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6:44pm June 3, 2014

andreashettle:

youneedacat:

patternsmaybe:

youneedacat:

thegreenanole:

patternsmaybe:

karalianne:

patternsmaybe:

chavisory:

patternsmaybe:

chavisory replied to your post“I really want to read the RPM books. Because it seems like she’s…”
I think it CAN be used in ways that are deeply sketchy. But yeah, it seems like…

That… sounds like Stockholm Syndrome to me.

I am not even sure what RPM is. I got added to a group for it and was told it was basically a new word/acronym for FC, and since in some circles I’m in the FC debate is raging again, I figured it was a new name to get away from the stigma of the FC label. So I didn’t think that much of it.

But I will investigate.

I hope it isn’t… ABA FC. That would be creepy.

And some folks of course thought/think that plain old FC users/believers are cult-like.

Ugh.

Anyway.

The right to communicate is paramount. Always.

It’s not really FC.

It’s a very specific thing, I know exactly what it is but there’s no real way to describe it.  It involves prompting someone to do stuff so rapidly that they can’t get distracted, and doing it over and over again until they can do things independently.  It also involves manipulating people along channels that can be very risky — it shares that in common with FC, but the channels of manipulation are slightly different.  I support the existence of both in principle given what they can do for people who have no other options at the moment, but they both rely at their core on things that pose a risk in terms of manipulation.

I think it’s also… Not just a risk. I think it’s done on purpose.

One good thing is that they use a timer so the person it’s being done to can predict when the session will end.

I’m not sure it’s always done on purpose, because I don’t think everyone involved in RPM or FC understands them to the same degree.  But I think anyone who does understand them to a sufficient degree, understands that cuing is a fundamental part of the process and therefore that influence is a fundamental part of the process, and that any ethical approach to doing any of these things involves managing how the cuing and influence work, not pretending they’ll go away.

Could there be, hypothetically, some way for a machine or robot to serve at least some of the same functions of RPM or FC?  And if so, would the person needing RPM or FC have some way to independently turn on the robot to start the process as and when they wish to, or would they still need for someone else to start the machine operating for the same reasons that they need RPM or FC in the first place?  Wondering if this (or some other solution I’m not thinking of) could be a way to put the techniques of RPM or FC more fully within the control of the person needing this kind of assistance in order to communicate so they wouldn’t be as vulnerable to control or other unwanted influence from others.  And if so how to get this designed and implemented.

I’ve talked to people at the MIT media lab about at least doing some things along these lines, and it’s incredibly technically difficult.

There are also people it would never work for, because the entire process of influence and cuing are an integral part of some people’s communication strategies.  As in, the two people come together and meet and what comes out of it is that person’s communication, and they could not do that without another person meeting them halfway.  And there are many other scenarios like that.

But even just for the mechanical stuff, I’ve asked, and it’s incredibly, incredibly difficult to build something that would be sensitive to the right things, while not being sensitive to the wrong things.

For instance, I wanted a device that would hold my arm back when it was trying to push forward on its own, but let me push forward when I intentionally meant to push forward, but then pull my arm back again once I was done so that I didn’t get stuck on the keyboard, and so that I could then move my arm side to side to pick out the keys.  This is a situation that happens when I’m severely shut down.  Normally it takes someone pulling back with all their might with two hands to get my arm away from the keyboard, and then I can move sideways, and then they can feel when I'm trying to hit a key and let go enough that I can hit the key, and then pull me back again.  But apparently even that relatively simple mechanical situation is too hard for most machines.  According to MIT people anyway.

And a lot of people who need FC or RPM need it in part because of the exact parts of it that can become invasive and intrusive and wrong.  That’s the tangle of the whole thing.