Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT Dec 6 - Dec 10 (4671-4675)
Tova:
Yay, you know that coffee won't sober her up, right?
Farideh:
Yay has almost infinite knowledge. Surely their is a link in their database to the relevant Wikihow article.
Re. the 'how old did YOU think Yay was' question, I always had the idea that they had been around since the birth of the Internet. Hiding in the shadowy bytes, biding their time...
DaiJB:
"Organic chemistry is truly, disgustingly primitive"
No, no, no - organic chemistry is truly, mind-bogglingly complicated - and we still have only the foggiest notions of how these chemicals affect the organic metabolism.
...And that's another attitude that intrigues me - so many speculative fiction stories show the alien species expressing some form of disgust over the structure of carbon-based lifeforms. I mean - why?
Why would a species with a different metabolism/structure/hardware be -squeamish - about anything flesh-and-bone?
This strikes me as more like the squeamishness of our own race, going "ewww..." over the contents of our own insides! :-P
Wouldn't a machine race be more likely to be squeamish about naked circuitry, corrosion, electrical arcing, EMP's, malware...? :-\
BenRG:
Something to remember about using chemicals as a crutch to help avoid facing one's emotions: No matter how good and effective the high, the down afterwards is ten times worse than the original feelings.
oddtail:
--- Quote from: DaiJB on 05 Dec 2021, 20:12 ---"Organic chemistry is truly, disgustingly primitive"
No, no, no - organic chemistry is truly, mind-bogglingly complicated - and we still have only the foggiest notions of how these chemicals affect the organic metabolism.
...And that's another attitude that intrigues me - so many speculative fiction stories show the alien species expressing some form of disgust over the structure of carbon-based lifeforms. I mean - why?
Why would a species with a different metabolism/structure/hardware be -squeamish - about anything flesh-and-bone?
This strikes me as more like the squeamishness of our own race, going "ewww..." over the contents of our own insides! :-P
Wouldn't a machine race be more likely to be squeamish about naked circuitry, corrosion, electrical arcing, EMP's, malware...? :-\
--- End quote ---
That's a good point. Humans are squeamish about things related to our biology for a simple reason. We evolved to worry about infections and poisons. That's why we're squeamish about blood (it should be on the inside, not on the outside), about edible things smelling bad (means they're already decomposing), about sex (but, IIRC, part of sexual arousal involves essentially shutting off the "disgust" part of the brain for a time).
An AI would not automatically relate to that unless socialised around humans (a lot) or otherwies patterned on human priorities (and Yay are explicitly alien in mind). Nor would a creature not close to us biologically. If we ever meet a silicon-based or otherwise strange lifeform, our natural inclination will not be think of their anatomy in terms of "ewww, they're made of rocks" or "ewww, it's bleeding methane". We won't because it's not inherently "biological" to us, and therefore not icky.
It's almost like Yay is written by a human. Curious, that ;)
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