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Bookshelf of Doom - Which autobiography are you reading?

Espressos and Arc Welders - An Artistic Journey (by Faye Whittaker)
- 2 (5.7%)
Stumbling Upright Somehow (by Marten Reed)
- 2 (5.7%)
The View From the Toybox (by Pintsize)
- 2 (5.7%)
We, Ourselves and Us (by Yay Newfriend)
- 8 (22.9%)
Not All Prisons Are Physical (by Hannelore Elicott-Chatham)
- 9 (25.7%)
The Witch of Northampton (by Dora Bianchi)
- 2 (5.7%)
Bouncing Off the Bottom of Misfortune (by May)
- 1 (2.9%)
Filling the Holes Inside (by Bubbles)
- 2 (5.7%)
Life is Serious Business (by Claire Augustus)
- 1 (2.9%)
I Am Not A Bastard (by Roko Basilisk)
- 6 (17.1%)

Total Members Voted: 33


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Author Topic: WCDT strips 4296-4300 (29th June to 3rd July 2020)  (Read 18007 times)

chris73

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Re: WCDT strips 4296-4300 (29th June to 3rd July 2020)
« Reply #100 on: 03 Jul 2020, 04:48 »

I get the feeling I'm missing a joke here.

Oh well.

Abolishing the carceral state (if it ever happened) would be a helluva joke, not a very funny joke mind you
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Gus_Smedstad

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Re: WCDT strips 4296-4300 (29th June to 3rd July 2020)
« Reply #101 on: 03 Jul 2020, 05:51 »

Incarceration is like democracy. It’s a pretty bad solution to the problem, but better than all the other solutions we’ve tried.

In some SF backgrounds, committing a crime gets you therapied until you stop wanting to do that again in the future. The specifics of how they go about modifying your behavior depends on how dystopian the story is. More utopian stories have mostly-painless solutions, nastier ones have serious mind control solutions like brain implants.

It’s pretty clear in the QC universe, they haven’t figured out an answer, so they’re still taking the deterrent approach. That is, crime gets you punished, which discourages crime, and since they aren’t barbarians the punishment isn’t flogging or losing body parts.
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Baleanopter

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Re: WCDT strips 4296-4300 (29th June to 3rd July 2020)
« Reply #102 on: 03 Jul 2020, 07:15 »

Munroe Robotics: My guess is this is a reference to Randall Munroe's XKCD (another favorite comic strip).  Even if not, I approve!
Glad I'm not the only one who immediately saw this.
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N.N. Marf

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Re: WCDT strips 4296-4300 (29th June to 3rd July 2020)
« Reply #103 on: 03 Jul 2020, 08:00 »

Perhaps Munroe Robotics is a startup. That would be one explanation for why we haven't heard of them yet.
In terms of the XKCD coincidence, Femto is Beret Guy.

Yeah, bureaucracy sucks. I just applied for citizenship (in New Zealand), and they'll get back to me in 3 months or so. Honestly, what are they doing in the meantime? Shredding my application and then putting it back together as a team building exercise or something?
I take exception to that attitude. Bureaucracy is serious business. How would you feel if you got wrongfully denied? In order to ensure all applications are properly processed, every task must be requested---signed in triplicate---sent in, sent back, queried (lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, finally buried in soft peat and recycled as firelighters.) Without our forefathers practicing such proper processing, where would our society stand today?

The specifics of how they go about modifying your behavior depends on how dystopian the story is. More utopian stories have mostly-painless solutions, nastier ones have serious mind control solutions like brain implants.
In my experience as an avid reader of sciencey fantasies, overt utopias are the most dystopic, compounded by the fact that their characters, readers, don't recognize to what they're complicit.
Incarceration is like democracy. It’s a pretty bad solution to the problem, but better than all the other solutions we’ve tried.
Aren't you glad we haven't looked at what others do?
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Pilchard123

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Re: WCDT strips 4296-4300 (29th June to 3rd July 2020)
« Reply #104 on: 03 Jul 2020, 10:06 »

Landon looks sorta like Randall Munroe, and "Landon" is a biiiiit like "Randall" to hear. Or maybe I'm grasping at straws.

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jwhouk

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Re: WCDT strips 4296-4300 (29th June to 3rd July 2020)
« Reply #105 on: 03 Jul 2020, 11:10 »

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zmeiat_joro

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Re: WCDT strips 4296-4300 (29th June to 3rd July 2020)
« Reply #106 on: 03 Jul 2020, 11:47 »

Oh my, how could we now have noticed that. Seriously guys, we've had cameos by a dozen sci-fi novelists and webcomic authors, as well as regular characters based on print comic characters (a notable one by Neil Gaiman that is still ongoing), as well as famous DJs. This is one of the most blatant ones; seriously, I started reading Jeph and Randall at about the same time in the early '00s and I kept i touch with both of them for a time until 10-ish years ago.
« Last Edit: 03 Jul 2020, 11:56 by zmeiat_joro »
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zmeiat_joro

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Re: WCDT strips 4296-4300 (29th June to 3rd July 2020)
« Reply #107 on: 03 Jul 2020, 13:30 »

I think Femto is an inversion of phetmo, as in, she might might be actually running on a phetmosecond substrate; She might be too quick for nano-based neurons and she's just bored.

EDIT: knowing Jeph, it's probably an anime reference.
« Last Edit: 03 Jul 2020, 20:28 by zmeiat_joro »
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I, for one, welcome the fragmentation of deeper levels of shared reality.

Gyrre

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Re: WCDT strips 4296-4300 (29th June to 3rd July 2020)
« Reply #108 on: 04 Jul 2020, 04:39 »

Who knows?

Though, I'm not seeing a neck-seam.
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the silent firefly

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Re: WCDT strips 4296-4300 (29th June to 3rd July 2020)
« Reply #109 on: 05 Jul 2020, 00:20 »

Who knows?

Though, I'm not seeing a neck-seam.


good point. maybe she is not embodied and spends her time in VR to communicate with Landon more easily.
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Farideh

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Re: WCDT strips 4296-4300 (29th June to 3rd July 2020)
« Reply #110 on: 05 Jul 2020, 15:23 »


I take exception to that attitude. Bureaucracy is serious business. How would you feel if you got wrongfully denied? In order to ensure all applications are properly processed, every task must be requested---signed in triplicate---sent in, sent back, queried (lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, finally buried in soft peat and recycled as firelighters.) Without our forefathers practicing such proper processing, where would our society stand today?

On the day that my grandmother needs to be saved from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, I will give bureaucracy its chance :)
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jwhouk

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Re: WCDT strips 4296-4300 (29th June to 3rd July 2020)
« Reply #111 on: 05 Jul 2020, 19:36 »

Someone going to do a new WCDT?
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"Character is what you are in the Dark." - D.L. Moody
There is no joke that can be made online without someone being offended by it.
Life's too short to be ashamed of how you were born.
Just another Joe like 46

Farideh

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Re: WCDT strips 4296-4300 (29th June to 3rd July 2020)
« Reply #112 on: 05 Jul 2020, 19:51 »

Does it have to include a poll?
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Thrillho

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Re: WCDT strips 4296-4300 (29th June to 3rd July 2020)
« Reply #113 on: 06 Jul 2020, 14:11 »

Bumping this just because I have an answer to the poll for once - definitely May. God I would empathise with May's book way too much.
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BenRG

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Re: WCDT strips 4296-4300 (29th June to 3rd July 2020)
« Reply #114 on: 06 Jul 2020, 14:20 »

Bumping this just because I have an answer to the poll for once - definitely May. God I would empathise with May's book way too much.

I... am honestly sorry to hear that. Really.
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