The Phrase “curiosity Killed The Cat” Is Actually Not The Full Phrase It Actually Is “curiosity

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So, my university does a lot of outreach Classics work, trying to make it less of an elitist subject and more accessible to children, and as part of that, I went to give a talk to a class of 6 and 7 year olds a few months back.

And here’s the thing. Classics is really often portrayed as the last bastion of academic privilege, a subject that is only taught to rich white kids so that they can brag about knowing Latin and get jobs as Tory MPs. But these kids were OBSESSED. They had already done some stuff on myths, and they were so excited to talk about it. They knew all the stories, all the heroes, the gods, the monsters. I have never seen such an excitable group of kids as these 6 year olds shouting about Odysseus.

For the lesson, I asked them to think of their favourite myth and to consider it from the point of view of the monster rather than the hero. The end goal was to show that often the monsters and heroes are quite similar. We decided to do Polyphemus (the Cyclops) in the Odyssey, and so I asked them why they thought Polyphemus might have been so angry at Odysseus that he killed some of his men.

Because he came home and found lots of strange men in his house, eating his food, said the kids.

So, I asked them, do you think that was a good reason to kill people?

No, they said, but he was very cross, and he didn’t do it because it was fun.

And then this KID, this SIX YEAR OLD CHILD, put her hand up and said “well, it was very bad of him, but if we’re cross with him then we have to be cross with Odysseus too, because when he came home from his adventure and found lots of men in his house, trying to marry his wife, he killed them, and that’s the same thing, isn’t it?”

AND LET ME TELL YOU

I am a published Classicist! A PhD student! And I have never made that connection before! Not once! And this child was six years old! And she made the link! By herself!

And so I tried not to show how gobsmacked I was, and we talked more about other monsters, including Medusa, and at the end of the lesson a lot of them said that they thought the monsters were not as evil as we usually think, and then I went home.

But I honestly haven’t got over how excited and engaged those kids were, in a totally regular primary school. Classics, in that classroom, was not elitist or inaccessible. It was something they understood, could really get their teeth into and use to think of new ideas of good and bad, of why we demonise different people for doing the same things. And that’s how I like to think about Classics. Not a series of dry texts in ancient languages, but as living stories that you actually can’t help but love, just a bit.

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. 

okay so i’m probably 7856454 years late to this realization but …i guess the reason straight people don’t really think our identities matter that much to us is because theirs don’t to them? like, i think about how not straight i am all the time but they don’t do that, do they? they don’t walk around thinking ‘i’m soooo straight’, right? so they don’t think it’s a big deal to other people maybe that’s it and maybe it’s not but i mean it’s something to think about for me

Honestly the best piece of advice I can give to younger girls trying to figure life out is to completely ignore men. I’m not being quirky or cute when I say that, I mean it seriously. Ignore men’s judgments of you, ignore their insincere compliments, ignore their half-assed romance. Focus on developing yourself. Practice your art, play sports, do theater, volunteer, spend time with your friends, but do not put substantial effort into pleasing men. They’ll be there for you to pursue when the time comes and if you want to. But nothing will waste your youth more than fighting for male acceptance.

Previously, I’d only seen the first two panels and assumed it was the complete comic.

This version is much better.

Watch: Carl Sagan schooled B.o.B. on his flat Earth theory more than 30 years ago

Follow @the-future-now

let’s be honest though, millennial hate is totally a thing rich folks started because they’re pissed that we have really unpredictable consumer habits and it isn’t as easy to get us to buy into stuff, so they’re mad we aren’t just money giving/traditional economy supporting machines like they expected us to be

like look at how much millennial hate articles are things like “millennials aren’t eating cereal and it’s hurting the cereal industry” or “millennials aren’t buying houses and that’s bad” or “millennials #1 utmost priority isn’t trying to make as much money as possible” and rich folks are mad about it, so just posturing our unpredictability/nontraditional values as “laziness” gets everyone else on board the hate train in some weird attempt to collectively subdue us

Here’s something to chew on.