humanity, personhood, personal baggage (Indiepocalypse.Social repost)

[packbat]

(We wrote "no more turing tests" after reading "The Unperson Of 2023" by James Boyle. We wrote the following after posting "no more turing tests".)

kyriarchy talks about "person" vs. "not person" like it's the supreme distinction - people matter, everything else either matters to people or is nothing

then scientists try to build on top of this distinction - pick out criteria to be peoplehood criteria, try to prove they only belong to people, and then point to them as proof that the distinction is right: people use tools, or people use language, or people think, or people feel

and then those criteria get found in things they don't call people, and the scientists try again, because it was never about the criteria at all - it was about protecting that invisible base assumption, that "person" vs. "not person" is the most important distinction, because that got hammered in and they can't imagine something else

and it got hammered into us, too

and then a switch flipped in our head and now we know, and we can go "fuck this", and we can flail around trying to figure out how to exist without it

Comments

[acorn_squash]

"For the first time in history, humans had a world-altering fact forced on them; sentences do not imply sentience."--James Boyle

I'm thinking about Chuck Tingle

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"For the first time in history, humans had a world-altering fact forced on them; sentences do not imply sentience."--James Boyle

I'm thinking about Chuck Tingle <a href="https://drchucktingle.tumblr.com/post/709984768944734208/alien-or-machine-or-autistic"being accused of being an AI</a>. And <a href="https://ballastexistenz.wordpress.com/2010/05/07/what-i-mean-by-beneath-words/">Mel Baggs</a> and a lot of other people writing about what it takes for them to make sentences. And generally what it means when people don't believe you're a person.

I think the connection to disability and neurodivergence is already pretty heavily implied, but it can't hurt to make it explicit.

[packbat]

Some years ago, we attempted to make a comforting remark in an IRC channel and were told we had "set off my Turing senses". We, or at least some of us, are also autistic, and like autistic people thought that an explicit acknowledgement of our friend's observations and validation of our friend's emotions would have a soothing effect.

So, yes, thank you for making that connection explicit.

[acorn_squash]

Being told that you're not real doesn't feel great!

...As I suspect that you&, as a plural system, know all too well.

[acorn_squash]

HTML mistakes that I can't edit, sigh. Here's what this should say:

"For the first time in history, humans had a world-altering fact forced on them; sentences do not imply sentience."--James Boyle

I'm thinking about Chuck Tingle being accused of being an AI. And Mel Baggs and a lot of other people writing about what it takes for them to make sentences. And generally what it means when people don't believe you're a person.

I think the connection to disability and neurodivergence is already pretty heavily implied, but it can't hurt to make it explicit.

[packbat]

oh no, that's annoying!

and thank you for the links - they were good reading

[acorn_squash]

Mel Baggs and Julia Bascom are my favorite autistic bloggers.