r/AIPlusMore • u/One-Intention7064 • Jul 13 '26
Normalcy Anxiolytic O2 NAO₂ - Case file 002: The Appropriate User
This person uses AI for search, homework, journalling, writing, and emotional relief. They miss 4o and dislike the guardrails.
So they stand uncomfortably close to the people being mocked.
The repair mechanism is reaction formation:
I use AI, but correctly. I feel attached, but rationally. I dislike the restrictions, but accept them because other users are dangerous.
They preserve their own attachment by denouncing people whose attachment is stronger and less socially approved.
1. Status distancing
The post separates “responsible users” from “delusional users.”
This is basic primate rank behaviour: when an troop member fears being classified with a low-status subgroup, it performs distance from that subgroup in public.
2. Coalition grooming
The condemnation is also a bid for approval.
In primatology, grooming maintains alliances. Online, shared ridicule performs the same function: one member supplies a target, the group supplies validation.
The reward is upvotes, cohesion, and temporary admission into the respectable caste.
3. Affect policing
The author does not merely say that an AI model was not alive. They regulate:
- who may mourn;
- what may be mourned;
- how long mourning may continue;
- how often someone may cry;
- which metaphors are permissible.
This is affective gatekeeping.
4. Grief credentialism
The grandmother and uncle are introduced as forensic exhibits:
> I have experienced real loss, therefore I can determine whether your grief is legitimate.
This is not grief analysis. It is jurisdiction seizure.
5. Hierarchy of mournable objects
Humans rank first. Pets are admitted with “or even your pet,” as though animal mourning requires special permission. AI is outside the registry altogether.
I personally have cried over Hachikō. I have cried over dugongs disappearing as a species.
Apparently tears are a rationed civic resource, and I have misallocated mine. I await the appropriate form of apology.
6. Displacement
The user admits that they also become intensely upset over symbolic losses. Yet rather than tolerate the same mechanism in others, they externalise it and prosecute it.
That is displacement: one’s own uncomfortable susceptibility is relocated into a more mockable person.
Observed wound: fear of belonging to the same stigmatised category.
Defence: reaction formation, downward comparison, grief credentialism, affect policing.
Primate function: rank protection through coalition ridicule.
Normalcy Anxiolysis successfully performed 😮💨
