Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
How will Bubbles propose?
Undrneath:
--- Quote from: A small perverse otter on 18 Jun 2018, 21:52 ---
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 18 Jun 2018, 19:05 ---Oh lord, I just started thinking about how Social Security benefits would work. Would Bubbles collect a widow's pension from the late Faye's account for the rest of her (Bubbles's) life?
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What is the QC-verse model for AI retirement? What does disability insurance look for an AI?
Thanks. Now I'm going to be awake for hours thinking about that...
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I'd imagine it would be something like Bicentennial Man living a long life constantly upgrading until you were indistinguishable from humans and deciding to let yourself go in your sleep after fulfilling a lifetime goal.
specter177:
--- Quote from: dutchrvl on 18 Jun 2018, 05:34 ---
--- Quote from: fayelovesbubbles on 18 Jun 2018, 03:58 ---I do think the two of them getting together is a sign that Jeph is wrapping up the story. He still has to take care of the Brun/Clinton thing. I am emotionally invested in that outcome, I want them to be together.
And I think Elliot will find someone right for him too. He apparently needs to learn something, but Jeph hasn't made it clear what that is yet.
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Wrapping up QC as a whole you mean? I certainly hope not as I think there is still a lot that could be further explored, like Marten's career, Union Chassis Repair, Human-AI interactions and AI development, etc. (plus, I would terribly miss the comic...).
It does seem like JJ is slowly but certainly moving away from (the search for) relationship-based drama/conflict and moving forward to storylines related to other aspects of the characters' lives. Which is fine by me to be honest.
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Or the return of Hanners.
OldGoat:
--- Quote from: A small perverse otter on 18 Jun 2018, 21:52 ---
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 18 Jun 2018, 19:05 ---Oh lord, I just started thinking about how Social Security benefits would work. Would Bubbles collect a widow's pension from the late Faye's account for the rest of her (Bubbles's) life?
--- End quote ---
What is the QC-verse model for AI retirement? What does disability insurance look for an AI?
Thanks. Now I'm going to be awake for hours thinking about that...
--- End quote ---
AIs are so recent that it's not going to become a reality for another 20 or 30 years.
They are a new life form, differing from others only in being non-biological. All other characteristics seem to apply, including population controls. They're probably more long-lived than us meatsacks, but they suffer from emotional dysfunction just the same as we do. We know little or nothing of how they respond to aging.
This brings up all sorts of metaphysical speculation. Does an AI come to the end of its life when all its questions are answered and they have become bored with thinking up new ones? Maybe when an AI elects to cease functioning their core memory device is wiped and what they were is reincorporated into the Singularity.
Wooo! Be good in this life and be reunited with Spookybot in the next!
HughYeman:
I've been reticent because I don't want to come across as dismissive. The last thing I wanna do is yuck anyone's yum. So please understand I mean this in the most companionable way.
I don't care.
That might seem odd coming from me, but hear me out. Twenty years or so ago I noticed a common thread running through the stories that move me profoundly: redemption. And not just any redemption. The redemption of people who might not deserve it. I love stories about redemption where it's clear that it's not about whether the character deserves it or not. Something about that resonates with my worldview. We are such shitty, vicious little primates, and the universe is so obviously arbitrary, that to speak in terms of deserving would imply a hellish reality that I see no point in contemplating. In the words of Clint Eastwood's character in "Unforgiven", "We all have it comin', kid."
So if it's not about whether we deserve it, then what? Well, consider some of the characters in the stories I love: Humphrey Bogart's character in the movie "Sabrina"; Clint Eastwood's character in the spaghetti westerns; Kevin Spacey's character in "American Beauty"; Samuel L. Jackson's character in "Pulp Fiction"; Tony Stark in the Iron man mythos; and both George Clooney's and Michelle Pfeiffer's characters in "One Fine Day". All these characters have one thing in common: they were—or were on their way to becoming—really ugly people. They didn't deserve redemption. But an opportunity for redemption came their way, and they had the mindfulness to recognize it as such, and the grace to take it. Others around them didn't, and were damned to their own hells for it. There's just something so beautiful to me about that story of dirty grace.
On a personal level, I think of myself in those same terms. I had two relationships that amounted to an engine that was always going to tear itself apart. If I had had one more relationship like that, I would have given up hope. I would have believed that the kind of relationship I wanted was a fairy tale, and resigned myself to being alone, or being in relationships ranging the spectrum from nasty to abusive. I did not say "could have". I said "would have". That would have happened. But instead I met the woman to whom I'm now married, and I was all "Oh! It's not a fairy tale. This is how it was always supposed to be."
There is no way you can tell me I deserved that—not when so many people resign themselves to horrible, ugly relationships. I didn't deserve it any more than anyone else. But the opportunity came my way, and I recognized it, and I took it, and I've worked my ass of at it.
Clearly Bubbles and Faye fit that pattern. They were each well on their way to becoming ugly people. And they found each other, and each was exactly what the other needed, and they could have rejected that stupendous grace, but they didn't. They had the poise to accept redemption. And they are different people now because of that.
Of course I understand why you're pleased to think of Bubbles proposing. Of course I want to see them stay together forever. How could I not? But I just want to express that to focus on some future together blows right by the overwhelming grace we've already witnessed. Even if it doesn't work out—even if they break up next week—it doesn't matter all that much. The point is, look at what they have already been to each other. They got, and took, an opportunity that so few of us get, and of those, fewer still take. They are redeemed. We can only aspire to such beauty and glory.
Penquin47:
You know, I was all set to roll my eyes and blow past your post, all "whatever, dude, why say it?"
I'm glad I didn't. Because you make an excellent point and I very much appreciate the reminder to look at the progress they made - the progress they *had* to make - to get even this far, and to celebrate that without jumping ahead to some hypothetical future.
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