shitposting rave 2, electric boogaloo

Wow, Ford, nice job making deals with demons while I was punching them.

what*burps*ever makes you sleep at night.

 

[Codsworth likes this]
Fine, nice touch in literature my friend. Very good choice.

 

@Half Life
mmph, mmphmph mmph
(Yay, another medic joins)

 

[Cait likes this]
You and me both.

 

At the time that the particular incident took place, I didn't know that demons existed. Anyhow, you knew about the problems with the portal, but not about the demon? That's amusing.

Great. Just great.

 

I suppose it would depend on the depth of the offspring into the formation process.

 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!

 

Ah. I do see where the misunderstanding comes from.

It's my opinion, on a purely moral/ethical/philosophical level--I'm very well aware that some people don't care about things like this--that people are people are people. Once sentience or sapience has been attained, the being who has attained sapience has the right to self determination and should not be used or treated as a tool. Unless, of course, they consent to it--but uninformed consent is not consent, and I say this as a sapient being who has been used as a tool by means of uninformed consent.

 

Zomebody dumped you for beeing beez???

 

No. I've taken the form of a swarm of bees in the past, when I was otherwise indisposed.

 

*growls*

 

How do you define sentience and/or sapience? How do you determine who is or isn't a person?
I'm not asking this as a trick question or some slag like that, I am honestly curious, considering you seem to think your system of determining status of personhood more inclusive than the Ambus Test.

 

Ohh. That'z not nearly az bad az we thought.

Did you like beeing beez??? 8D 8D 8D 8D 8D 8D 8D

 

You okay there?

 

I don't really have a system so much as a desire not to make a horrible mistake. I've probably treated some beings that weren't people more like people than they needed me to, but I'd prefer to err in that direction than the other. I don't know what the Ambus Test is.

Normally, inert objects, of the sort that do not act independently, are not people; often, when they display signs of sapience, it means that they've been used to bind a demon--hence my earlier comment about talking weaponry. That gun acts very much like it might be demonic.

Demons are a special subclass of sapients in that they actively seek to destroy other sapients, either emotionally, spiritually, mentally and in some cases physically.

However, there are things like...

Okay, so my wife is an obligate carnivore. If we can find plants that will not poison me on a given planet in a given dimension, I can usually eat them. She can't. So, if we're hunting for food in a strange place, we stick with small game and avoid tool-using animals until we have some idea how smart the larger animals are. Nothing is more horrifying, and nothing makes getting along with strangers more difficult, than discovering you've unintentionally eaten a member of their community.

We recently met a Synth, a kind of robot. I am not sure whether he's sapient or very well-programmed, since he seems to have a pre-existing personality that used to belong to someone who was human, but it doesn't do me or anyone else any harm to give him the benefit of the doubt regarding sapience.

In general, I would certainly state that anyone who has a concept of personhood rights and wants them should get them. The only real problem is figuring out that people who can't communicate with you are sapient and want and need their rights. I don't know how to solve that one, except to always watch for evidence of decision making.

 

Ambus Test: Cybertronian sapience-qualification test, developed pre-war by Dominus Ambus of Ambustus Minor under the Cybertronian Senate and the Jhiaxus Academy of Science And Technology.

...Personal observation: Stanford appears to be speaking of Stanford's personal morals, Captain Nichrome of Cybertronian societal standards (...or lack thereof). Disconnect possible, especially as Stanford does not set societal standards of his homeplanet? Original phrasing could probably have been better, but that's what happens when we let the magic interaction space handle translation, even setting aside nuance within words and concepts. (See also: constant rendering of Licentan concept meaning "closest beloved team" as Neocybex/human/whatever "ship complement/staff", non-romantic "platonic" vs non-sexual "platonic", etc.)
...got off-topic, sorry. Personally don't see a point for Captain Nichrome and Stanford to be arguing past each other. Am I overstepping?

 

That is a good policy. Though a sadistic part of me wants to show you all the ways cybertronians have invented to erase and undermine signs of sapience either as torture methods or just out of a sick glee.
Out of curiosity how long would a laserpointer have to morse at you before you started noticing? If anyone went and shot my vocalizer, then locked me in my old altmode. A very big hypothetical here. But I am curious.

 

No actually. Thank you, Congessi, that was a very important addition.
Though personally I am having fun arguing past Doctor Pines. It's rather more enjoyable than I would have expected and he is quite insightful. And much more gently than previous reports and briefings on human-mech-interaction had led me to belief.

 

...debate enjoyable, yes, can understand. But not better to be sure debating the same point rather than shooting at shadows?

 

Normally yes, but I wanted to make sure Stanford Pines realized what his personal policy was up against in terms of the experience I come from. It is nice to know that a single organic somewhere in the far reaches of the universe, potentially not even in the same dimension as us, has a decent policy when it comes to sapience, sentience and personhood rights. That does not mean I cannot tell him to reconsider his phrasing when he unwittingly repeats words invoking millions of years of pain among many of us. Which was what I set out to do.