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Webcomics are dead and we killed them

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    Duke 2.0Duke 2.0 Time Trash Cat Registered User regular
    Brolo wrote: »
    Duke 2.0 wrote: »
    Do you hire a robot worker or buy one?

    How do they feel operating robotic arms for car factories?

    How do they feel operating robotic arms for robot factories?

    How smart does a machine need to qualify for sentience? Maybe those robot arms are already sentient?

    Why are these questions being raised when the main character of the story has had seemingly no personal development at all even though this comic has been running for like a decade now?

    The half-dozen alternate egos the main character has split around the cast of characters appearing and disappearing represent personal demons the entity known as Marten has

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    CreaganCreagan Registered User regular
    Why does a comic strip that's never set out to be anything other than a drama comedy strip with intentionally random humor have to answer these questions?

    Wouldn't a lot of character development look weird in a strip where roughly 7-8 months of time has passed over the course of 10 years?

    Why does the "we don't like robots" storyline automatically have to be about racism? Did JJ say it was about racism? Couldn't it just as easily be a metaphor for ableism? Also, since when is the "some people don't like robots" storyline "new?" There were a couple of strips centered around Momo that touched on that issue.

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    MachwingMachwing It looks like a harmless old computer, doesn't it? Left in this cave to rot ... or to flower!Registered User regular
    I blame clint eastwood

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    vattu is a pup pup comic

    bark bark

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    BroloBrolo Broseidon Lord of the BroceanRegistered User regular
    Creagan wrote: »
    Why does a comic strip that's never set out to be anything other than a drama comedy strip with intentionally random humor have to answer these questions?

    Wouldn't a lot of character development look weird in a strip where roughly 7-8 months of time has passed over the course of 10 years?

    Why does the "we don't like robots" storyline automatically have to be about racism? Did JJ say it was about racism? Couldn't it just as easily be a metaphor for ableism? Also, since when is the "some people don't like robots" storyline "new?" There were a couple of strips centered around Momo that touched on that issue.

    Because when you introduce more complex issues and start making references to sentient robots and the Civil Rights movement, it stops being a light-drama comedy with random humor.

    It's a really weird, abrupt shift in tone and content that doesn't fit with the vast majority of the rest of the strip. The few times it's come up have raised more questions than answers, and every time more information gets revealed it seems to contradict that the majority of the characters in this post-singularity society live completely banal lives indistinguishable from the experiences of middle-class westerners.

    Like if you apply any critical thinking to the world at all it just falls apart.



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    CreaganCreagan Registered User regular
    edited June 2014
    And if you apply any critical thinking to Calvin and Hobbes it becomes a horribly depressing strip about a mentally ill kid nobody's willing to help.

    It's still one of the best, funniest syndicated comic strips ever written.

    Creagan on
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    MachwingMachwing It looks like a harmless old computer, doesn't it? Left in this cave to rot ... or to flower!Registered User regular
    maybe jeff jaques is just doing his thing and at least he isn't a horrible racist or misogynist or tim buckley

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    HeadCreepsHeadCreeps NOW IS THE TIME FOR DRINKING! Registered User regular
    crwth wrote: »
    bury me in webcomics

    Bury my webcomics at Wounded Knee

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    Crimson KingCrimson King Registered User regular
    guys the robot explicitly referenced the civil rights act

    i dunno what more you need to say that it is a subtle metaphor for racism

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    HugmasterGeneralHugmasterGeneral Poopmaster General YobuttRegistered User regular
    some day they will invent a machine that will let me punch webcomics

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    HugmasterGeneralHugmasterGeneral Poopmaster General YobuttRegistered User regular
    unrelated to this conversation. i just wanna punch webcomics

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    HunteraHuntera Rude Boy Registered User regular
    rfilyaw wrote: »
    some day they will invent a machine that will let me punch webcomics

    Then truly will the WHOMP! dream be fulfilled

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    Crimson KingCrimson King Registered User regular
    WHOMP! is actually the sound it makes when you punch a webomic right in its soft, flabby belly

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    WybornWyborn GET EQUIPPED Registered User regular
    "This whomps." -T.J. Detweiler

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    Duke 2.0Duke 2.0 Time Trash Cat Registered User regular
    edited June 2014
    Creagan wrote: »
    And if you apply any critical thinking to Calvin and Hobbes it becomes a horribly depressing strip about a mentally ill kid nobody's willing to help.

    It's still one of the best, funniest syndicated comic strips ever written.

    The argument is based off the idea that the perspective for most of the story, dull midwestern dramas, clashes with the science fiction elements

    Calvin and Hobbes doesn't have that problem because the existence of an imaginary tiger friend ties together the fantastical and the banal. It isn't some weird side thing so much as the entire point.

    I feel the criticism is overblown with how much of an issue it is to folks, but it's not something of the quality of Calvin and Hobbes and the execution has some problems.

    Duke 2.0 on
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    DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    rfilyaw wrote: »
    unrelated to this conversation. i just wanna punch webcomics

    stop hitting yourself

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    BroloBrolo Broseidon Lord of the BroceanRegistered User regular
    Creagan wrote: »
    And if you apply any critical thinking to Calvin and Hobbes it becomes a horribly depressing strip about a mentally ill kid nobody's willing to help.

    If that's what you're getting out of Calvin and Hobbes, I think you've really missed both the context and authorial intent of the strip. That isn't critical thinking.

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    BrainleechBrainleech 機知に富んだコメントはここにあります Registered User regular
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    BrainleechBrainleech 機知に富んだコメントはここにあります Registered User regular
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    WybornWyborn GET EQUIPPED Registered User regular
    I know thy heart, vidcon

    And it is mine

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    BrainleechBrainleech 機知に富んだコメントはここにあります Registered User regular
    Be warned though Awkward Zombie continues to use Photobucket to post her comics
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    Here is a comic that was written by AZ Forum member ShuckleShellAnemia!
    A great way to cap off a thrilling cave adventure is to return home by a method that will probably kill 80% of your pals.

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    DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    I have to admire that man's perseverance to stick to the joke.

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    DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    Castle Vidcons isn't as good as it used to be, but the console wars aren't as good as they used to be, either. So can I really fault him for that?

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    CreaganCreagan Registered User regular
    edited June 2014
    Brolo wrote: »
    Creagan wrote: »
    And if you apply any critical thinking to Calvin and Hobbes it becomes a horribly depressing strip about a mentally ill kid nobody's willing to help.

    If that's what you're getting out of Calvin and Hobbes, I think you've really missed both the context and authorial intent of the strip. That isn't critical thinking.

    That isn't what I get out of Calvin and Hobbes at all, which was kind of the point.

    In Calvin and Hobbes, there is the occasional strip that implies something's wrong with Calvin that could be addressed with help, like the one where Uncle Max asks Calvin's Mom if she's worried about Calvin because of his attachment to his imaginary friend, and the one where Calvin imagines himself as an alien during "show and tell" when one of the kids asks their teacher if he belongs in a "special school." But that's not what Watterson wanted to do with the strip.

    Likewise, I don't think JJ ever intends on making his strip into a big thing about post-singularity-ness and has constructed his strip to support this. There is, in fact, a complete conversation about why nobody's all hyped up about the singularity. He only occasionally touches on the issue of AI civil rights, and when he does, it's generally not a particularly long storyline.

    So, to make a long story short, that was my snippy way of saying I think you've missed the context and authorial intent of the strip in a way that masquerades as critical thinking, but really actually isn't.

    Creagan on
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    SeriouslySeriously Registered User regular
    I hate this storyline because that robot going to all these different locations is fucking wrecking my theory that QC is some Beckettesque traumady that all takes place in a one square block radius in the middle of a vast empty wasteland

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    Speed RacerSpeed Racer Scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratchRegistered User regular
    Creagan wrote: »
    And if you apply any critical thinking to Calvin and Hobbes it becomes a horribly depressing strip about a mentally ill kid nobody's willing to help.

    Calvin is often shown being actually ruffed up from Hobbes tackling him. His mom even comments in it sometimes

    Clearly he is getting beaten up at school and the fantasy of Hobbes tackling him to say hello is a way to mitigate the emotional pain that causes

    Follow the money

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    ScooterScooter Registered User regular
    I recently finished going through Voyager on Netflix, with the whole Doctor's struggle for rights and all that. Made me think, like, sure, most people watching the show would agree that the Doctor is a real dude who deserves real rights and the opportunity to do what he wants. But, if you give him those rights, then what motivation is there to keep producing holo-docs? What happens if you ship out 500 of the guys, and within six months 450 of them have quit to go become opera singers? Do you start pumping them out by the thousands, just to keep the handful that actually want to do what you made them for? And completely flood out the market for human opera singers in the process?

    Seems like the only ethical and practical option is to never make human-level sentient AIs at all, at least not in any real numbers.

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    Speed RacerSpeed Racer Scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratchRegistered User regular
    Scooter wrote: »
    I recently finished going through Voyager on Netflix, with the whole Doctor's struggle for rights and all that. Made me think, like, sure, most people watching the show would agree that the Doctor is a real dude who deserves real rights and the opportunity to do what he wants. But, if you give him those rights, then what motivation is there to keep producing holo-docs? What happens if you ship out 500 of the guys, and within six months 450 of them have quit to go become opera singers? Do you start pumping them out by the thousands, just to keep the handful that actually want to do what you made them for? And completely flood out the market for human opera singers in the process?

    Seems like the only ethical and practical option is to never make human-level sentient AIs at all, at least not in any real numbers.

    Or at the very least, don't make them with the intention of using them as tools

    A tool doesn't need to have aspirations and inner thoughts and feelings, and giving a tool those things is counterproductive at best and cruel at worst

    If you're gonna make a robo surgeon then all you need for it to know is the sum total of human medicine, and have the appendages to manipulate whatever surgical instruments it would need

    Giving it the capacity to appreciate opera is less than pointless.

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    OwenashiOwenashi Registered User regular
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    SDB can be a little NSFW now and then.

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    GoatmonGoatmon Companion of Kess Registered User regular
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    Switch Friend Code: SW-6680-6709-4204


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    CreaganCreagan Registered User regular
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    DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    I don't want Nimona to end.

    But once it ends it will be printed.

    The quandary.

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    GoatmonGoatmon Companion of Kess Registered User regular
    Jacques' robot allegory for racism is only slightly less utterly stupid than Sinfest's robot allegory for sexism

    there has been like one valid allegory for minority issues using robots in comics and that was Judgment Day in 1956

    Wow, nice.

    Switch Friend Code: SW-6680-6709-4204


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    ASimPersonASimPerson Cold... and hard.Registered User regular
    Three Panel Soul presents "West Coast Addictions"
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    BrainleechBrainleech 機知に富んだコメントはここにあります Registered User regular
    And that is why when I want tea I go home and make it
    I get it the way I want without the strange curious looks one would expect

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    CreaganCreagan Registered User regular
    edited June 2014
    Possible TW here, maybe?:
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    Creagan on
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    GoatmonGoatmon Companion of Kess Registered User regular
    Oh goodness.

    Switch Friend Code: SW-6680-6709-4204


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    MugginsMuggins Registered User regular
    Fuck Miles

    Chuck him off the goddamn roof

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    hey satan...: thinkgeek amazon My post |
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    Indie WinterIndie Winter die Krähe Rudi Hurzlmeier (German, b. 1952)Registered User regular
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    castle vidcons is pretty great

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    Drunken BastardDrunken Bastard Registered User regular
    Brainleech wrote: »
    bp168.jpg

    Arya and the Hound from GoT in the second panel? Looks like it.

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    BrainleechBrainleech 機知に富んだコメントはここにあります Registered User regular
    Brainleech wrote: »
    bp168.jpg

    Arya and the Hound from GoT in the second panel? Looks like it.

    There are tons of things hidden in the background of every battlepug

This discussion has been closed.