#hearing dr who fans so eager to hate on writers and stories and act like their opinion is gospel always annoys me

[being-of-rain]

Listening to a Dr Who podcast (not one anyone here has recommended to me, in fact I think I heard about it through a tumblr post,) and it's reminding me why I almost never listen to Dr Who podcasts or watch Dr Who youtube videos. It's because I just can't stand hearing so much objectively wrong information. Maybe it's due to Doctor Who being such a large and long-lived franchise, I know that I can misremember and get things muddled. But surely if you're publishing something you'd want to double check that you're not confidently emphasising incorrect facts about even basic things... and yet I feel like I see it with surprising frequency. It drives me crazy, please get a fact checker.

[cowardsanctuary]

i absolutely refuse to talk about this more than necessary but i just read. a discourse post that i find extremely Very Dumb. holy Shit.

so here is my only take. make with it what you want. steal my argument. yell. i don’t care. i’m not going to respond to anything unless it’s a question of clarification because i’m a dumbass who gets overworked by little things.

creating this w/love to @therealmephone4. i personally think opinions and kins should be respected, but there are lines to be crossed. i do not expect everyone that reads this to agree with me, but i hope that it enlightens some opinions that some of us hold to others who do not understand it/agree with it.

tl;dr bit of an analysis of object show ethics in relation to cobs, as well as a light touch on a cobs character analysis. i kind of go off at the end but eh

anywho with the logic of the show, it should be noted that any object can and often is treated as someone autonomous and capable of free thought. box is treated like his own person, despite being an entire box. however, there’s an apparent distinguishing between such—smaller devices, like Fan’s laptop and phone, are not treated like their own people. objects can accidentally be treated as non-sentient, but are often able to prove otherwise. (i.e. the trees in the 1st season of inanimate insanity.) everyone is quick to respond respectfully and accordingly.

to create such objects that are capable of fulfilling actions thoughtfully, capable of independent thought, and creating them with a resemblance of the sentient species of the world is basically creating life in inanimate insanity. cobs is not a parent in the biological sense, but he consciously and purposely created objects that fulfilled this purpose. not only that, but he already created handheld, non-living devices in the past.

creating mephones like 4 and 3gs and 4s were conscious choices. he’s continuing to make conscious choices. he knew he was creating what is essentially lifeforms, and he knowingly saw them through to completion and consciousness. he didn’t push them out of a fucking womb, but birth is birth. creation is creation. he had the choice to give them autonomy, gave it to them, and then when he decided it wasn’t convenient, he took it away from them despite them being capable of such. in inanimate insanity infinity, he regressed in allowing autonomy of the MePhones, but still created them to appear like such. the appearing MePhones were only limited to responding to commands, and remain creepily... idle and unresponsive otherwise. when they’ve outlived their relevance, not even their use, they are immediately replaced by a new one. that’s pretty. unsettling, as is.

think what you want about AI and AI rights, but basically this is a situation similar to (dread I say it) the game Detroit: Become Human. If an AI, even a “device” created for the servitude of their creators, is made to be close to and is capable of acting alike to their creators, even without traditional emotions, should they be given rights similar to humans and accommodating to the autonomy of the AI? honestly, i think the answer should be yes. if you make them like people, you treat them like people.

i think the actions that cobs is taking is inherently immoral. i’m not saying that cobs is obligated to make AI as close to people because he is capable of doing so, i’m saying that if he wanted to make advanced, sophisticated devices that are engineered to cater to the whims of people, he should design them that way. he’s giving Meeple products like MePad and MePhone5 and so on and so forth not just distinguishable personalities, but individual self-awareness and individual self-consciousness. what defines a person? what defines a person with autonomy? in the inanimate insanity world, the bar is low, and people are still expected to have common, human decency. the Meeple products were most likely created to emulate lifeforms. why? because cobs had the choice to make them not so.

because he made his AI’s so close to life, it is cobs’ responsibility as their lifegiver to give them a standard quality of life. it is an obligation for him to give them high qualities of life, by treating his creations as people, and by treating them as people capable of autonomy at the least. why? not only did he knowingly encode conscious, sophisticated thought into his creations, but he made it so that it is within the realm of possibility for them to act like people. The MePhones, therefore, should be considered as people. Along this line of reasoning, as their creator, mentor, and guardian, should be treating them as people.

Cobs has little respect for people in general. Cobs is not a nice person, or at least a pretty uncomfortable person to be around. He took his parents’ garage because it was relevant to the legacy of his company, presumably without their consent. That’s called stealing. Cobs was determined to take Fan’s egg, simply because it interested him. He’s also apparently self-absorbed, deigning to take them on a tour of his headquarters despite the contestants mentioning they needed to take care of something. He also, um, y’know, berated and yelled at MePhone4 doing things the latter enjoyed because the former was being inconvenienced (once because he was mad that MePhone4 didn’t do his chores, another time because MePhone4 walked in with a thing he wanted Cobs to see and Cobs was reviewing paperwork). When MePhone4 didn’t “work right,” his first instinct was not to work with MePhone4 personally in a way to hear out his creation’s concerns, but to replace him with someone new.

The Meeple products being Cobs’ children or not, he is still an immoral person. And with my later examples, it’s apparent that he is an abuser, even if you don’t consider the Meeple products to be his children. He pits his own creations against each other to get rid of what he views as his “mistakes.” When he isn’t happy with someone, he immediately looks for someone better while destroying the “failure,” either emotionally or physically. He has a golden standard for his inventions, and he doesn’t lose a wink of sleep over whether or not his creations are doing the same thing trying to meet those standards. He knows he appears as a monolith of great inventions and great ideas and he flaunts it, and attempts to use that to his advantage to get what he wants out of others. He’s self-absorbed and only looks for his own gain.

Isn’t this alarming? Isn’t this setting off some flags? It does for a good amount of people, which is why they feel the way they do. We think he’s an abuser because he abuses people. To me, and to most of us, that’s not something that can be easily forgiven—or forgiven at all. Cobs’ actions hurt others, and as far as we know, he doesn’t see it as an issue. He doesn’t try to change himself. He is an antagonistic force on the show, and can very much be the primary antagonist.

Now, this doesn’t mean liking Cobs is bad, for most cases. It’s completely okay to like a villainous character in terms of narrative, as they can provide an age-old sense of conflict in stories. Some villains can be absolutely heinous, and Cobs is no exception. He’s well-written... but none of that, absolutely nothing of his role in the show and how he acted is acceptable, nor should it be acceptable in real life. Fiction affects reality. God, does fiction affect reality. This doesn’t mean that liking Cobs will make you a bad person, though understandably it will make quite a few people wary of you. What I mean is that the appearance of a character like Cobs might resonate with people who’ve gone through abuse (not just child abuse, any kind tbfh). People like that are given venues to recognize what they’re going through and, with hope of the writers’ direction, realize that what they’re going through is not only bad but can be survived. Characters like Cobs gives folks a fictional outlet to deposit bottled hate towards. Even if a viewer hasn’t personally been abused or know someone that’s gone through abuse, they can still recognize his behavior as problematic and make use of that information as they please (make sure they don’t act like that, try to observe if people like that exist in their life or the lives of their friends, etc). He’s a villain, and people are allowed to despise villains and what they stand for.

So it’s understandable if people vocally hate Cobs with a passion. Yes, they are attacking the character. No, they are not attacking you, nor should you behave as such. Some of you relate to or kin Cobs in some fashion, and I can respect that hate like that makes you uncomfortable. But for the ones I’m aware of, it appears most of you are separating a good chunk (or all) of his actions from his identity. So if you're aware of Cobs’ harmful actions, why are you so quick to defend him? If someone is uncomfortable with your presence or preference of Cobs and they explain it’s because of his actions, why are you so eager to change their mind?

You can’t keep saying that it’s okay to hate a character while trying to convince someone otherwise.

You can’t keep saying your opinion should be respected while trying to change someone else’s opinion, when it’s obvious they won’t agree.

You can’t keep saying you don’t dismiss a character’s actions if the person you’re trying to convince would have to dismiss said character’s actions to like them.

You can’t keep saying you’re not trying to argue while trying to continue the argument.

Everyone believes they’re right, so they won’t listen if you say they’re wrong.

What you say is independent of what you do. What you do determines where your loyalties lie, whether you say you’re something or not. I don’t think it’s so bad that some folks get pissed at the existence of abusive people, because such people have been extremely detrimental to others, and especially to people I care about. If you’re so eager to prove Cobs isn’t abusive, to people who think he’s abusive no less, then I’d like you to ask yourself: why? How come you want your opinion to be respected when you think someone else’s opinion is wrong enough to prompt you to attempt to change it?

These are rhetorical questions, by the way. I don’t mind hearing other people’s takes, but I won’t listen to anyone who approaches me with the intent of conversion. You are permitted to read this, disagree, and go on your way. Live your life as you intend. Just remember that your actions are the greatest factor in determining how people act towards you. This may be your only warning.