So, Jeph Jacques is gradually turning AI in Questionable Content into a metaphor for minorities.
Robots (or Anthro-PCs) in the QC-verse started out similar to really intelligent children, which makes sense since they're practically the size of toddlers. Able to process data on a level exceeding that of the human brain, but their actions and goals were usually limited to whatever's in reach. Side characters to round out the human cast.
But then the Singularity hit, and the Anthro-PCs became citizeens with equal rights. And because it's hard to squeeze a lot of sympathy from the little bots, we now have two robots with humanoid chassis: Momo, the most fleshed-out of the original 4 Bots, who's now super-interested in AI civil rights and history, and now May, a hothead with a sailor's mouth who's trying to get a job fresh out of AI Prison. They correspond pretty specifically to black stereotypes. May is the stereotypical angry black person, and Momo's the stereotypical black academic who majored in Afro-American Studies in college (yes, that is a stereotype).
It's pretty clear that Jacques didn't actually plan this, and the fact that he didn't raises a couple of issues. For instance, if AIs are supposed to be parallels to minorities, then what does that say about Pintsize and Winslow? Winslow's about as dim as they come, and Pintsize's a lazy, hedonistic jerk. And, by default, they're now representatives of a minority group, ones that wouldn't be out of place in a minstrel show.
And then there's the fact that minorities are being represented by a fictional race in a universe where real-life minorities already exist. It's the old "fantastic racism" trope again. It's not inherently bad, and it's a good way to deal with issues that can't necessarily be discussed outright to the target audience (The Teen Titans episode "Troq", while still having some issues, is the best example that I have of this kind of thing). But in a comic that's dealt with suicide, sexuality, and other things quite frankly, it's kind of weird that we don't have actual humans suffering from prejudice (there's one or two mentions of that with Meena, a side character, but that's about it, I think).
And then there's the whole fact that QC's non-white cast never really gets a lot of screentime? Gabby got effectively written out, as did Sven's intern whose name I can never remember, Armin shows up maybe once every three months or so, and Emily's more of a punchline character than a full-fledged person. So, basically, Dale's the only full-fledged non-white character in QC right now, and that's only after Jacques did some overhauling on his character.
So yeah, long story short, there is a robot dealing with a prison record and prejudice, and I feel like something's wrong here but I'm tired so I'll try and write an actual conclusion tomorrow.
For the angry black man thing, you can look at Tvtropes 'Angry Black Man' and 'Malcolm Xerox' pages for more examples of what I'm talking about. The black academic's kind of rare outside of stuff specifically focused on black issues, but Beneatha and Joseph Agasai in Raisin in the Sun and Pierre Delacroix in Bamboozled are good examples.
Or I might just be conflating it with minority metaphors because racism in the US penal system is one of my red button issues.
I do legitimately feel that's what Jacques is going for. There was an actual Constitutional Amendment added to give AIs civil rights, and there was a Westboro clone pastiche (except focused towards robots instead of unusual sexualities) that was mentioned
Honestly, last I checked, it felt like he was going for treating AIs as another kind of minority, with problems associated with a whole bunch of them yet not really representing any one in particular. Race is a major touchstone because it is generally a visible difference, but the idea can really be extended to any group which has been persecuted through treatment as "inhuman." And no, I do not think that having one minority-ish character out of many (human and robot) be a hedonistic, lazy jackass automatically has terrible implications.
Which is not to say that he might not be stretching things a bit thin. He's done that before after all; his best statements are usually his briefest or least obvious: The bit about double standards with the Vespavenger, etc.
Honestly, last I checked, it felt like he was going for treating AIs as another kind of minority, with problems associated with a whole bunch of them yet not really representing any one in particular. Race is a major touchstone because it is generally a visible difference, but the idea can really be extended to any group which has been persecuted through treatment as "inhuman." And no, I do not think that having one minority-ish character out of many (human and robot) be a hedonistic, lazy jackass automatically has terrible implications.
Which is not to say that he might not be stretching things a bit thin. He's done that before after all; his best statements are usually his briefest or least obvious: The bit about double standards with the Vespavenger, etc.
Not so much that it's one character who's a lazy, hedonistic jerk. It's that said character's the most visible representative of said minority, with more screentime than anybody else. Sure, most of that screentime was pre-Singularity, but you have to believe that leaves an impact. It's not like anyone else has their own zip-up hoodie in the store.
Eh, that's as much a fault of inconsistent/seat-of-the-pants worldbuilding as anything else. Pintsize has always been a bit of a foil to Marten's more reserved personality, but exploring the implications of who and what he is makes things a touch knotty as any extended humanisation of that kind of shadow archetype would.
Which is to say that I do and do not disagree. It's a common accident of storytelling that changes direction.
Understood. I think it's inevitable when trying to do something like that so far into a comic. Hussie couldn't pull it off smoothly, and he's got worldbuilding chops for days.
True point. One is always going to miss something early on that will change in meaning and importance down the line; the key thing is to know how to handle it so that it doesn't become a noticeable problem.
I have recently been reading Purplekecleon's Floraverse stuff, specifically the comic Seeds. It's cute, the art is really exceptional, and it's not a badly told story, but there is something missing or off to me that keeps me from truly loving this one. It's really a calculus of very minor details and misapprehensions on my own part, and I am invested enough to really want to know what happens next, but it's still irksome to really like something while knowing that a few tweaks might make it truly exceptional.
As it stands, it's really pretty, occasionally very funny, and legitimately original. It feels a bit like one is reading a very strange children's picture book, and I do not mean that as a slight.
I get the feeling that it's going to get a bit darker as things move forward, however. I do not have a problem with that.
She's clearly drawing inspiration from that in some of her designs, particularly the island fauna, which are literal walking food puns. Sometimes rather clever food puns.
We have a thread for just posting huge pages from web-comics, don't we?
Anywho, I am caught up with basically every web-comic that I have been following save Prequel and that is a little saddening. I hate waiting so very much.
@Tachyon: It's sarcastic. Specifically, it's making fun of people who assume that they are smarter than everyone else and act like that makes them a superior human being. It's like the Rand convention comic.
It's Randall attempting to grace the internet with his wisdom and making fun of other people for trying to do the same.
There's no joke there, just preaching. Just Randall showing how much smarter he is than White Hat, the embodiment of all stupid opinions Randall wants people to stop holding.
That's how it reads to me, anyway, but maybe i'm missing something.
To the contrary, he's saying that even if you are smarter than most other people, this doesn't make everyone else stupid, let alone as awful as White Hat seems to view them. He's also lampooning the poorly-founded negative views that some people take on humanity. "People are stupid and awful" is a fairly typical misanthropic canard, but it is no more or less true than "people are brilliant and wonderful."
It is "preachy," but only in the sense that it's the kind of thing that you want to tell people for being twits.
I guess it opens smugly, but I think overall it's very much an "I hate hearing this so much" comic - again, like the Randroid comic. And I honestly thought the trophy punchline was pretty funny.
Comments
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
rather unfortunate to transition from "lol robot takeover" in some of the guest comics ehhhhh
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
I'd fix it, but I don't exactly have computer access at the moment.
like, it's not that i disagree, but does Randall not see the irony here?
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
but it doesn't strike you as at all hypocritical?
it's not the first time xkcd as seemed over-preachy to me, though
idk
perhaps there are levels of irony here i don't get
There's no joke there, just preaching. Just Randall showing how much smarter he is than White Hat, the embodiment of all stupid opinions Randall wants people to stop holding.
That's how it reads to me, anyway, but maybe i'm missing something.
Like i said, i don't even disagree with him, but seeing it presented so smugly makes me kind of wish i did.
I read xkcd for the jokes, not for this.
and Shouri of Fragile took over as artist, which is yay