[wordupmaking]

> In the same way that I'm okay with abortion, I'm okay with this - your dependence on someone or something else is a defining factor of your rights as an individual.

Is there a magical exception for disabled or sick people? And are those also not real? I ask because you start out with something about copying, but end up with

> If you depend on a machine that someone else is free to control

Which is an entirely different thing and just a way to say might is right, with qualifiers that mean nothing. Someone's foot is also a bio machine, if your life depends on them not murdering you with it, you might as well skip to taking their orders, no? If not, what's the magical exception?

I'd say individual rights are based on things like empathy and concepts of fairness. If they were just based on mere poopy power they would serve no purpose.. we had and have that already.

[problems]

Disabled or sick people are not fully dependent on a machine for their existence. They exist as separate entities, not just on a machine. They may need a machine to support their life, but they can own that machine, they do not exist solely inside of it. That's a major difference.

[wordupmaking]

What's "fully dependent"? If A going away makes B go away, I'd say that's pretty dependent. Shifting goal posts from that to "major difference" is silly, you could argue for anything that way, there are major differences even between individual people, even between individual mass produced screws, it's just a matter of resolution.

Anyway, nothing in the universe is separate from anything else in it, and even if it wasn't, and entitites (supposedly) being separate from another and "just on a machine" are apples and oranges, not opposites. This doesn't seem very thought through.

> they can own that machine

People owned and still do own other people. Why should people not be disallowed from owning sentient machines?

[problems]

But this isn't a case of A going away making B go away, it's a case of A being a part of B. That's not a shifted goal post. That's the simplest understanding of what I said that's possible and I have no interest in arguing with someone simply looking to misconstrue my words. I don't understand how you can't tell the difference between separate entities, using vs existing only on a machine - and I can only think you're trying to force me into some sort of weird philosophical argument about how everything is connected that I'm really not interested in having. Machines are not and cannot ever be sentient. They may simulate sentience, but they will never possess it truly.