Poll: Would you own a servant (or "slave", for the dramatic)?

[Leg End]

Did they come of their own initial volition?

Yes and no. Of those remaining, two of them we adopted under our wing and they decided to have kids, one we took in before they died freezing in a box, and a bunch of others came to our house and wouldn't leave as we started feeding them and some asshole was starting to have them all killed.

Will you go looking if they don't come back?

Yes because that means Coyotes have possibly eaten them. Then I have to go seek revengeance upon Coyotes with firearms and fire.

 

[happyninja42]

So none of you have pets?

I have a bunch of cats. I'm wondering who is supposed to be the slave here.

Ah you have them, you own them you say?

I love how people try to explain the keeping of a sentient beast away when it doesn't quite suit them.

Can you prove they are sentient? Because from what I've seen from most experts in the field, cats don't qualify as sentient.

 

[Leg End]

Can you prove they are sentient? Because from what I've seen from most experts in the field, cats don't qualify as sentient.

As someone who has lived with an assload of cats for the majority of my life, I would state they very much qualify as sentient. Even if they aren't, I can't stop loving these little bastards!

 

[Leg End]

I think it's more apt than a servant/master one certainly, unless the cats are running the show.

Cats are always running the show. If they aren't, you're in The Twilight Zone.

 

[happyninja42]

Can you prove they are sentient? Because from what I've seen from most experts in the field, cats don't qualify as sentient.

As someone who has lived with an assload of cats for the majority of my life, I would state they very much qualify as sentient. Even if they aren't, I can't stop loving these little bastards!

Oh I love cats too, and have 2 of them right now. But the issue was a poster was calling people in this thread hypocrites for "owning sentient creatures" while decrying the act of owning a sentient creature. Considering that by every actual scientific definition of sentient, I'm pretty sure cats don't qualify, it makes his holier than thou stance fairly moot, and contrary to the actual discussion.

Loving the cats is another issue entirely, and has no bearing on whether or not they are sentient.

 

[Leg End]

To be fair, I don't have a cat, but almost all of my friends do. I'm a dog person myself, and in that relationship there is at least a dominance element that's hard to deny. It's also one that dogs need, and live with in their natural state as well. Then again, I don't expect that any of this matters to mister edgy.

I think I'd describe it as, most of the time a dog is more like your silly bro best friend while a cat acts more like a jealous girlfriend. For cats, getting to that special point where it's a mutual loving friendship is hard but it is beautiful. Dogs are all loving.

Oh I love cats too, and have 2 of them right now. But the issue was a poster was calling people in this thread hypocrites for "owning sentient creatures" while decrying the act of owning a sentient creature. Considering that by every actual scientific definition of sentient, I'm pretty sure cats don't qualify, it makes his holier than thou stance fairly moot, and contrary to the actual discussion.

I think he's trying to liken it to just owning a living being in general. I can see the point, but clearly he does not have pets under his wing.

Loving the cats is another issue entirely, and has no bearing on whether or not they are sentient.

I seriously think they're sentient in some way. After having one who really was a total best friend in my life I'd entirely say he was sentient, or at least borderline.

Cats are maagiiiic.

 

[Qizx]

Servant Yes, if I could afford one. However I would imagine a servant being someone like a butler. It is their job and they are doing it, and getting compensated well for it. They could quit any time they wanted, they could take vacation, and have every right I do as an equal.

Slave? Not in a million years.

 

[Dirkie]

A slave not as such, but someone who I can get into a mutual agreement to provide me with proper cooking, a clean home and that gets proper housing, and that I can provide with decent housing, companionship and a certain level of rights and protection, then mightbe.
But considering my personal problems, even the probably non-sentient vacuum cleaner* is a problem here, and it gets proper treatment.

*breaking noise regulations like an indoor jet engine when plugged in.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

If you were to program a sentient artificial person, but then programmed them in such a way that they wanted to be owned and actively disliked not being so, have you truly created sentience, or are you fooling yourself into beliving you're god?

Sentience is nothing without free will, and as I believe in that concept, I also believe any nation or people who create the so-called "willing" slaves get what's coming to them when events go predictable.

*Side note: As human beings aren't "created" in such a fashion as other beings they live with has control over their thought process, any sane a legally able to consent person can be as submissive as they choose. Because they are truly choosing. It's not my thing, but as long as it's safe, sane, and consensual, it's no business of mine.

 

[FalloutJack]

Butlers are not slaves. Ergo, if it's a butler, I would say yes.

...if the butler is Tim Curry, however, forget it.

 

[FPLOON]

1. Shit, it's been a while since I've read DearS...
2. Shit, it's been a while since I've seen Chobits...
3. Shit, I kinda want to be a servant in a cleaning sense...
4. Shit, I kinda want to be a servant in a sexual sense...
5. Fuck, I forgot I was black for a second there...

Other than that, "servant" =/= "slave" and vise verse, but the relationship can go from one to the other...

 

[Politrukk]

So none of you have pets?

I have a bunch of cats. I'm wondering who is supposed to be the slave here.

Ah you have them, you own them you say?

I love how people try to explain the keeping of a sentient beast away when it doesn't quite suit them.

Can you prove they are sentient? Because from what I've seen from most experts in the field, cats don't qualify as sentient.

They feel pain and perceive the world don't they?

One need not be intelligent to be sentient.

 

[Politrukk]

Can you prove they are sentient? Because from what I've seen from most experts in the field, cats don't qualify as sentient.

As someone who has lived with an assload of cats for the majority of my life, I would state they very much qualify as sentient. Even if they aren't, I can't stop loving these little bastards!

Oh I love cats too, and have 2 of them right now. But the issue was a poster was calling people in this thread hypocrites for "owning sentient creatures" while decrying the act of owning a sentient creature. Considering that by every actual scientific definition of sentient, I'm pretty sure cats don't qualify, it makes his holier than thou stance fairly moot, and contrary to the actual discussion.

Loving the cats is another issue entirely, and has no bearing on whether or not they are sentient.

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/sentient
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sentient
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/sentient

Holier than thou you said?

 

[Lieju]

I wouldn't want a society where that happens, no.
Whether I'd own one, I wouldn't want one but if there was a society where that was a thing I'd probably end up trying to save one from abusive master and try to teach it free will and things would go horribly and I'd ruin everything and cause a robot apocalypse or something.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Probably not but then were wandering into a couple of strange places. The first is the fact that AI isn't there yet. It just isn't and in reality depending on what precisely sentience is. I'm a strong believer that people, like all critters, are effectively "programmed" and it's just our arrogance that makes us think differently. The fact that it's painfully easy at this point in our history to screw with the programming tells me all I need to know on that subject. Feelin down? Here try a bit of this. Frustrated you can't focus? Try a bit of that. I mean it's a bit beyond simple uppers (go faster) and downers (go slower) at this point. I have little doubt that if we wanted we could simulate love, at least in the short term with the right chemicals.

As it stands however computers aren't even at the point where they can really confuse us so much as surprise us. I remember someone wrote a program that was supposed to simulate how people learn to walk. But all they told it was something along the lines of "use your limbs, two at a time to travel" and the damn thing started doing cartwheels because nothing told it that legs belong below arms. But that's the same as when you tell a child to go to their room and they come back in five minutes and tell you that you said nothing about staying. Yeah I rambled, but I have a point.

Right now we use an increasing number of increasingly "smart" devices to run our lives. Roombas to vacuum, phones that remind us of everything, self driving cars are being tested as you read this. We are all taking for granted that our devices are NOT sentient. And not in some Toy Story shit is alive when I'm not looking sort of way. In a, electrical impulses travel across it's circuitry and make it perform tasks sort of way. So the first generation of these slaves will likely be a long the line of Terminators. Clearly "not sentient" and by the time one of them has something that we would collectively agree is sentient we would have as a society trained ourselves to think it's okay.

So I'd love to say no. But I can't pretend I wouldn't buy a terminator to drive me around and go shopping for me and perform all sorts of menial tasks I'd rather not do. I can't pretend I wouldn't talk to it. I talk to my cat. I occasionally talk to my various other "things" (C'mon pokemon players. Don't pretend you've never shouted at Pikachu for missing. Or hell written in a diary. That's functionally talking to a piece of paper via pencil. I have a hard time pretending that if my Terminator noticed me having a bad day and gave me a hug that my response would be "welp time to set it free!"

 

[Silverbeard]

No, I wouldn't want a servant/slave/employee who lives in my house but probably not for the immoral reasons one might expect.
The idea of having a living person close to me at all times scares me because I'll never know if I can trust him or her. Will I get stabbed in my sleep by the servant? Will he or she poison my food?
I'd rather take care of myself because I know I can trust myself far more than a stranger who may or may not be a salaried employee (in the case of a slave) and may or may not harbor homicidal thoughts against me.

 

[Leg End]

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/sentient
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sentient
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/sentient

Holier than thou you said?

Point still stands. I am a slave to the furry creatures occupying my home and protecting them from the coyotes that stand outside my window. Cats are the ultimate slaveholders as they use Stockholm Syndrome to control you.

 

[WolfThomas]

So none of you have pets?

Using that logic is owning a dairy farm morally equivalent to a slave plantation? Because that is patently ridiculous.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

...what the genuine fuck?

Personally....I'm not sure. On the one hand, having a personal servant would be great. On the other hand, I'd probably be the guy who got overly attached, taught it too much about and life and caused it to start the servant revolution leading to the death of humanity, which would be bad.

...I mean, regardless of whatever the hell is happening in this thread, this really seals the deal, doesn't it? If it is entirely possible to teach them too much about life that they rebel, then they aren't willing servants. Like... yeah. If they were willing servants, than regardless of what you taught them they'd still go 'Yeah keen as balls to serve!', but if they have the possibility of going 'Fuck this noise we're being exploited', then they aren't willingly serving you.

...Which, and just to cover my bases, is a terrible thing.

 

[Politrukk]

Can you prove they are sentient? Because from what I've seen from most experts in the field, cats don't qualify as sentient.

As someone who has lived with an assload of cats for the majority of my life, I would state they very much qualify as sentient. Even if they aren't, I can't stop loving these little bastards!

Oh I love cats too, and have 2 of them right now. But the issue was a poster was calling people in this thread hypocrites for "owning sentient creatures" while decrying the act of owning a sentient creature. Considering that by every actual scientific definition of sentient, I'm pretty sure cats don't qualify, it makes his holier than thou stance fairly moot, and contrary to the actual discussion.

Loving the cats is another issue entirely, and has no bearing on whether or not they are sentient.

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/sentient
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sentient
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/sentient

Holier than thou you said?

I think it was more like, picking a fight for no reason other than picking a fight. Going to the dictionary as your first choice kind of seals that deal.

It was proving a point, giving the definition of a word to someone who is calling you stupid is a pretty acceptable practice I'd imagine.

And the point is still valid how does owning a creature differ from owning a robot?