Neutrino Tempest

and okay, fair enough - i've never worked in, say, a young offender's institution, or a secure children's home. i've mostly worked in schools. i haven't seen firsthand how bad it can get. i still don't think punishment actually works, and i also think that even kids who misbehave on purpose (and kids do misbehave on purpose; it'd be naive to claim otherwise) aren't doing it because it's "fun". they're doing it because they want to achieve a certain outcome, and they are using the tools that are available to them.

so they need better tools. and better options. and someone to help them figure out how to achieve that same outcome without resorting to theft, manipulation, or violence. that's not easy to do, especially with older children whose behavioural patterns are more entrenched, but it's infinitely more effective and less traumatising than punishment.

i want to illustrate this by talking about a former student of mine. i never actively disliked any of the children i worked with, but i do remember finding this one kid very difficult to warm to. i'd been warned before meeting him that he was a Bad Kid, and i soon found out why. he swore, spat, screamed, threw things, stole or destroyed other people's possessions, and was verbally and physically aggressive towards both me and his classmates.

i could deal with all that. what bothered me was how manipulative he was. he was a bully, but it was hard to catch him at it; he had a knack for sussing out when certain children were having a rough time, and then he'd subtly needle and torment them until they exploded - hitting him or themselves, tearing up their work, kicking desks over, having a sobbing meltdown, etc. after which he would come to me and gleefully inform me that so-and-so had "been bad", clearly with the expectation that i would then punish them (which, obviously, i did not).

this behaviour seemed very calculated, which is why i found it unnerving. but the why kept niggling at me. why was he doing this? what did he want the outcome to be?

and as soon as i thought about it, it was obvious. he wanted validation ("well done for telling me, that was very responsible!"). he wanted to feel powerful. he wanted everyone else to be exactly as angry and unhappy as him. he wanted to not be seen as the Bad Kid - or he wanted his peers to know what it was like to be the Bad Kid. it was intentional, but it was also a product of helplessness and desperation.

Here, have this warehouse fire tracker. 120 as of posting this:

I can picture a situation where the poor bus-bot is easily talked into signing away some essential right because someone tells them that it must be done to help with a human emergency, and they want to help. They like to help! They are literally programmed so that the idea of a sapient being having an emergency is as un-ignorable to them as a crying baby is to the average human, because that helps them with what they have to do.

So, these early would-be egalitarians probably set up safety rails. No, the bus bot cannot sign a contract giving you any part of itself, or its power, or its hand in marriage, or any such thing. Yes, there is a clearly designated human to check with who—in theory—safeguards its rights, makes sure it can get things it needs, etc.

So long as the human really is benevolent and properly monitored, this may be a good deal for a bot who is about as smart as the average monkey, only with a mind set more like a happy, task-oriented dog.

Time, however, moves on. Virtually all the bots we encounter are smarter than this early one. Jollybaby is sophisticated enough to give itself a joke name. Miki may not understand deceit very well, but that is probably because it doesn't have much experience with it—or else it knows Its Human well enough to understand that Murderbot's complicated stack of lies was both about to crumble and not necessary, and took initiative to cut through it all and try to get people actually communicating. ART is…firmly in the WTF Even Is That category, and Murderbot itself is obviously very bright so long as you don't ask it to interpret an emotion. The feral hauler—okay, we don't know that much about the feral hauler except its belief that Cops Make Good Pancakes. The point is that times have changed and so have the needs of machine intelligences.

Which means that, while in a lot of ways machine intelligences don't map neatly onto any human oppression, some of the basic principles do. Stop, listen, learn. This may have looked like a progressive way to handle things seventy-five years ago. It may have actually been a good option under imperfect circumstances. It is not good in the current circumstances. So listen to the people affected, and then be prepared to change what you're doing.

-ancient roman posca: water, red or white wine vinegar, honey, salt, herbs (coriander, mint, thyme)

-switchel: water, ginger, vinegar, sweetener, lemon, salt

-ayran: yogurt, water, salt, mint

-sees the reports of the heatwave in Europe-