the reason “robot racism” is often a really stupid metaphor is the same reason that like. discrimination against demons or vampires or whatever doesn’t work, is because there’s often a pretty justified reasons humans are scared of vampires or robots or whatever, in a way that doesn’t apply to real life minorities, like a fantasy author will be like “the reason vampires are discriminated against is because most of them and kill and eat people for fun and pleasure, and so humans respond by trying to kill them, isn’t that so sad” and like no that’s a perfectly fine reason to not trust vampires i think.
sci-fi writers will be like “every robot on earth randomly decided to kill all humans for no real reason, and now people don’t trust robots, and this is a metaphor for racism” and like no you just wrote a metaphor for white people actually.
Sometimes you have to take a step back and remember that same-sex marriage has only been legal in America for ten years.
I know that it seems like it’s been this way forever, but when they were leaving it up to the states and Indiana legalized it for a whole 24 hours before Mike Pence got wise to it- me and a bunch of strangers ran around the city hall block with a rainbow flag because we were so happy. People were getting married on the spot because they’d been waiting so long and we didn’t know if the ruling was going to stick.
It’s wild to think about how much has changed just in my lifetime. Sodomy was a crime until 2003. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was both enacted and repealed in my life.
The processes are slower than we want, but in retrospect- a lot has changed since the 90s.
It’s very endearing to me how many people are willing to keep an eye on a video feed so they can push a button and let a fish in the Netherlands get to the other side of a dam.
It is genuinely baffling to me, in a very kind and positive way, especially coupled with the local news continually going several shades of ‘wtf, this thing is a roaring success again and we don’t quite get why’. They’ve already quadrupled their capacity for simultaneous clicks and it’s still nowhere near enough and there’s just… Bewilderment.
I think people want to help the environment in small but tangible ways, which is hard right now because of.. well… because of The Horrors. And being able to say 'wow! I helped this creature cross a dam’ makes you feel good.
I also think that most people can relate to a small, helpless creature trying to get from one place to another and there’s a FUCKIN WALL in the way.
But to come back to point 1- Citizen Science fills a hole in the soul that wanted to go out on adventures and discover things when we were younger, but the study of it was hard or we didn’t have the money or our schools were garbage. But you don’t have to have a degree to do things like… press a button or download and use an app, or count or transcribe notes.
Anyways- here’s some Citizen Science links if the Fish Doorbell makes you feel happy and you yearn for more ways to help scientists do stuff:
