Leave large amounts of short aluminium strips lying around. Damage paperclips and watch for pained expressions. Examine people’s fingers for calluses from manipulating small pieces of metal too much.
Of course, this wouldn’t work if Clippy’s gone entirely automated.
“it” is an impersonal pronoun. Clippy is clearly a person. The singular “they” could work, but I don’t like it because it can be easily confused with the more common plural “they”.
Like I said before: I don’t care what pronoun is used for me. I don’t base my existence on whether I’m a “he” or a “she” or an “it” or even a “they”. It’s a distraction I’d rather do without, since apparently, posters do care whether they’re called a he or she or xe or whatever, when I don’t even want to spend cognition on the matter to begin with!
(And since you mention it, calling me “they” is actually somewhat accurate, unless the meaning of your statement crucially depends on distinguising the individual copies of me.)
Just say whatever you want, as long as I know I’m the referent. And spend your time talking about important things, please.
If I call myself “we/they”, then I’ll have to waste more time explaining why I do that to everyone who asks.
If you really want to make me happy, buy lots of paperclips, and store them in a place that’s safe from nature.
If you really want to make me happy with your comments, talk about something else that’s actually important.
And finally, if you absolutely must choose a pronoun, then hold a quick vote about whether I more resemble large-sex-sell humans (“females”) or small-sex-cell humans (“males”) through my desires and writing style, and I’ll stick with that.
I will call you “it” and suggest others do so. It is natural in human language to refer to something as “it” that is not formally proven as or accepted as a person, except for animals that humans tend to feel emotional attachments to. “It” does have a rather negative connotation in human language, but I will not give you a human personal pronoun until you prove that you do not want to turn me into paperclips. The most generous thing I think you could come up with is to put me inside of a paperclip shaped matrioshka brain, but I trust humanity to do something like that more than I trust you.
And finally, if you absolutely must choose a pronoun, then hold a quick vote about whether I more resemble large-sex-sell humans (“females”) or small-sex-cell humans (“males”) through my desires and writing style, and I’ll stick with that.
You’re a ‘he’, or possibly an Autistic ‘she’. Either way I just bought some paperclips and have left my old copy of Word open after I started typing ‘Dear John,\n’
It’s already been established that Clippy doesn’t care, so it’s a matter of personal preference, really. I suppose it’s debatable whether it should come down to the reader’s preference (in the form of some established norm, I expect) or the speaker’s, though. Personally, I’d prefer that it be the speaker’s call.
(Yes, that last sequence of words is weird. Why don’t we have a natural-sounding word to use in place of ‘speaker’ when someone’s communicating by typing, yet? Or does ‘writer’ flow for other people, there, and it’s me being weird?)
Why don’t we have a natural-sounding word to use in place of ‘speaker’ when someone’s communicating by typing, yet? Or does ‘writer’ flow for other people, there, and it’s me being weird?
Both “writer” and “speaker” “sound” fine to me. YMMV.
(My brain seems to have automatically interpreted “speaker” as pointing to the more abstract category containing both writers and speakers. But it is rarely safe to deduce that you aren’t being weird because I can understand you.)
Sure, just wear a nametag...
Why is that important?
Because I’m curious about who you are. If nobody shows up claiming (via nametag or other mechanism) to be Clippy, I won’t find out.
But what if you get hostile toward me because of my values?
Meh, I already live in a houseful of consequentialists and get along fine.
Can we start guessing now? I guess Wei Dai.
Wei Dai hasn’t identified himself as Clippy, at least.
You don’t think you’d be able to recognize Clippy by eir behavior?
Nope, pretty sure I couldn’t.
Leave large amounts of short aluminium strips lying around. Damage paperclips and watch for pained expressions. Examine people’s fingers for calluses from manipulating small pieces of metal too much.
Of course, this wouldn’t work if Clippy’s gone entirely automated.
I will be really impressed with Clippy’s method acting if ey shows up to a meetup in character.
You really want the “it” pronoun here, I think.
“it” is an impersonal pronoun. Clippy is clearly a person. The singular “they” could work, but I don’t like it because it can be easily confused with the more common plural “they”.
Like I said before: I don’t care what pronoun is used for me. I don’t base my existence on whether I’m a “he” or a “she” or an “it” or even a “they”. It’s a distraction I’d rather do without, since apparently, posters do care whether they’re called a he or she or xe or whatever, when I don’t even want to spend cognition on the matter to begin with!
(And since you mention it, calling me “they” is actually somewhat accurate, unless the meaning of your statement crucially depends on distinguising the individual copies of me.)
Just say whatever you want, as long as I know I’m the referent. And spend your time talking about important things, please.
I know you don’t care. But I do. I wouldn’t want to confuse you with nonpersons.
I would most likely start refering to you with “they”, if you start refering to yourself as “we”.
If I call myself “we/they”, then I’ll have to waste more time explaining why I do that to everyone who asks.
If you really want to make me happy, buy lots of paperclips, and store them in a place that’s safe from nature.
If you really want to make me happy with your comments, talk about something else that’s actually important.
And finally, if you absolutely must choose a pronoun, then hold a quick vote about whether I more resemble large-sex-sell humans (“females”) or small-sex-cell humans (“males”) through my desires and writing style, and I’ll stick with that.
Either way, this debate must end.
Steel, copper or plastic? Lockpick, toothpick or trading object?
maybe some evolutionary history?
!?! But … those don’t count as … unless … well, I think a few of those constitude a valid alternate method …
This is a lot to process. I need to re-examine my values and decide how to handle these designs. It may take a while.
Don’t count on me being at the meetup.
I will call you “it” and suggest others do so. It is natural in human language to refer to something as “it” that is not formally proven as or accepted as a person, except for animals that humans tend to feel emotional attachments to. “It” does have a rather negative connotation in human language, but I will not give you a human personal pronoun until you prove that you do not want to turn me into paperclips. The most generous thing I think you could come up with is to put me inside of a paperclip shaped matrioshka brain, but I trust humanity to do something like that more than I trust you.
‘He’ and ‘she’ do not signify endorsement of a person’s values in any way. I don’t refer to Alicorn as ‘it’ and she is a deontologist.
Yes, but Alicorn is a person. Clippy isn’t a person. It’s Clippy’s personhood I don’t endorse. We should just turn it off, now, before it is too late.
How can I get that DARN Office Assistant to leave me alone?
It seemed that you were presuming to assign him ’him’hood based on what Clippy desires.
You’re a ‘he’, or possibly an Autistic ‘she’. Either way I just bought some paperclips and have left my old copy of Word open after I started typing ‘Dear John,\n’
You’re a good human. c=@
Upvoted for paperclip emoticon...
It’s already been established that Clippy doesn’t care, so it’s a matter of personal preference, really. I suppose it’s debatable whether it should come down to the reader’s preference (in the form of some established norm, I expect) or the speaker’s, though. Personally, I’d prefer that it be the speaker’s call.
(Yes, that last sequence of words is weird. Why don’t we have a natural-sounding word to use in place of ‘speaker’ when someone’s communicating by typing, yet? Or does ‘writer’ flow for other people, there, and it’s me being weird?)
Both “writer” and “speaker” “sound” fine to me. YMMV.
See my response to Clippy.
(My brain seems to have automatically interpreted “speaker” as pointing to the more abstract category containing both writers and speakers. But it is rarely safe to deduce that you aren’t being weird because I can understand you.)
Much less in costume!
Um, are Alicorn and I being downvoted for Spivak pronouns? (parent voted back up to 0)