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Update: I got onboard with the theory and now I wanna unplug all robots.
Original post:
I canât with the âdroids are p-zombiesâ Star Wars fan theory. I prefer it when the heroes treat the droids with some amount of respect. They work differently from living creatures but they can still express distress or relief.
My own fan view is that droid experience, and how to relate to it, is a mystery to many people in the galaxy. Just like any system with complex emergent properties.
The idea of p-zombies generally just ticks me off, not just in Star Wars.
âOh, you wouldnât get it, Susan, youâre a p-zombie.â
âWhat the heck? My externally expressed levels of comprehension are indistinguishable from yours. Who put you on the âdecide who is humanâ throne?â
Even more generally, I think treating others badly hurts ourselves (on some weirdo hippie level that I havenât really figured out yet). Treating âsoulless simulacraâ badly similarly hurts ourselves. Like, if you print out a photo of your enemy and burn it and cut it, youâre (according to this sorts halfâthought-through hippie theory of mine) kinda hurting yourself. Not that hatred canât sometimes be a healthy emotion to express, it can, but itâs when you plug it into an ersatz violence loop that Iâm like whoah, hold on a moment thereâŚ
Iâm not talking about stuff like the Wiccan three-fold law, the idea that we better be good or weâll suffer consequences. We hit someone and weâre gonna get hit down the line. Thatâs not quite what I mean here. Instead, I mean the idea of... We change for the worse when we behave cruelly. We become cruel, and itâs painful to be cruel.
Enh. Weâll have a cup of kindness yet. Somehow.
Update: Diane sent in this wonderful essay by Emmet Asher-Perrin.