Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

Something bothering me a lot

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Aenno:
You know, I'm strating to feel I just have another perspective everybody else here have.
I never was here for 5 or 10 or 15 years. I just jumped the running train - I really read all the QC in 3 days, and never had anxiecy for waiting for another comics in the arc for literally months or character return in years. For me, first arc with Amanda was in Monday, not in 2004 (I believe that's when it was drawn?). That's gives me an advantage - I believe I'm remember exact things declared in the continiuty better, but also I tend to kinda compress things. Thought about robots being safe substitution for minorities because author was shunned for years for "wrong decpiction of LGBT" never occured to me.

I actually believes it's a source of my initial frustration. I just don't get, what, with robots being so humanlike, they're needed for excluding being substitutes for LGBT or other minorities, because, truth to be said, I just hate this as idea. I do believe things should be called as they are.
Also I haven't problems with reasoning about jokes with "computer being best friend", as it was with Pintsize. They felt completly ok when they were comical relief (just in case, I don't mean robots always should be so, but I think if they are not, it require more thorough approach).

If they're to xenia, they're too humanlike - that's what I'm whining around all this time. They're so humanlike that you don't need them being robots. "Not strange enough" - they're exactly like us. I feel bad for Bubbles being arousal EXACTLY because it's an "another nail in the coffin" of "strange new creatures" idea. They aren't strange, and I can't recall many instances about characters behave in "robots are strange" line, everybody quite used to them.

It's even worse with unwanted elements - problem is, there are humans there who are far more unwanted. As I put it sometimes in this discussions, Momo is bitter that some people she don't know hate AIs, and this people is treated as marginals by her friends; Amanda was thrown out from home by her own mother being caught as a lesbian. And I actually can't really recall more then two instances about humans actually despite AIs in cadre - a church Momo felt hurt about, and a situation where Bubbles were shunned going from Coffee of Doom.

ckridge:
If you go on over to the Reddit QC topic, you can find any number of people willing to complain endlessly about the robots in QC, as well as any number of people willing to complain about any other given aspect of QC, as well as people willing to argue endlessly that any of those aspects is the only thing worthwhile about QC. This is a small sheltered tidepool on the shores of the internet.

I don't think it is your perspective especially. I showed up about a year ago and binge-read too, but I have always liked science fiction stories that are as much as possible like the real world with just one or two tweaks. It is very hard for a writer to sustain a completely fantastical world for longer than the average dream. Embedding a few fantastic details within the fabric of the real world is much more easily sustained, and can bring out features of the real world that might otherwise go unnoticed. That is no reason you should like stories that mix fantasy and reality, though. Similarly, if you don't like to read for symbolism and semi-allegory, you don't have to. There are a thousand right ways to read any story.

As to your complaint that the robots are too human, that is a problem science fiction has been struggling with forever, both with robots and with aliens. Early attempts consisted of moving established racial and class stereotypes out of pulp adventure fiction into pulp science fiction, so that Venusians were most often stereotypical Africans, Martians stereotypical Chinese, and robots stereotypical loyal family servants. Later, more successful attempts were by writers who wrote simple, schematic characters, each with only one or two traits, so that it was easy for them to give the robot one or two truly different traits and leave it at that. The very best efforts are still, I think, Asimov's, because Asimov was himself a brilliant, strange shut-in applying his considerable gifts to figuring out rule sets for getting along with ordinary people. He wrote robots that were like him, and they were both plausible and strange. I can't think of any more successful attempts since. There are a couple of short, chilling bits in Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix. Charles Stross has a brilliantly conceived sexbot living after humanity's extinction who actually has what religious people have been failing to find forever, a reason she was created that would give her life meaning, but no way to fulfill it, and, if she had a way to fulfill it, no way to fulfill it without being a slave. Other than her unique existential predicament, though, she is written as human as he could make her. Other than that, it is an unsolved problem. It is hard to write someone truly different.

I'm sorry. I am droning on about things you know already if you care about them. I accidentally hit a vein of geekery. Let's flee.

Given the difficult of writing reasonably three-dimensional characters that aren't within the normal range of human variation, I think Jeph does pretty well. There is something chillingly inhuman about Bubbles kneeling perfectly still next to Faye's bed all night, both in her ability to resist desire and in her ability to hold perfectly still. The possibility that she is awake the entire time is also faintly chilling. Kneeling there, like someone praying, like a samurai awaiting orders, Bubbles is also acting in perfect accord with medieval doctrines of courtly love, in which the knightly lover is directed to humility, courtesy, worship of the beloved, and suffering. This is human, but it is not anything remotely like the way most people act now.

May is so poor that her face and her arm fall off and she can't afford to do anything about it. That speaks both to how little human she is and to the position of robots.

Momo tolerates an astonishing numbers of liberties with her person. I don't know whether this is humility or indifference on her part, but it is not like most people.

I think we just disagree, is all. One of the things you most object to, that everyone takes robots perfectly for granted, was one of the first things to please me about the strip. I find myself surrounded by things at least that strange with everyone taking them just that much for granted. If the world doesn't look like that to you, though, it just doesn't. I hope you find some way of reading the strip that lets you enjoy it as much as I do.

cloudatlatl:
I've had a theory for a while that most of the robots in QC were once humans who underwent some sort of body/mind modification.  I agree with Aenno that the AI characters just don't seem very AI a lot of the time.

There's a lot of words in this thread, and full disclaimer, I didn't read most of them and posted my opinion anyway.

ckridge:
>Thought about robots being safe substitution for minorities because author was shunned for years for "wrong decpiction of LGBT" never occured to me.<

I fear that I didn't explain clearly enough. Dickheads gave Jeph shit for having too many LGBT characters, and for having Marten take up with Claire, whereupon he set out to do more of the same. I think he is deeply concerned with getting his depictions of LGBT people right without claiming knowledge he can't have entirely because he is a scrupulous, careful guy. I haven't read anyone reproach him for getting it wrong.

Aenno:

--- Quote ---I'm sorry. I am droning on about things you know already if you care about them. I accidentally hit a vein of geekery. Let's flee.
--- End quote ---
Yeah, I do. But, in my firm believe, declaring that something is hard to solve isn't solution. :)


--- Quote ---Dickheads gave Jeph shit for having too many LGBT characters...
--- End quote ---
My thoughts about this statement can't be written safely, because Russian laws directly forbid using hard-lined mat in a public space.


--- Quote ---May is so poor that her face and her arm fall off and she can't afford to do anything about it. That speaks both to how little human she is and to the position of robots.
--- End quote ---
Well, Faye sometimes couldn't afford herself new glasses when hers are broken. It's not about the position of robots. It's about the position of low-paid labour. May is a released convict, who hadn't good qualification for non-specialized work, and every decent work would ask "are you ever were convicted for felony?". Her problems about being poor are 100% human. :)
Her problems about being able to have have her face and her arm fall off and stay active and adequate IS speaks about how little human she is, if such a distance with its chassis wouldn't turn on and off by random. I mean, hell, robots hug each other for relief, and looks like it's helping.


--- Quote ---I think we just disagree, is all. One of the things you most object to, that everyone takes robots perfectly for granted, was one of the first things to please me about the strip. I find myself surrounded by things at least that strange with everyone taking them just that much for granted.
--- End quote ---
Just to clarify.
My tastes are very singu... ahm. I meant I can be ok with everybody takes robots for granted. I can be ok with everybody freak out about robots. Both can be very nicely done.
If an author using robots to show how humans are freaking out about all that tech and Frankenstein complex, it's very ok, I love Asimov.
If an author using robots (or something else we define as weird) as they're common sight around here to show that singularity happens, it's very ok again, there are very good works with this approach (the first thing I get from my head would be Simak's "Time and Again", or, well, nearly every Simak's work, even if he didn't speak "singularity" word).
If an author using robots as a common thing everybody around used to, but if something happens everybody would hit a robot (let's say, Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"), it's, again, very ok.
But, I believe, one approach should be selected and don't changed casually.
AIs in QC seems to understand human behavior to the fantastic extent, so they are able to understand and emulate things humans themselves usually don't understand or reflect. But in years, having full libraries about human psychology, they couldn't catch that arachnophobia is a very common reaction, so giant robotic spider isn't the best chassis for social worker if you really want not to freak people.

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