Unexpected things that are people

Legal Personhood vs. “Real” People

• Many comments distinguish “natural persons” (humans) from “legal/juridical persons” (corporations, estates, associations, etc.).
• Legal personhood is framed as a pragmatic abstraction: it lets an entity own property, enter contracts, sue/be sued, and be a locus of rights and duties.
• Several commenters note other systems’ terminology (e.g., “physical vs juridical persons”) and that legal “persons” do not all share the same rights or liabilities.

Corporate Personhood, Rights, and Accountability

• One camp argues corporate personhood is widely misunderstood: corporations are not “humans,” they just share some legal capabilities, and many rights still apply only to natural persons.
• Others argue that overloading “person” was a design mistake: instead of defining a separate concept, the law extended human-oriented protections to corporations and then selectively walked some back, creating “legal tech debt” and gray areas.
• Strong concern that corporations enjoy powerful rights (property, speech, political influence) but weak criminal accountability: you can fine or dissolve them, but not imprison them.
• Some note tools already exist (piercing the corporate veil, strict liability, director tax liability, unpaid wages liability); the real problem is under-enforcement and political capture.

Money, Speech, and Citizens United

• A large subthread ties outrage over “corporations are people” to campaign finance: treating political spending as protected speech plus corporate personhood → effectively unlimited corporate political spending.
• Defenders argue: speech protections apply to associations (press, unions, companies) just as to individuals; restrictions on corporate speech would logically threaten media organizations as well.
• Critics respond that equating money with speech lets wealth dominate public discourse and was not an inevitable consequence of corporate personhood, but a specific, controversial doctrinal expansion.

Non-Human and Environmental Personhood

• New Zealand’s river and other features (mountains, protected areas) are discussed as examples of legal personhood for nature, typically implemented via guardians or authorities.
• Supporters see this as a tool to protect ecosystems and rebalance power against corporate interests; detractors view it as conceptually absurd or worry it mostly empowers the human “friends” acting on the entity’s behalf.
• Repeated questions about liability: if a river is a legal person, can it be sued for flooding or drownings? Some note “acts of God” doctrines and practical limits.

Ships, Property, and In Rem Oddities

• Several commenters clarify that ships and seized goods are usually handled under in rem jurisdiction: the court acts “on the thing,” not because the thing is a person.
• This leads to humorous case names (currency, wine casks, novelty items) and parallels with civil forfeiture, where property itself is the named defendant.

AI Personhood via Corporate Structures

• A side discussion explores whether an AGI could gain de facto legal standing by controlling or owning corporations, using human “meat proxies” as officers.
• Others reply that in current law such structures ultimately resolve to natural persons; corporate personhood is not, by itself, new “moral” personhood for AI.