Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT 21-25 January 2019 (3921-3925)
Neko_Ali:
Sorry for a second post, but I've been stewing on my thoughts about the current story line for a while now. I already published a book about Spooky, now for my thoughts on Roko.... I am getting some very strong parallels with Roko's situation to the experience being transgender, though not nearly exact. Both are still about a detachment with what the mind is expecting and the body feedback is. Obviously with trans people one of the biggest issues is that our bodies do not match up with what our minds tell us they should be. The same with Roko though in her case it's a matter that they had to get an entirely new body. Something that's not an issue for many AI, but is for her. That difference in experience and the isolation those feelings bring also are very much a part of the trans experience. It's incredibly difficult to describe what being trans feels like to a cisgender person. There are nuances and feelings that are just impossible to put into words accurately. But other trans people usually get it. Every person's experience is different of course, but there is some fundamental levels of feeling that just don't cross over between trans and cis people and their experiences. And I am 100% feeling those differences from Roko currently.
Roko I think has a slight advantage over the fact that there was an event that can clearly be pointed at as causing this feeling. Trans people often struggle internally with understanding their feelings at first and externally as people try to push back against those feelings to get them to conform. People know why Roko feels the way she does because they know she was highly integrated with her old body and is forced to use a new one. Everyone assures her she'll get used to it, but that doesn't help how wrong everything feels now. Roko doesn't *want* to get used to feeling wrong in her own body. She wants her body to feel right again.
This is where Roko's and the trans experience splits though. For trans people the only practical or healthy answer is to get the body to conform with the mind's expectations. Trying to force the mind to conform to the body is mentally and emotionally damaging. Roko can't go back to her old body though. Even getting a body as close as possible to her old one feels wrong. People tell her she'll get used to it, but I think she's both afraid that she won't, and that she doesn't want to. It's not going to be an easy journey for her, which is why she wants to go to extreme ideas like having her mind altered. Which to be honest... Is something desperate trans people have tried to do as well. It never turns out good in the end though.
I am thinking there is also a fair bit of similarity between what Roko is going through and what amputees go through. I don't have personal experience with this, so I feel less confident about it... but the similarities between stories seem very similar. It's just a matter of scale... Roko essentially just had to have her entire body amputated and put into a prosthetic. Nothing can ever really be the same as her original body. Even with a fully functional form that looks very close to what she had before, everything is just slightly off. And she would give anything to go back to what it was before, but that's impossible. So all she can really do is try to get on with life feeling everything is wrong and that's a hard thing to deal with.
In any case... I think that Roko is going to need both professional help dealing with the issue and peers who have been through these things. Is there a support group for AIs who have difficulty integrating with a new chassis?
Is it cold in here?:
There should be. Accidents that total a chassis must be common events.
Is it cold in here?:
--- Quote from: ChaosWolf on 22 Jan 2019, 20:43 ---With Spooky making a reappearance, I find myself once again struggling with trying to fit a mental "voice" to her(their?) lines...
How do you guys imagine SB sounds like?
--- End quote ---
For a plural entity who uses "we" for the first person, "they" looks like the first choice until and unless Spookybot tells us what to use.
We know they have an androgynous presentation but we don't know their internal gender identity.
Is it cold in here?:
--- Quote from: Neko_Ali on 23 Jan 2019, 06:34 ---I don't remember if it ever was said how Spooky found out about it.... but I suspect Roko suspecting Corpsewitch of AI rights violations was a link in that chain.
--- End quote ---
If I remember right, they heard about it by eavesdropping on Station's communications when Hannelore told Station about the situation. It would never have happened without Roko shaking the tree, little knowing what tree she was shaking. The other links in that chain were Faye offering support and Jeremy pushing Bubbles over the top.
TheEvilDog:
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 23 Jan 2019, 07:09 ---There should be. Accidents that total a chassis must be common events.
--- End quote ---
Maybe, or its just as likely that accidents that bad don't happen because of a chassis inherent durability.
I mean, consider the kind of damage the human body can withstand. For example, someone can be thrown through the windshield of a car and gets shredded but every in the body is unbroken. A pane of glass drops and the poor schmuck standing underneath it has to be scrapped off the ground. Someone falls several stories and walks away with a bruise on their backside. We're bags of meat and bone, but we can withstand a surprising amount of damage. Not to mention that Roko was a police officer and only having her core protected smacks of irresponsibility. Her chassis must have had crumple zones or reinforcements.
It should be a testament to the damage done by Crushbot that they couldn't salvage any other part of her chassis.
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