babble: Are we not people without SIN?

FAQ | Forum Home

»	babble » right brain babble » humanities & science » Are we not people without SIN?

Email this thread to someone!

Author

Topic: Are we not people without SIN?

steffie
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3826

posted 23 June 2004 10:00 PM

I was chatting with a co-worker about RESPs and mentioned the government's initiative to contribute a percentage towards an individual's plan, an incentive I managed to get in on at the tail end of my son's payment period. The *sticker* with this offer was that in order to be accepted into this partnership with the federal government, I had to sign up my then 6 year old son with a Social Insurance Number.

The punchline of our conversation was something like, "well, I guess he isn't a real person unless he has a SIN." That statement made me think about how I feel about our society/culture's requirements of us to essentially dehumanize ourselves by adopting a numerical identity.

But somehow, participating in this election (by voting) releases me from this digital dungeon, if only for a moment. Sure, the man or woman who hands me the pristine ballot has my name and address on a sheet in front of him/her. But, that numerical identity does not attach itself to whatever box I mark my 'x' in.

When I vote, I am truly a free citizen

(Which brings me back to the quandry I am in about whether or not to vote "strategically.")

On a related note, while I was typing this I received a call from the NDP campaign, responding to me email volunteering my time. I'm gonna spread pamphlets!

From: What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow / Out of this stony rubbish? | Registered: Mar 2003 | IP: Logged

nonsuch
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1402

posted 24 June 2004 01:25 AM

I have an acquaintance who is not yet a citizen and longs for that feeling. Someone else i know was planning to skip the whole farce. Resolution: person B has agreed to cast their vote for Person A's choice (NDP).
Me, i'm voting Green, as usual. Maybe these 'wasted' votes will eventually count for something. I'm not holding my breath, but at least i'm not holding my nose, either.

From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001 | IP: Logged

Raos
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5702

posted 24 June 2004 02:17 AM

I can't stand strategic voting. If everybody who was 'strategically' voting for the liberals to keep the cons out of power voted for a 'fringe' party, that party would no longer be a fringe party. Parties have to start small and its 'strategic voting' that keeps them from gaining any power.

At the last candidate forum for my constituency, the NDP candidate kept saying to strategically vote NDP because we're ahead of the libs in my riding, and that's the only way to block the cons. It drove me mad!

From: Sweet home Alaberta | Registered: May 2004 | IP: Logged

Courage
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3980

posted 24 June 2004 04:09 PM

For those who enjoy theory, Giorgio Agamben approaches these questions of nativity and citizenship from a radically new angle in some of the essays in Means Without End. In particular, the essays "Form-of-Life", "What is a People", and "What is a Camp" are relevent, I think.

From: Earth | Registered: Apr 2003 | IP: Logged

steffie
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3826

posted 24 June 2004 09:24 PM

I think I've decided to donate my $1.75 to the NDP. No nose-holdng here.

From: What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow / Out of this stony rubbish? | Registered: Mar 2003 | IP: Logged

nonsuch
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1402

posted 24 June 2004 10:00 PM

Wouldn't the pundits be up shit creek if everyone just went with their primary instinct and voted unpredictably?

From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001 | IP: Logged

Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560

posted 24 June 2004 10:05 PM

I am a person without SIN.

From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001 | IP: Logged

'lance
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1064

posted 24 June 2004 10:07 PM

Well then, watch where you huck them stones, is all I got to say.

From: that enchanted place on the top of the Forest | Registered: Jul 2001 | IP: Logged

Kevin
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3645

posted 24 June 2004 10:59 PM

Wow that was stupid of me, reading the title and trying to be funny.

Oh well - I was always under the impression that you didn't need a SIN until you were 15 and wanted to work.

[ 24 June 2004: Message edited by: Kevin Harding ]

From: Simon Fraser University | Registered: Jan 2003 | IP: Logged

DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490

posted 25 June 2004 01:26 AM

I've been in SIN since I was 16.

From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001 | IP: Logged

Agent 204
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4668

posted 26 June 2004 09:44 AM

quote:
Originally posted by steffie_slick:

That statement made me think about how I feel about our society/culture's requirements of us to essentially dehumanize ourselves by adopting a numerical identity.

It's funny how we feel more human if identified by a string of characters than by a series of digits. I wonder why that is?

From: home of the Guess Who | Registered: Nov 2003 | IP: Logged

steffie
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3826

posted 26 June 2004 09:53 AM

Probably because my "string of characters" indicates the lineage from whence I came. My "name" reminds me of all other slicks who came before me. (A string of "characters" themselves)

[ 26 June 2004: Message edited by: steffie_slick ]

From: What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow / Out of this stony rubbish? | Registered: Mar 2003 | IP: Logged

Agent 204
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4668

posted 26 June 2004 07:38 PM

That's probably part of it, though I suspect there may be more to it than that. I was pondering this while delivering campaign literature today, and found myself thinking that maybe it is connected with the fact that many people are downright phobic about anything mathematical. I wonder if it has something to do with early Christianity. After all, the best mathematicians of the age were Greeks and Muslims- i.e. evil infidels. And many pagan religions believed in numerology; I heard once that 666 was chosen as the number of the beast because one infidel sect considered it to be a lucky number. So perhaps manipulation of numbers became associated with evil, and this association was seared into Western culture.

It would be interesting to know if math-phobia is more prevalant among Westerners than in other cultures; if it is, it would give support to this hypothesis.

From: home of the Guess Who | Registered: Nov 2003 | IP: Logged

steffie
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3826

posted 26 June 2004 07:49 PM

I hate math because I am horrible at it. I envy people who crunch numbers with ease. I blame it on the "wiring" in my head... probably has some relation to do with the fact that no matter how hard I try, I cannot play Euchre. Just can't get it.

From: What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow / Out of this stony rubbish? | Registered: Mar 2003 | IP: Logged

N.Beltov
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4140

posted 26 June 2004 08:00 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Mike Keenan:
It's funny how we feel more human if identified by a string of characters than by a series of digits. I wonder why that is?

In what is perhaps the greatest anti-Utopian novel of them all, Eugene Zamyatin, author of We wrote about a society in which its members were either consonants (males) or vowels (females). The protagonist, D-some_number, was involved with O-something and I-something_else, and it was all very alphanumeric. OOOooo000!

Perhaps Zamyatin knew why we prefer letters. Then again, it's easy to understand why humans would prefer quality to quantity. The moment of change dazzles us more than the journey to that change. razzle. dazzle. razzle-dazzle.

[ 26 June 2004: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003 | IP: Logged

'lance
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1064

posted 26 June 2004 08:05 PM

quote:
The protagonist, D-some_number, was involved with O-something and I-something_else, and it was all very alphaneumeric.

I miss MainFrame.

In other numeric news, The Nation recently reported that during the Cold War, the SooperDooperUltraSekrit Code which would have been needed to launch Minuteman nuclear missiles was... 00000000.

From: that enchanted place on the top of the Forest | Registered: Jul 2001 | IP: Logged

N.Beltov
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4140

posted 26 June 2004 08:15 PM

In addition to 00000000 as an instruction, wouldn't there also have to be the "off" instruction, or 00000001?

[Sidebar: Going by this reasoning, the "fuck off" instruction would be spelled as -00000001.

And we're merrily on our way to a language. ]

From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003 | IP: Logged

'lance
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1064

posted 26 June 2004 08:20 PM

Something tells me that with a nuclear-weapons system, once you've given it the "on" instruction, "off" will take care of itself in due course.

From: that enchanted place on the top of the Forest | Registered: Jul 2001 | IP: Logged

nonsuch
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1402

posted 27 June 2004 06:59 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Mike Keenan:
It's funny how we feel more human if identified by a string of characters than by a series of digits. I wonder why that is?

It's mostly because we can't make a string of numbers rhyme. Very difficult to sing.
Seriously, there is a conceptual cut-off between words and numbers. Whatever symbols have been invented to represent speech can always be translated back into speech - a medium we can hold in our heads, and pass on from one generation to another, for a long time. Numbers can't be translated at all: that makes mathematics a universal language, but one that is accessible only to a few in each generation, not communicable to all.
Therefore, most people prefer their identity recorded in a speakable medium, rather encoded in the language of machines and of the few humans who can understand it.

From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001 | IP: Logged

All times are Pacific Time

Hop To: