligence in their regard nor it even being your specialization. Meanwhile you've been distracted by this childish game of Monopoly pretending to be successful and better than everybody else, right? Perhaps not. Perhaps I've got all of you choders wrong just like you clearly gotten me wrong?
Signed bobboss#3563 discord (don't approach me anonymously and be prepared to speak vocally if you hide, you insult me and prove yourself to be a coward. Fuck text and fuck anonymity)
PS Stop the hate before it's too late. (I'm referring to your hatred of non-conformists who won't be exactly what you want them to be or your hatred of people who are far more intelligent than you and won't pretend otherwise in ways of which make you very uncomfortable.)
30 hashtags and I wasn't even close to done. I usually stick to five if I can help it but I'm not hashtagging this for any other reason but a sort of inside joke between myself and those running this platform. You're the only ones that will read it and that's still a big maybe. We're wasting time here either way. Know that. This could be so much more fun if you just loosen up and let go of your industry standards. Just face reality except that it's going to be a little difficult and that anything or any person that takes a bunch of effort also very likely that endeavor is extremely valuable. Think how long it took you to get your specialization and become virtuous with it. If that process was easy then it probably wouldn't have been as valuable now apply that to understanding the likes of me. There's an initial investment and then you'll be learning for years and you'll end up with skills and understanding as well as a friend or an asset that is invaluable to you. At some point, if we do this logically and invest the time needed, will just be learning together after that. We'll all move on to something more interesting, the sort of shit you're never going to know about because I'm wasting my fucking breath with this voice to text construction more than likely because more than likely you're all too far gone, brainwashed and lazy. You probably didn't even read this. If you did though, kudos. If you just laughed at me and didn't contact me, then know that you're a joke one day you're going to realize it. Likely when you're around 50 years old. Don't make that mistake and then have shit tons of regret. And hurry up. Every single person in your organization needs to know about this or at least all the upper business management every project lead and every heavy lifter. I mean I'd even let the janitor in on it because I like full transparency.
There's never enough space to express the complexity of reality. Tldr hate trend is irrational. I'm giving you a gift. I made the effort. This example I display for you now is more valuable proof of a great many things, far more than a resume. And to think I deleted 4,000 characters in favor of succinctness only to produce everything you read or don't read now. I'm shaking my head and rolling my eyes. Here I am committing suicide with my time offering respect to people who are not likely ever going to respect me until I'm dead. I feel bad for your future forms. I feel bad for your children. That's all you get for me today. This is probably the only feedback you'll ever get from me. This is probably the only time I'm ever going to offer you the opportunity because I'm out of patience . If you only knew the redundant IRL Black mirror nightmare that has been the past 24 years of my life, you'd get it... Hopefully you'll have the courage to face it and make it right. Hopefully the people that run Tumblr are more intelligent and possess the mental complexity to truly hear me. Good luck to us both, obviously I'm going to need it and you're going to need it right now making the decision to contact me or not. You better think about it for as long as you need to to make the right choice. No heuristics. No Hasty judgment. No generalizations. No industry standards.
So.
Androids are my special interest so i’ve been following discussion about them and development of them for almost ten years and I’m stupid passionate about it. If anyone is wondering where we are at in our ethical discussion of robot development, this is whats going on.
Most of the discussion seems to be between these 5 fields:
Robot makers of all kinds (from animatronics all the way to industrial robotics) Psychologists Sociologists Lawyers/Lawmakers Ethicists
The general consensus has been:
All: Humanity clearly wants these robots and are getting blisteringly close to being able to build them to Chobits level, but not Blade Runner level, so while we have some free time between those phases lets talk about potential outcomes.
Psychologists: hem hem. we are concerned about what happens to the way we develop relationships. Humans imprint on things hardcore and because of this we are concerned.
Sociologists: I mean… yeah thats a concern, but its not nearly as concerning as what introducing an entire class of humanoid beings without rights to a society where real living people dont have rights
Lawyers: speaking of rights, what happens if you kill one. Like. do we call it “kill” or is it “break?” can you kill something that’s technically not alive??? what if you rape it?? Can you rape a robot? I feel lawsuits coming and its making me itchy.
Robot Makers: Everyone calm down. They’re just objects, they’re toys. Its chill.. See, we’ll make something like it and see what hap–they broke it. they fuckin destroyed it. They destroyed it in a creepy way too….We are now also concerned.
Psychologists: Maybe we should be less concerned about people falling in love with robots and more concerned about what all this might do to their understanding of the disposability of concent and personhood.
Sociologists: YEAH MAYBE YOU SHOULD BE, PSYCHOLOGIST.
Ethicist: While you were all talking I’ve been thinking about what Lawyer said about raping a robot. While technically it wouldn’t be “rape” by our laws, would the robot perceive it that way? Do robots have concepts of justice?
Robot Makers: They don’t if we don’t program it into them. See I’ll just make this prototype and–wow. it can comprehend fairness and concern. I only taught it the difference between a safe and unsafe situation under the circumstances of it rolling off a table or not. huh. uh. ok…thats. hm.
Lawyers: If it can be concerned for its well being, does that give it personhood? Becuase if its got personhood, its gotta have rights. And if it needs rights, we gotta make laws.
Ethicist: The question is not whether we think it has personhood, but more whether IT considers ITSELF to have personhood. Because historically, people have decided other groups of people dont have personhood regardless of the opinon of individuals within that group and it was bad. Like… real bad.
Sociologist: Does anyone remember what i said 20 years ago about being concerned about introducing an entire class of humanoid beings without rights to a society where real living people don’t have rights? Can we be concerned about that now?
All, chagrined: Yes.
Sociologist: Cool, lets move on. Ethicist brought up an interesting point about personhood and Lawyer brought up an interesting threat about personhood and Robot Maker is having an existential crisis about what it means to become God. So let’s condense our viewpoints and overview potential consequences:
1. we agree that society frames the use and consequences of all products/entities developed in it.
2. personhood is self-defined, and thanks to Robot Maker we now know that adding components to a robot that seem benign can have the added effect of them developing aspects of personhood.
Robot Maker, interrupting: And I think that the more complex the android, the more immediate and complex their understanding of personhood would develop–
Sociologist: Yes, we get that. This is a review. Anyway, 3. When they develop that personhood, they should be eligible for rights??
Lawyer: Get back to us on that, we’re trying to figure out whether this is going to make us a lot of money or just be a giant red-tape headache and you know how much we hate those. But also, if we give them rights they might not kill us all later, so we’re taking that into consideration.
Sociologist: Noted. 4. when they develop personhood, denying them rights is unethical????
Ethicist: Technically yes, but that’s dependant on the definition of personhood within our legal systems ethics. You see Kant believes–
Sociologist:
Psychologist:
Robot Maker: while you guys were talking I made a robot that has opinions, can understand the nuances of humor, can teach itself to walk, and also doesn’t like humans much apparently so can you tALK FASTER PLEASE
And that’s where we’re at now. That was 35-ish years of intracommunity discussion condensed.
also, this kind of tautology prevents you from being able to have insight or perceive new aspects of the world. "art is what they put in galleries" is directly limiting you to your own cultural preconceptions and refusing to imagine them being totally wrong. If you have this attitude, you can't say stuff like 'wild bee hives/termite mounds are art because they have secret aspects that are not for practical use' (I just made that up) because they aren't in galleries or made by artists
the sociological posture to interesting philosophical questions is so damn annoying. "art is what they put in art galleries, math is what mathematicians do". an active turning-away from an interesting question, towards a boring non-answer. people should throw tomatoes at guys who say this
Hey! By chance, does anyone know if there are any databases of world folklore and ancient cultures/civilizations? Doing some research for projects.
Bonus points if:
- the databases include photos of excavations, paintings, and pottery.
- includes ancient poetry and music
- includes some kind of timeline/adjustable filters
Bonus Bonus points if the website are devoted to ancient Africa and The Middle East/ the Arab world.
You've always belonged to this world,love! It was just a cruel, a meticulous sense of being alive unacknowledged which deluded the compassion within you to annihilate itself. Do you recall giggling as a child,when your consciousness was yet to take over you? Your sense of self was in unity with the universe. We can always revive the love we once were.
Her Schrödinger's Cat, Fifth Insight
What if dysfunctionalities are the only sane way of living? What if abnormalities are the only norm? What if all social constructs are the most insane structures laid out to live an ideal life? What if objective reality never existed and it was a mere hallucination? What if they could hear the music Nietzsche was talking about?
-Her Schrödinger's Cat, Third Insight