the hoarder

Viscount: [angrily] “Sir, you will find the word ‘fear’ is not in my vocabulary!”

“Taking care of a robot is a high-stakes game. Things can—and do—go wrong. In one kindergarten, when a Furby breaks down, the children decide they want to heal it. Ten children volunteer, seeing themselves as doctors in an emergency room. They decide they’ll begin by taking it apart.

The proceedings begin in a state of relative calm. When talking about their sick Furby, the children insist that this breakdown does not mean the end: people get sick and get better. But as soon as scissors and pliers appear, they become anxious. At this point, Alicia screams, “The Furby is going to die!” Sven, to his classmates’ horror, pinpoints the moment when Furbies die: it happens when a Furby’s skin is ripped off. Sven considers the Furby as an animal. You can shave an animal’s fur, and it will live. But you cannot take its skin off. As the operation continues, Sven reconsiders. Perhaps the Furby can live without its skin, “but it will be cold.” He doesn’t back completely away from the biological (the Furby is sensitive to the cold) but reconstructs it. For Sven, the biological now includes creatures such as Furbies, whose “insides” stay “all in the same place” when their skin is removed. This accommodation calms him down. If a Furby is simultaneously biological and mechanical, the operation in process, which is certainly removing the Furby’s skin, is not necessarily destructive. Children make theories when they are confused or anxious. A good theory can reduce anxiety.

But some children become more anxious as the operation continues. One suggests that if the Furby dies, it might haunt them. It is alive enough to turn into a ghost. Indeed, a group of children start to call the empty Furby skin “the ghost of Furby” and the Furby’s naked body “the goblin.” They are not happy that this operation might leave a Furby goblin and ghost at large. One girl comes up with the idea that the ghost of the Furby will be less fearful if distributed. She asks if it would be okay “if every child took home a piece of Furby skin.” She is told this would be fine, but, unappeased, she asks the same question two more times. In the end, most children leave with a bit of Furby fur.8 Some talk about burying it when they get home. They leave room for a private ritual to placate the goblin and say good-bye.”

We have been told over and over again the it is fundamentally important to believe the victim. It is important to believe the victim. Now we are aware of who that really was, but based on what we knew and what we were given it is understandable that a lot of people believed what they were fed, that she was the one who needed support and recognition.

What’s important now is to focus on how we move forward.

New information has come to light and now that we know more our reaction can be more informed. It can’t be taken back what was done and the support that was given to the wrong party, but shaming and blaming people for doing what they believed was right won’t help. What should happen is that we take it on board and act accordingly, as we did before.

We don’t let it be silenced and we don’t let it be swept under the rug, if he has proved his innocence then we uplift that news and bring that to peoples attention. We make the real truth known.

The best course of action now is to rectify the situation, support the victim as best as possible, and hold the abuser accountable.

It is not to blame, guilt, and manipulate others for doing what they believed was right with the limited information they were given.

Now is a time to hopefully rectify a bad situation.

my long-suffering friends and followers: