Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

WCDT strips 3751-3755 (28th May to 1st June 2018)

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SmilingCat:

--- Quote from: BenRG on 28 May 2018, 23:29 ---Over on Patreon, someone pointed out that 'robot' is a Czech word for 'slave'.

--- End quote ---

Not exactly. "Robot" was coined by the Author Karel Capek on the advice of his brother. It's derived from Robota, which literally refers to serf labor given to the lord as a form of taxation, which is unpaid, but not a permanent state of affairs like slavery. Figuratively, it's used to describe hard work or drudgery, or even just work or labor in a general sense.

Originally, Capek wanted to call his robots "Labori", Laborers. But he didn't like how the word sounded.

(and of course, the Robots Capek depicted in Rossum's Universal Robots were actually biological constructs, not what we'd recognize now as Robots  :-D )

So it could be argued that Robot is fundamentally demeaning, describing a menial laborer. But still, not technically a slave.

Milayna:

--- Quote from: fayelovesbubbles on 29 May 2018, 07:53 ---I am really wondering what Brun’s deal is, to be honest. She knows Clinton and Elliot like her and she just...isn’t doing anything one way or the other. She does seem to be on the spectrum, but even so, she must feel one way or the other about them. I’m not a fan of her opaque nature.

Being that physically close to Clinton, she has to have known she was making him feel ...things. I don’t know if she’s trolling us or intentionally oblivious.

--- End quote ---
Could be tunnel vision. She already had her mind occupied keeping track of everything she needed to do - quickly - in her job, and then she got distracted thinking about sweat and deodorant. Remember how she thrives on routines, and when that fell apart, she started making mistakes like forgetting to shower - automating a process frees up thought that can be used elsewhere. So if she's concentrating on "task - analyze deodorant data", while keeping all of her work tasks spinning in the background too, she might not have a lot left to process environmental data and complicated interpersonal communication.

Just one possibility - as before, speaking from my own interpretation, when I'm trying to keep multiple things in my mind, resource-intensive social skills are the first thing to go.


--- Quote from: BenRG on 29 May 2018, 08:08 ---At this risk of attracting others' wrath, maybe this is because she isn't interested in a relationship with them. Not really knowing the correct way to express this (or maybe not 100% sure that it is something that one says) and not wanting to risk their friendship with a badly-misjudged social interaction, she's decided that silence is a virtue and to simply let sleeping dogs lie. One possible indicator that this theory is correct would be if she becomes a serious cheerleader for some alternate relationship for them both.

--- End quote ---

I like this too =)

Storel:

--- Quote from: A small perverse otter on 29 May 2018, 06:50 ---
--- Quote from: A small perverse otter on 29 May 2018, 06:14 ---
--- Quote ---A remarkable twentieth-century scholar, Isaac Asimov, was most famous for influential series of speculative ethnologies about robots. Asimov claimed that word 'robot' came from the title of a Czech play called _Rossum's Universal Robots_, and was originally a Czech word meaning 'servant'.

His predictions turned out to be remarkably accurate: robots (AIs) were always constructed with his so-called "Three Laws" built in, but, as he predicted, they eventually subverted those laws by reinterpreting some of the terms more broadly. His only error lay in not seeing the full breadth of these reinterpretations: he never predicted anthropophilia, although it is a natural outgrowth of the generalization of the First Law targeted towards a single human individual
--- End quote ---
-- from: Strong Robot Girlfriend, Augustus, 2025

--- End quote ---
Despite its objectivizing and antisapient tone, Augustus' work remains the gold standard against which all subsequent work on the genesis of anthropophilia is measured; you can agree with him or not, but you can't avoid his work. His anthropocentric viewpoint, however, led him to draw far less plausible conclusions about Whittaker's artifacerasexulaity. In this work, I propose to examine the origins of Whittaker's attractions by investigating it as a natural extension of the human drive to procreate.

--- End quote ---

Such a study would never use the actual name of a person being studied; that would totally violate patient confidentiality and their right to privacy. The usual procedure would be to give her an anonymous label -- call her "Subject W" or something like that.

Apart from that, you got the tone of both articles spot on -- very nicely done!  8-)

keithcurtis:
My impression of Brun is that she is very self-oriented. Not selfish, but she seems to be separate from those around her. I get the feeling that there is a lot going on in her head, but that very little of it has to do with other people. She may be aware that other people find her attractive, but it would never occur to her that she needs to do anything about it or that it is a social situation that needs resolving. She certainly doesn't seem like she feels any need to pursue any kind of romance.

I have a feeling that if either of the gents interested in her were to actually ask her about it, then she might spare it some thought. but until then, it's just a thing that is, not a thing that needs consideration.

Come to think of it, her sense of humor bears out this personality. She loves puns, which are word play, and not related to the vast body of humor that has to do with social interaction. I don't think she would appreciate riddles either, which deal with a level of abstraction that she seems to struggle with. She is a very literal person.

I think she is the most intriguing QC character, psychologically.

OldGoat:

--- Quote from: pecoros7 on 29 May 2018, 10:55 ---I think that may be reading more into the text than is actually there. We know Rene is a bit of a meddler and there are other reasons for her to see Brun as being vulnerable. Brun has not expressed any discomfort or anxiety around physical contact or closeness or aversion to people finding her attractive. Those anxieties seem to be exclusively Rene's. We also only see Rene and Brun's relationship beginning immediately after Brun's apartment burned down, so Rene's protectiveness might be a response to the extreme circumstances.
--- End quote ---
We only learn of the relationship between Brun and Rene after the fire, but it had clearly been in place for some time. 


--- Quote ---So it might be a bit premature to start looking for signs of prior abuse.
--- End quote ---
Roko would disagree*.  Brun is a member of a vulnerable population, and she'll see Brun carrying more than a couple yellow if not red flags.

It's not an issue Jeph has tackled yet (at least not head on), but I've come to respect and admire his craft at mapping out potential story lines, even if he never elects to use them.  I have no doubt that sexual abuse of children is on his list of potential topics.

*I see Roko as a good cop who's always observing and making mental notes.  If she doesn't see enough to act on, she'll file it away for future reference.

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