A Strictly Hypothetical Scenario...

Many of you, if not most, have seen my doodles of personified inanimate objects. The first in line was a little tangerine with a contagious smile.

Upon its great approval by my fellow classmates (:D) I created similar creations. These included a pear, tomato, kiwi, orange, mango, and coconut (kokonawt). But I went further, I drew an angry bucket, a Slurpee cup with brain-freeze, and an ecstatic rice bowl. I plan to continue this trend, but meanwhile, it set me thinking: What If we lived in a world, where everything was personified, where every object had the capabilities of emotion and thought?! Now under this assumption, a number of things would occur:

• You would no longer have any privacy. People would just have to get used to trusting the telephone booth not to look while you quickly change into a superhero outfit and fly off to save the world..
• Different "things" would have different ranges of emotion based on their stereotypical niche. In other words, a rock, which to most people, [with the exception of geologist, who themselves can be very boring] would consequently have a boring personality. This, in turn, would serve as a basis for some social stratification.
• The common expression "sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me" will have a somewhat new meaning..
• Rocks, in addition to being boring, can also be excessively violent.
• Transportation vehicles (i.e cars, buses, planes) would no longer need drivers. This can be good or bad. If your car is a bad driver, and has frequent road rage, you MIGHT just want to get another car.

Then the question occurs; would buying and selling be acceptable? Wouldn't owning possessions be a form of slavery, if those possessions were living? This would not last very long, because an army of sticks, stones, cellphones, computers, and just about everything else could overpower the human population that owns them. Hence, arguably the most significant difference would be that we would either have no concept of possession WHATSOEVER, (contrary to hunter gatherer people who still possess tools and various items), or all possession would be mutual. Personally I think that the latter is more likely, because mutual possession exists even in our current world. One could say, "she/he's mine" or "I'm yours" or even on candy hearts when it says BE MINE. This context applies mainly to relationships in our society. However, because most people wouldn't be looking for a relationship with a stapler, there would be a different form of mutual possession. Just like the common example found in popular media with one being able to say "That's my dog, Fido" and the dog being able to say "That's my human, John."

Another thing to point out is that currently factories create products, which would grant the humans the control over the population size of many objects, a power that could easily be abused. Just as easily, those objects could start manufacturing either themselves, or other objects withing physical ability. What I mean by this, is that a computer could draw the plans for a small toy, a laser could melt down the plastic, which would re-solidify in a mold. Thus the computer, laser, and mold would have power of the small plastic toy population.

In summary, although this hypothetical universe would seem cool, amazing, and frungapolous, there would be unethical amounts of undying social stratification. I don't know what all of you would learn from this, but I learned that I should stick to my doodles and hope that my pencil doesn't mind.