In the wake of my 1/19 posting “Appreciate my dragon”, about 1/16, Appreciate a Dragon Day, this image posted yesterday on Facebook by Marina Muilwijk, from the For the Love of Dragons group, where it was posted by Yvette Marie:
MM’s comment:
MM: Predictions are that when I’m old, I’ll only have robots to look after me (because there won’t be enough people to do it). If that happens, I want one of them to be this dragon.
As someone starved of the face-to-face interactions that bring the supportive presence of other people — I recently went 12 days without having the chance to speak face-to-face with any other human being — I view the coming replacement of human caregivers by robotic substitutes with the deepest alarm. (Among other things, I realize that this shift will mean that people will have to rearrange their lives massively, to accommodate to the way the robotic substitutes function. Think, roughly, of the replacement of horses by motor vehicles.)
It’s worth asking why there won’t be enough people to serve as caregivers. That’s because these jobs are insecure, pay shit wages, and usually provide no benefits at all. And that‘s because as a society we don’t value caregivers — possibly because we view caregiving as the work of individual women, to be done without pay or recognition, simply as their expected role in society. And view old people requiring care as nothing but useless and very expensive drags on society; truly it would be better if we were dead.
But on a more pleasant note, there’s YM’s comment on the Dragon Muse image above:
One more for today. A favorite from a series I’m working on. I love putting dragons in weird places. This one, while it may be uncommon… doesn’t feel so weird. Would be nice if all our elderly had a watch-dragon to share tea with. I’ve created a whole series of these. 🙂 I love them.
Watch-dragons are fantasy creatures. But they are living, breathing, sentient creatures with affections and intentions. And they are on our side. Not like robots at all.
April 24, 2024 at 11:07 am |
Thank you so much for sharing my image in such a wonderful way. I just wrote another short story today about dementia and included a picture. It’s a long road and many of us are traveling it. <3
I'd love for you to come check it out. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100067706902265
April 24, 2024 at 12:25 pm |
I’ve e-mailed YT, who is not, of course, a reader of this blog and therefore doesn’t know about my 12 years caring for my man Jacques through (radiation-caused) dementia to his death in 2003. Over these years, dementia has become more and more emotionally charged for me.