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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Lit Ignorance is Bias: The Diversity Manifesto

Discussion in 'Literature' started by CooperTFN, Sep 2, 2012.

  1. Ulicus

    Ulicus Lapsed Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 24, 2005
    You're totally right. I agree. I've been saying that's possible from the moment I entered the discussion. Hell, that's why I entered the discussion in the first place; to back up Mia's point that just because the Jedi can't sense the "Force ghost in the machine" (or the "workings of a conscious mind", if you prefer), doesn't mean it's not there. :p

    And, yeah, if I had it my way, the Jedi would have seriously re-evaluated their position on droids in the wake of the Vong War.

    "Hey guys, you think maybe there are more "wavelengths" we're unfamiliar with? Maybe we should dial back the whole 'droids can't possibly be living beings because we can't sense them' thing? Maybe they're people in disguise? MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE!"

    Sadly, this has yet to occur. But something like that needs to occur before we can get a huge paradigm shift RE: droids in the franchise. If the question could be addressed the same way it is in every other franchise, then it should have been done and dusted thousands of years before we got the era of the films.
     
  2. Mechalich

    Mechalich Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 2, 2010
    The Force is open to interpretation in-universe, and on material revealed from an in-universe perspective. Out of universe source materials can make statements about the Force that have the powerful of canonical truth behind them and are not subject to such interpretation.

    The SAGA edition corebook for example, says the following under droid traits: "Droids have no connection to the Force and can't gain the Force sensitivity feat or learn Force powers." That is about as explicit as you can possibly be.

    So this is about more than what just the Jedi (or other Force users) can perceive. Droids, I-5YQ excepted for reasons as yet unknown, have no connection to the Force as it is currently understood in-universe or out-of-universe.

    So if droids really are persons in some way that the Force itself is incapable of recognizing then we have to fundamentally reconsider pretty much every aspect of the Star Wars universe to make way for that new perspective.
     
  3. Skaddix

    Skaddix Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Feb 3, 2012
    Well seems only organics are connected to force in the first place.
     
  4. Gamiel

    Gamiel Chosen One star 9

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    Dec 16, 2012
    But when do we know it is a true Ghost in the machine and not just clever programming that has adapted to our need that creates a mirror effect? Like J.A.R.V.I.S. in Iron-Man
     
  5. Esg

    Esg Jedi Master star 4

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    Sep 2, 2012
    Nope.
     
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  6. MercenaryAce

    MercenaryAce Chosen One star 6

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    Aug 10, 2005
    I would have to say that is a completely arbitrary distinction. If you are are going to say that a droid merely has clever programing, then you might as well say that sentient beings merely have highly evolved instincts. After all, for all our vaunted free will, humans have never grown beyond our instincts.

    Especially given that in-universe there are recorded cases where sentient organic beings have had their memories and personalities reprogrammed as easily as any computer.
     
  7. Gamiel

    Gamiel Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2012
    What I meant with "clever programming" was that it is easy to see sentience in an artificial intelligence if it has been given a personality and is adaptable to your needs. Like J.A.R.V.I.S. from Iron-Man, it is all too easy to forget that he/it is non-sentient or Odi and Lennart in Real Humans.

    We have a tendency to see ourselves in objects we use, and if that object talks back to us it became all so much easier.

    I am not disagreeing with you on the point that there most likely are droides in Star Wars universe that has a Ghost in the machine, but I don’t think they are so many
     
  8. CooperTFN

    CooperTFN TFN EU Staff Emeritus star 7 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1999
    Constructive, as always.

    But what about that is explicitly tied in to personhood? Where is the OOU source that says only beings with "souls" are persons? It seems to me that you're taking that big leap for granted because it's always been interpreted that way IRL, but I don't recall the franchise ever making any claims to that effect. The bottom line of this debate, remember, is should droids have legal rights, not what does the Force think about them.
     
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  9. Ulicus

    Ulicus Lapsed Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 24, 2005
    And the immediate question that follows is: if the answer is "yes", why has it taken so very long for galactic society to come to that conclusion?

    How does one begin to answer that without reference to the Force as the Ultimate Reality, and the conventional wisdom that droids have no place in it? Like I keep saying, I'd rather ascribe the failings of the galaxy to a tragic yet understandable ignorance of the metaphysics than suggest they're either hilariously stupid or outright malevolent.
     
  10. MercenaryAce

    MercenaryAce Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 10, 2005
    Fair enough.


    I also want to say that I recognize that authorial intent is important, and I get the impression in many places that droids except for R2 and C3P0 are not intended to be seen as people...

    ...but at the same time I don't think authorial intent is the beginning and ending of the discussion. I mean, when you read a story like Pathways where you get battle droids have conversations like this:

    "You can't have much energy left—why waste it? It's pointless. It's suicide."
    "I'd rather have two days of freedom than go back to what I was."

    Or

    "It's getting very…dark. The core is…no longer returning…my signal. I do not want…to go off-line. I am…afraid."
    "You don't have to be. You're not alone."

    ...I simply cannot accept that they are not people and so it doesn't matter how they are treated without a massive backlash of cognitive dissonance.
     
  11. Gamiel

    Gamiel Chosen One star 9

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    Dec 16, 2012
    I have not read Pathways so I can not comment on that
     
  12. Mechalich

    Mechalich Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Feb 2, 2010
    It's not really about the definition of personhood though. Perhaps droids are persons, but according to the Force they are persons without any ties to the moral framework of reality. As a result there is no reason, no obligation to give them any legal rights. Society in Star Wars can choose to give droids rights, but it doesn't have to. The reason the Force is essential to this discussion is how it governs morality. Take murder, in Star Wars murder of a human being is an evil act, murder of a droid is not.

    If you want to take about rights in the most ethically devoid way, human society endows people with rights in order to ensure that society functions for the maximum benefit of all. In the same morally void perspective: Star Wars society actually ensures the maximum benefit for all by stripping droids of their rights.

    However, Star Wars is a deliberately moral universe, its central story is about the conflict between good and evil, and in Star Wars the understand of good and evil flows from the Force. Droids, for all intents and purposes, stand outside the Force, they express good and evil as a function of the programming endowed upon them by others.

    So okay, we can say that droids (or some droids anyway, I don't think ASPs or Mouse Droids are on anyone's short list for 'personhood') qualify as persons, but that the society of Star Wars has determined that because they are creations only of 'crude matter' that they have no moral status and therefore should be accorded no rights.

    I suppose you could even extend that to any being lacking in true individuality, such as Killik drones.

    Either way though, the bottom line is that, because of their lack of connection to the Force, droids are either not considered persons in the Star Wars context, or are 'persons who don't count' in ethical terms. The alternative is that everyone in Star Wars has been running a brutal slave regime since before the founding of the Republic and that pretty much everyone, including all of the setting's major moral icons and the overwhelming majority of droids themselves, is quite happy to keep it going that way forever.

    We might want to consider droids persons. We might want to have a very deep discussion about the nature of machine intelligence, programming, and what all of that means. Star Wars cannot have that conversation. Attempting to have it destroys the setting. So as much as we might want to reason forward, we have to reason backward from the situation we observe to find a justification for it. This is much the same as the backward reasoning that produced 'well the Empire hated aliens and was full of misogynists' to explain the absence of aliens and women from Imperial units.
     
  13. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Where's that actually stated though?

    A case could be made that it depends on the droid- with some droids having achieved true sapience and become moral actors (positive and negative).

    If EV-9D9 can be portrayed as evil because she tortures droids- why can't a living being?
     
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  14. Skaddix

    Skaddix Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Feb 3, 2012
    I am not sure corporations and the like would need Jedi approval to justify Droid treatment but I suppose it certainly cannot hurt.
     
  15. Ghost

    Ghost Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Oct 13, 2003

    Droids are connected to the Force, which is everywhere and flows through all things. The key is that Droids cannot sense the Force, due to a lack of midichlorians or something like them.

    If droids are persons, it doesn't mean that the Force is incapable of recognizing them as persons... it just means droids are incapable of sensing the Force. Unlike organics, however, droids can be easily modified, quickly and on the individual level. Also, I would welcome the EU to explore this more, and fundamentally reconsider the Star Wars universe... that is what the EU sorely needs right now, something really new and fresh, a plot twist on the entire universe.
     
  16. JediFreac

    JediFreac Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 7, 2002
    Do you think readers could handle the cognitive dissonance of viewing Luke, Leia, and Han as slaveowners*?

    (albeit nicer than others since they don't use restraining bolts?)

    (How awkward would it be for there to be an "you're free now" "but I want to stay with you because you are awesome!" Dynamic?)
     
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  17. Mechalich

    Mechalich Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 2, 2010
    Frankly, which I should have hoped my above statements made clear, no. In truth, readers shouldn't have to. If Luke, Han, Leia, and in fact everyone in the Star Wars universe who doesn't belong to societies that have yet to develop/purchase droids are slave owners, why should we bother with Star Wars at all? How many of us here regularly read fantasy fiction where the conflicts are between two slave holding factions that both completely agree that their slave-holding is perfectly acceptable? Especially when there's no neo-historical context involved (ie. I'm a big Three Kingdoms fan, and there were a lot of slaves in China in 200 CE). I don't think that's a setting where must of us would choose to spend our time.

    So, if you firmly believe that droids in Star Wars should be considered persons, then accept that you're reading stories about two competing groups of slaveholders and thus the moral messaging at the center of pretty much all those stories is pretty much completely compromised, or go read something else.

    Making droids into persons who deserve the same rights as everyone else turns Star Wars from an epic struggle of good vs. evil to an epic struggle of the slightly-less-evil vs. the really-really-evil. It's a great argument to make if you think Star Wars is a piece of horrible trash, but if you're a fan you really need to martial a counter-argument.

    The Force-based argument basically boils down to this: Because of the way the morality of Star Wars is set up, droids are not connected to the Force and therefore however much they appear to be persons, they actually aren't.

    I am fully aware that this is not an incredibly convincing or progressive argument, but many, perhaps most, fantasy universes make various weak arguments to justify the quirks of their particular moral structures. In pre-4th edition D&D, for example, mindless random slaughter was neutral, not evil, and the need to justify the 'neutral' alignment led to the development of a very odd, highly restrictive definition of evil.

    You do realize that I posted a statement, taken directly from canon, which says that you are wrong. You are welcome to believe what you like, but according to canon, 'droids have no connection to the Force' - which means in context that a droid is no more connected to the Force than a rock, or a coffee machine.
     
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  18. CT-867-5309

    CT-867-5309 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jan 5, 2011
    This might be the most absurd, childish, melodramatic, fan fictional thing I've ever read.

    Why the hell would the Trade Federation put anything even close to this in a battle droid's programming? It makes absolutely zero sense.

    A battle droid wouldn't be programmed to come anywhere close to emotions. No emotions is one of the advantages of battle droids.

    A battle droid wouldn't have a clue as to what freedom or slavery is. It would never, under any circumstances, even think about such things.

    A battle droid wouldn't even have random thoughts, or any thoughts at all. They'd have only orders and combat programming to carry them out.

    A battle droid wouldn't know what suicide is. They wouldn't even understand the concept of life and death. They'd know only to blast designated targets until they stop functioning.

    They'd be specifically designed to avoid such things, because things like freedom, emotions and even the idea of suicide are completely illogical, unnecessarily sophisticated, expensive and counterproductive in a battle droid.

    It simply wouldn't happen. Ever.

    My toaster will never feel anything and neither would a B1-series battle droid.
     
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  19. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2004

    Not in the classic sense, but B-1 Droids like many other SW Droids are designed to react more or less independently to external stimulation, since the B-1 series is especially cheap they will often develop glitches in programming when confronted with tasks beyond their basic skill sets. As depressing as it sounds these guys are so badly trained and so overtaxed with their combat duty they seem to develop the equivalent of mental breakdowns.
     
  20. Lt.Cmdr.Thrawn

    Lt.Cmdr.Thrawn Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 23, 1999
    There's a passage in Douglas Hofstadter's book I Am A Strange Loop where he talks about a concept of "differently sized souls." (He's using "soul" as a term somewhat analogous to "mind" or "self," not in a supernatural way.) He illustrates it by speculating on the relative sizes of souls for a human, a dog, a cow, or a mosquito. Obviously a mosquito has some kind of system that drives it, but is its experience of life very similar to a human's? We don't know, but Hofstadter speculates that the mosquito's "mind," given the simplicity of its behaviors and the lack of a whole lot of brain matter it has, is probably as complicated as the thing in your toilet that stops the water running after you flush it. It "knows" when that's supposed to happen, and does it, but it's not very complicated or recursive. To my mind this would be similar to a battle droid, were I telling the story - however, in their first appearances in TPM they speak and behave more like humans (pushing each other around, talking to one another in full sentences, etc.). (Of course a human mind might not be qualitatively different than a mosquito's... but the quantitative difference is huge and that would seem to give us some different capabilities.) I think you're right that a battle droid programmed by someone who wanted efficiency and violence would have no reason to be given a similar mind to a human or a sentient droid. But they do behave like they have those things, even in the movies. I suspect this is because the idea simply hadn't been thought through very well, and/or the thinking was done based on faulty assumptions about (a) how human minds work and/or (b) how a computer could or could not develop into a human-scale mind (often this is 'by accident' in these kind of sci-fi stories).

    Of course, those are out-of-universe reasons.
     
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  21. CooperTFN

    CooperTFN TFN EU Staff Emeritus star 7 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1999
    You're not convincing anybody because you're still making an unjustified leap from "Force presence" to "personhood", at best based on the "crude matter" comment, which comes from an exiled wizard, not Cal Omas. I can see your position on the GFFA having an objective morality due to the Force, and I can see the droids not fitting into that, but I don't care whether the Force does or doesn't regard them as persons, I care whether the bureaucracy should--and nothing Yoda says should have any bearing on the bureaucracy. Also note that I don't even disagree with you necessarily that SW isn't positioned to address this well and that fans might prefer it didn't--but that's a wholly OOU perspective, and I'm not convinced we have to work backward from that.
     
  22. Mechalich

    Mechalich Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 2, 2010
    But how are these things separate?

    To mangle the Declaration of Independence for a moment: "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the Force with certain unalienable Rights"

    For most of human history moral authority, and civic authority as a result, has been considered to flow from the divine, thus the 'divine right of kings' and similar structures. The moral guidelines of a bureaucracy in Star Wars replace that with the Force as the sort of moral guidelines, though they have at times utilized other divine figures (the Pius Dea Era for example). This is not a modern, secular, humanist society - this is a spacefaring society fully capable of launching thousand year long religious crusades. You may believe that nothing Yoda says should have any bearing on the bureaucracy (and I would agree, I think separation between church and state is very important in government), but things that Yoda says manifestly do have a bearing on the bureaucracy, a great deal of bearing. We can't evaluate the culture of the GFFA in-universe and ignore their principle religious and moral framework at the same time.

    The simplest answer to why droids are treated the way they are by the Republic is that the bureaucracy has assimilated the Jedi viewpoint and has classified droids as objects rather than persons, and that it did so early on that it was probably before the Republic was founded (there were, after all, droids in DotJ).

    There is massive bureaucratic resistance to changing this viewpoint, because to do so would destroy the society of Star Wars. If keeping droids is keeping slaves, than the GFFA is even more dependent on slave labor than the antebellum South ever was.

    One of the central points I, and I believe Ulicus as well, have been trying to make is that if you believe the bureaucracy should treat droids as people then you have presented a view of the GFFA where society has been keeping a huge fraction of its citizens as slaves for 25,000 years. This runs so deeply counter to every other theme and message in Star Wars that advancing this argument is a condemnation of the setting itself.
     
  23. Robimus

    Robimus Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 6, 2007
    Differing canonical evidence always makes these conversations difficult though.

    The canon you quote can't explain I-5, but to me it goes beyond I-5 a fair way. C-3PO, R2, HK-47, IG-88, more - they are all just a little too independent for me to look at them and not ask the question.

    I mean it is certainly possible that C-3PO has been programmed to react the exact way living beings would to every concievable situation, an infinity of possible scenarios, but I think it is unlikely thats all there is to it.
     
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  24. Esg

    Esg Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    As smarmy as always
     
  25. MercenaryAce

    MercenaryAce Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 10, 2005
    That is kind of my point - none of these things are useful for battle droids, so obviously they were not programed in...which demonstrates that Star Wars droids have a clear ability to grow beyond their programing.

    And while it is a particularly clear example, it hardly the only one - heck, TCW had B1s acting like people on many occasions, at Lucas' own instance. Or how, in the Droids comics, it was not uncommon for even incredibly simple Class Five droids to express emotions and personal opinions about things.

    So what? The galaxy is hardly a utopia.

    Heck, after 25,000 years sexism is still widespread. Should we take that solid proof that women in the star wars galaxy are demonstratively inferior?

    Should we take away from the 25,000 years of humocentrcism that aliens are obviously inferior, or else the obviously enlightened galaxy would treat them better?

    Should we take the classism of the galaxy as proof that people born on the rim are lesser beings than the core worlders?

    And what then, should we conclude from the fact that the Republic has more or less allowed slavery to take place on its fringes since ending that slavery would require work - by the time TPM, Hutt space is an area of influence that is not technically independent from the Republic.


    Don't forget the Empire and all its atrocities rose to power to thunderous applause. The galaxy is not an enlightened wonderland, but a place with some deeply ingrained prejudices and serve flaws.

    And droids get the worst of it for several reasons - because they are made instead of born, because droid sentience is emigrant instead of ingrained, and most of all because recognizing droid rights would cause countless political and economic complications most people would rather ignore.

    Oh, and the Great Droid Rebellion was specifically said to have seriously damaged the droids rights movement.

    Though, again, the very existence of such a thing seems to be even more evidence for droid personhood. IG-88 and HK-1 formulated plans to take over the galaxy - mosquitoes, tidal waves, toasters, and everything that is not a person has no capability to do such a thing.