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Don't anthropomorphize computers
Nov. 17th, 2008 06:54 pmThey hate that.
I read a lot of children's books to Elizabeth, and I always wonder about the varied scales of animal anthropomorphizing they contain. In Franklin's Pet Problem the titular turtle queries his friends Bear, Goose and Beaver as to whether he should have a dog, cat, bird, bunny or fish as a pet. How come some of these animals merit human characteristics and others are relagated to pet status? And this happens all the time!
This completely skips all the books where the animals (usually mice) living near humans use thread spools as tables and tea bags as throw pillows and have little houses inside people's walls. I am gathering that if humans ever did learn that some other animal was tool using at that level we would freak out beyond all measure. But in the realm of children's books this is commonplace. I know it's just one of those things that we have to accept for the myth part of the story, but eventually it gets to me, especially in books like Mary and the Mouse, the Mouse and Mary, where as Mary goes off to Brown in the 1960s to become a hippy peace freak Mouse is also going off to college (Gouda U) to become...a hippy peace freak.
One reason why I always liked the book Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH because the book is pretty clear on this - the rats have human-like tool use because they're Genetically Modified MUTANT FREAKS!
And I respect that.
I read a lot of children's books to Elizabeth, and I always wonder about the varied scales of animal anthropomorphizing they contain. In Franklin's Pet Problem the titular turtle queries his friends Bear, Goose and Beaver as to whether he should have a dog, cat, bird, bunny or fish as a pet. How come some of these animals merit human characteristics and others are relagated to pet status? And this happens all the time!
This completely skips all the books where the animals (usually mice) living near humans use thread spools as tables and tea bags as throw pillows and have little houses inside people's walls. I am gathering that if humans ever did learn that some other animal was tool using at that level we would freak out beyond all measure. But in the realm of children's books this is commonplace. I know it's just one of those things that we have to accept for the myth part of the story, but eventually it gets to me, especially in books like Mary and the Mouse, the Mouse and Mary, where as Mary goes off to Brown in the 1960s to become a hippy peace freak Mouse is also going off to college (Gouda U) to become...a hippy peace freak.
One reason why I always liked the book Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH because the book is pretty clear on this - the rats have human-like tool use because they're Genetically Modified MUTANT FREAKS!
And I respect that.
