Precise difference between Social Stigmas: Subjugated vs. Valuable Property?

[David Johnston2]

I do consider it an overstatement. Based on the RAW, the difference in value is the product of considering a runaway not something that would be worth recovering for its value, but a threat to the society in question that must be dealt with by any and all means.

[Ketsuban]

Originally Posted by Langy

even a rock wouldn't be considered 'Subjugated' in modern society, since it'd be illegal to, say, go and spray paint a bunch of graffiti on a rock in front of someone's house.

That's an offence against the person whose house the rock is in front of, though, not the rock.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I do consider it an overstatement. Based on the RAW, the difference in value is the product of considering a runaway not something that would be worth recovering for its value, but a threat to the society in question that must be dealt with by any and all means.

Hmm. That is indeed a major cultural point about escaped bioroids in the Caliphate.

[David Johnston2]

Also of course valuable property is in fact considered sufficiently valuable that even its owner will not lightly destroy it, and those who do in defiance of good sense, custom and even the law will often be thought poorly of by others. Destroying another person's valuable property is regarded as a serious offense.

Whereas while subjugated persons may have some degree of value, they are inexpensive to replace and normally unprotected against any degree of abuse by its owner (whether that is a person or the state). Note that in the case where subjugated AI's somehow give their owner trouble, it isn't going to be difficult to replace it with an uncorrupted version, often under cover of warranty or service contract.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Ketsuban

That's an offence against the person whose house the rock is in front of, though, not the rock.

Yes, but that'd be so for any slave or property. If the question was whether only the true owner can do anything he wants to the property (or, alternatively, whether the offense is to the property or to the property owner), then sure, robots would be Subjugated - but that's not the case according to Kromm's earlier post. Instead, anyone can do anything they like to it - which means that it'd be perfectly legal for someone to come up to a robot with Social Stigma (Subjugated) and blow it up, reprogram it to follow them instead of its original master, etc., etc.

[Archangel Beth]

(Disclaimer -- I'm still quite a 3rd edition girl, and am rather tired. I don't know how coherent I'm being, or if I'm using shorthand that would require mind-reading to make sense of. >_> )

Concept of "un-valuable property"? Yes, if you do something that causes the item to become unsightly, then you'll have to pay for it, whether spray-painting the rock or staking out the easily-replaced-without-anyone-important-intervening bioroid serf on someone's lawn -- but if you stake out a stray bioroid serf on your own lawn (assuming you don't have a neighborhood lawn patrol), or out in the boonies, who's gonna care? Well, besides the local PETB, but they're all weird extremists, dontcha know. Same if you gather up rocks from the side of the road and paint them or chip them up for gravel.

Or mice, perhaps; if they get into someone's house, they generally get killed without fanfare. (But one does not want other people coming onto one's property uninvited to kill mice.)

Or maybe earthworms, which do have the useful property of aerating the soil. If someone steps on an earthworm on the street, who cares? If someone comes onto someone else's property to dig up/poison worms wholesale, there will be yelling and perhaps cop-calling. If someone grabs a worm off someone else's grass, it depends on how possessive the someone else is about their grass and anything in it.

(Other distinctions: Valuable Property may have effective status/rank over others -- noblewomen over servants; potentially, house slaves over field slaves; etc. Subjugated might have its own internal ranks (I believe this concept is in Social Engineering? Maybe?), but will never get power over anyone outside the Subjugated class.)

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Archangel Beth

Concept of "un-valuable property"? Yes, if you do something that causes the item to become unsightly, then you'll have to pay for it, whether spray-painting the rock or staking out the easily-replaced-without-anyone-important-intervening bioroid serf on someone's lawn -- but if you stake out a stray bioroid serf on your own lawn (assuming you don't have a neighborhood lawn patrol), or out in the boonies, who's gonna care? Well, besides the local PETB, but they're all weird extremists, dontcha know. Same if you gather up rocks from the side of the road and paint them or chip them up for gravel.

What you just described is Social Stigma (Valuable Property). It sounds like you're saying there is no difference between the two, at least in terms of what people can get away with doing.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Langy

What you just described is Social Stigma (Valuable Property). It sounds like you're saying there is no difference between the two, at least in terms of what people can get away with doing.

No, what she just described is Social Stigma (Cheap Property)

[Langy]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

No, what she just described is Social Stigma (Cheap Property)

There's no difference between what she described and it being valuable, though. In both cases, you're liable for damages to the property if you damage without the owner's consent. The law doesn't treat property that's 'cheap' all that differently from property that's 'valuable', and the fact that there are any controls at all is completely contrary to Kromm's post earlier when he specifically said that there were none.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Langy

There's no difference between what she described and it being valuable, though. In both cases, you're liable for damages to the property if you damage without the owner's consent. The law doesn't treat property that's 'cheap' all that differently from property that's 'valuable', .

Really? Spray some graffitti on the wall. Now take a sledge hammer to someone's car and pound it all over. Note how differently law and order reacts and how likely you are to be sued...and for how much.