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Cat Mattress posted:He's probably seen the movie and played the game already.
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Aug 20, 2014 19:14
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Tenebrais posted:Alison wants to change the world for the better, not devote her life to a stop-gap measure. Part of her objection to Viral was that, no matter how many lives she saves, she's not actually solving anything. alison's problem is she doesn't actually want to do the work to change the world and just skip straight to the revolution step. 'she's actually not solving anything' yeah i guess that the lives feral saves don't matter at all. after all if it doesn't lead to systemic change it might as well have not happened. dont get me wrong its a pretty accurate portrayal of an idealistic 20-something revolutionary but that doesn't change how myopic such a mindset is
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Aug 20, 2014 20:13
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A big flaming stink posted:alison's problem is she doesn't actually want to do the work to change the world and just skip straight to the revolution step. 'she's actually not solving anything' yeah i guess that the lives feral saves don't matter at all. after all if it doesn't lead to systemic change it might as well have not happened. The question is whether she manages to turn that 20-something revolutionary identity crisis into something that actually changes things. I have my own thoughts on that, of course, but I'm interested to see where the writer takes this. A friend of mine was going on about how she wants to do things to change the world, and I told her in response that there are plenty of scientists, economists, and social workers who would be happy to do it, but there's a distinct lack of charismatic individuals that can sell their ideas to an incredibly apathetic or hostile public. "If you want to change the world, put an 18 in Charisma," for the D&D nerds in the room. Alison has been proven to not really have the sort of charismatic people skills and debate strategy to unify people. Sure, she can write a fancy paper or two on the nature of human existence and contemporary social issues, but then again, what person in her age bracket can't? When it came to the Guardians, it was her powers, not her personality, that kept them together. That doesn't work if you're trying to eradicate war and poverty.
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Aug 20, 2014 21:38
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A big flaming stink posted:alison's problem is she doesn't actually want to do the work to change the world and just skip straight to the revolution step. 'she's actually not solving anything' yeah i guess that the lives feral saves don't matter at all. after all if it doesn't lead to systemic change it might as well have not happened. Sometimes I feel like this thread is way crazy harsh on Alison. This is definitely one of those times. Take the bolded for example, I'm not really sure what in-text evidence suggests Alison has any desire to jumpstart "the revolution" or that she has any conception of what revolution should be taking place. Her whole thing as far as I've been able to read is that she knows that she DOESN'T know what the gently caress she should be doing, and that she figures that finishing her education is probably a good first step to actually engaging with the world meaningfully. Maybe she'll conclude a revolution is in order later, but right now I thought the entire point is that she doesn't know what is in order.
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Aug 20, 2014 23:49
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Their username is very appropriate.
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Aug 21, 2014 02:30
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Small Frozen Thing posted:Their username is very appropriate. I have to disagree and I think what Patrick/Menace said about her fighting style, how she'd take an incredible amount of punishment in order to win a fight efficiently, is relevant to her attitude. She wants her efforts to be winning efforts. She's looking for a way to make the world better in a manner that addresses fundamental and systemic issues and she doesn't see the guardians as that or Feral's efforts regardless of how highly she thinks of her for doing that, as a solution either. Feral's sacrifice will improve the lives of many people, but it won't address the big issues Allison sees in the world. I think if Allison could identify what steps would be necessary to change the world she'd take them, she'd work at them she'd fix things for the sake of herself and her friends. She felt powerless and ashamed when she couldn't fix that playground, or when she found out her indulgence in the joys of combat had killed her professor's lover. I'd say she's desperate to do something to change the world for the better, but she doesn't know WHAT it is and I believe her character would work at it insanely hard once she figures it out and identify it is her educational goal.
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Aug 21, 2014 05:44
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That's not what they're saying, though.
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Aug 21, 2014 07:16
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The point they're bringing up is that at what point do you draw the line? There's always something more you theoretically could be doing, but if you spend all your time trying to figure out the best way to do things, you miss out on your opportunity to actually do things. If Alison is the Hipster Superhero, this is her Kryptonite. Hipsters have a stereotype of spending all their time worrying about what they should do without actually doing anything. Spending years in college for degrees they don't use, working part-time jobs because they don't want to get sucked into a career that isn't what they were "meant" to do in life. Alison could start saving lives, now, in small but definitive ways. It wouldn't solve anything in the grand scheme of things, but it would see results. The reason she doesn't is because she wants to find a way to change things in a deeper and larger manner. The thing that will become the key piece of the puzzle, and that I believe Hector will probably bring up, is what guarantee does Alison have that she will find that way to make a difference? That's when the whole things breaks down. Alison is gambling that the lives she doesn't save now, by actually going out and making a thousand small contributions, will be overshadowed by the lives she'll save when she makes a fundamental change for the better. But she has no idea what that change will be, how she'll make it, and how it will make things better. She's gambling in a game she doesn't even understand, and if it doesn't pan out she will be crushed. Edit: What's really great about all this is how the metaphor wraps right back around and finishes itself neatly. Alison is a superheroic metaphor for hipsters. Whereas a 20-something might get an art degree, never use it, and work as a Barista for 10 years while planning to write the Great American Novel, Alison fights superheros, quits doing that to better herself, and now waffles between making small impacts and trying to figure out how she can make a big one. Alison's superherobro Feral takes the opposite choice, giving her body up for organ donation and making an important difference in thousands of lives, one bit at a time. And in real life, the metaphor is for women who decide to have children. Giving up their body and at least 18 years of their lives to a child. Seriously, it fits so well. Read that chapter again, except replace all the superhero terms with poo poo like "pregnant", "settling down" and "can't have an epidural." Captain Bravo fucked around with this message at 12:51 on Aug 21, 2014 |
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Aug 21, 2014 12:43
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To be fair, she's addressing that issue somewhat as a Volunteer Firefighter.
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Aug 21, 2014 13:00
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You know, I had completely forgotten about that. Good point!
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Aug 21, 2014 13:56
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Small Frozen Thing posted:That's not what they're saying, though. People were saying she doesn't want to do any work to save the world that she just wants to skip ahead to some big revolution. I agree with Captain Oblivious that some people are way too negative about Alison's character regarding her desire to improve the world. That's what I was addressing, what'd you think I was talking about?
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Aug 21, 2014 15:23
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MikeJF posted:To be fair, she's addressing that issue somewhat as a Volunteer Firefighter. Wait, when did that happen?
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Aug 21, 2014 16:19
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RiotGearEpsilon posted:Wait, when did that happen? Right at the start of the comic. It hasn't really come up a lot.
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Aug 21, 2014 16:23
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nimby posted:Right at the start of the comic. It hasn't really come up a lot. Her chief is pretty cool though.
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Aug 21, 2014 20:39
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Mr.Pibbleton posted:People were saying she doesn't want to do any work to save the world that she just wants to skip ahead to some big revolution. I agree with Captain Oblivious that some people are way too negative about Alison's character regarding her desire to improve the world. That's what I was addressing, what'd you think I was talking about? I was making fun of their username being "a big flaming stink" when they were making a big flaming stink about it, then you said you disagreed.
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Aug 22, 2014 02:12
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Small Frozen Thing posted:I was making fun of their username being "a big flaming stink" when they were making a big flaming stink about it, then you said you disagreed. Oh, I thought you were making fun of Captain Oblivious's name in regards to their views on Alison's character. Yeah, given the context like that I can see how you could interpret my misinterpretation as something else entirely. I should have been clearer in my post.
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Aug 22, 2014 15:55
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The alt text on today's is golden, and also unsettling.
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Aug 22, 2014 16:06
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The hell? Is that a secret compartment for her mask inside his globe?
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Aug 23, 2014 00:03
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I don't think you understand just what kind of a sentimental weirdo Hector is.
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Aug 23, 2014 02:08
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Warmachine posted:The hell? Is that a secret compartment for her mask inside his globe? It's a keepsake globe. For a sentimental nerd. It's silly but uncomplicated.
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Aug 23, 2014 02:18
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Looking around the room he's got a couple of globes at least, he just likes his little souvenirs.
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Aug 23, 2014 08:15
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At least when he makes his heel-turn we know what gimmick he'll go with.
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Aug 23, 2014 14:42
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A big flaming stink posted:alison's problem is she doesn't actually want to do the work to change the world and just skip straight to the revolution step. This is actually the exact opposite of what Alison's problem is, because if she "skipped straight to the revolution step" then pretty much everyone in-universe with a position of power or wealth would be dead. Because she would have killed them all in a one-woman bloody crusade to change the world, you see, and the number of people we know of that could realistically have stopped her can be counted on one hand. Alison's actual problem is that she's bought into the status quo and believes the American Democrat lie of "the system is, at its core, good, and only needs small changes to work." Alison lives in a world where people in power kill children for the crime of possibly being able to make the world better, and she is still supporting the system because the only way she can think of to fix it is an act of violence that goes against her stated beliefs.
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Aug 23, 2014 18:09
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That's not really true either. Alison doesn't believe in much of anything at the moment. She doesn't know what approach to take to fixing the problem. She doesn't even know what the problem is, just what its symptoms are (ie, people suffering and/or dying). She's trying to lay low enough to learn how society works. Then she can figure out what needs to be done to fix it. Being a superhero gave her the perspective to see how much the world needs saving, and pushed her into wanting to do it, but it didn't give her the tools to do so. Taking down supervillains doesn't save the world, it just stops them blowing up city hall or whatever. Is city hall even worth protecting? Why do people trust a teenager to know what to do just because she can bench-press a tank? What is wrong with people? It's a struggle relatable to everyone that hasn't given up and settled into misanthropy. Most of us come to the realisation that we can't fix the world, just try to make a small part of it a little better. Alison, though, is left with the niggling feeling that she can, she just needs to know what to do.
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Aug 23, 2014 18:43
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Man how great would it be if this comic ends with Allison murdering every single person in the government and like half the population of certain states and then there's a 20 year time skip and we find out that that's really all you needed to do to fix America and everythings awesome now.
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Aug 24, 2014 04:12
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ChairMaster posted:Man how great would it be if this comic ends with Allison murdering every single person in the government and like half the population of certain states and then there's a 20 year time skip and we find out that that's really all you needed to do to fix America and everythings awesome now. That would make this the most D&D comic of all time.
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Aug 24, 2014 04:50
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PleasingFungus posted:That would make this the most D&D comic of all time. Dungeons&Dragons or Debate&Discussion?
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Aug 24, 2014 04:51
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clandestinauts is the most dnd comic of all time though 
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Aug 24, 2014 05:05
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Wittgen posted:Dungeons&Dragons or Debate&Discussion? In this scenario? Both.
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Aug 25, 2014 02:14
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well honestly a murderspree in israel's government by a superhero might not be that bad of an idea also that's more LF's sort of thing
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Aug 25, 2014 06:18
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Captain Bravo posted:The point they're bringing up is that at what point do you draw the line? There's always something more you theoretically could be doing, but if you spend all your time trying to figure out the best way to do things, you miss out on your opportunity to actually do things. If Alison is the Hipster Superhero, this is her Kryptonite. Hipsters have a stereotype of spending all their time worrying about what they should do without actually doing anything. Spending years in college for degrees they don't use, working part-time jobs because they don't want to get sucked into a career that isn't what they were "meant" to do in life. I just marathonned this whole comic and this is the best summary I can find about my feelings on it. Allison is frustrating because she's going to school looking for a grand master theory to fix the world while not doing much with her amazing superpowers. Sure she goes off and saves a girl from a potential rape here and stops a terrorist attack there, but she's still a mostly reactionary force, which is one of the big things people complain about when it comes to Big Two superheroes all the time. For someone who wants to change the system, she seems to be waiting for some sort of divine inspiration/intervention to really make it happen rather than be more proactive. Maybe not "devote yourself to 24/7 organ farm" proactive, but there are definitely ways super-strength can be used besides "punch mans hard". Although maybe if they'd just show more of her firefighting on the side that'd be enough to shut me up. Also I'm surprised so many people are down on Hector. I mean, sure he's being kind of immature about having to move on, but we know he was into superhero comics before he got his powers, then he literally got to live his dream and now he's having to face reality after living in a comic book world for most of his adolescence. Plus he started the hero biz as a kid, and by what Sonar said, the Guardians basically grew up together. Plus the Guardians were apparently a government-sponsored team. So for him, this is like having your best friends move away and being laid off from your (dream) job at once. That would be loving tough to handle, and I can't blame him for being a little bit pissy about the whole thing.
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Aug 25, 2014 07:01
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TwoPair posted:I just marathonned this whole comic and this is the best summary I can find about my feelings on it. Allison is frustrating because she's going to school looking for a grand master theory to fix the world while not doing much with her amazing superpowers. Sure she goes off and saves a girl from a potential rape here and stops a terrorist attack there, but she's still a mostly reactionary force, which is one of the big things people complain about when it comes to Big Two superheroes all the time. For someone who wants to change the system, she seems to be waiting for some sort of divine inspiration/intervention to really make it happen rather than be more proactive. Maybe not "devote yourself to 24/7 organ farm" proactive, but there are definitely ways super-strength can be used besides "punch mans hard". Although maybe if they'd just show more of her firefighting on the side that'd be enough to shut me up. The part missing in your interpretation is the argument being used against the regeneration organ farm types: they're the exact same as what philanthropists and charities have been doing all this time. They're band-aids. Maybe much bigger than your average band-aid, but none-the-less, they're just temporary stop gaps that don't actually affect meaningful change. One dude getting a heart is wonderful and all, but on the macro level, there are still billions in poverty, heart disease is still something that requires new hearts, and so on. We don't have a satisfactory answer yet for the "do small acts of ultimately meaningless kindness," or "keep looking for the home run of change at the expense of hundreds of smaller acts." I doubt the answer is lot of small stuff, because if it was lots of small stuff, we wouldn't have the problems in the first place. That's the conclusion Alison has come to as well. In fewer, more focused words, superpowers are great, but no amount of super-strength firefighting will affect meaningful change on the world. It might save some lives, but at the end of the day, you've not put a dent in the larger problems of the world. To someone who is, by most peoples' perception, a demigod, that's frustrating.
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Aug 25, 2014 10:46
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Basically, its the difference between treating the symptoms of a disease and curing the patient. Allison feels treating the patient (in this case human society) in perpetuity is useless since they going to get worse again the moment you stop. This is why her dad's cancer hits her so hard. She can't deal with the concept that some ills require a constant and permanent effort to keep in check. Edit: Which makes her fundamental flaw that she doesn't want people to have to make an effort to be good people living a life without worries. I'm now reminded of her rant to Cleaver about how hard she constantly has to work to keep her urges to kill and destroy in check, and wonder what will happen when she realizes that won't ever get easier. Really, Allison's desire for a permanent fix that doesn't require continual effort isn't even altruistic in its motivation. Slashrat fucked around with this message at 14:35 on Aug 25, 2014 |
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Aug 25, 2014 11:55
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A big flaming stink posted:well honestly a murderspree in israel's government by a superhero might not be that bad of an idea TwoPair posted:Allison is frustrating because she's going to school looking for a grand master theory to fix the world I now want to see a chapter where Alison is introduced to a "LessWrong" style techno-singularity cult.
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Aug 25, 2014 13:08
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Warmachine posted:The part missing in your interpretation is the argument being used against the regeneration organ farm types: they're the exact same as what philanthropists and charities have been doing all this time. They're band-aids. Maybe much bigger than your average band-aid, but none-the-less, they're just temporary stop gaps that don't actually affect meaningful change. One dude getting a heart is wonderful and all, but on the macro level, there are still billions in poverty, heart disease is still something that requires new hearts, and so on. We don't have a satisfactory answer yet for the "do small acts of ultimately meaningless kindness," or "keep looking for the home run of change at the expense of hundreds of smaller acts." I doubt the answer is lot of small stuff, because if it was lots of small stuff, we wouldn't have the problems in the first place. That's the conclusion Alison has come to as well. Right, and the comic knows this. It's the entire point of it. Remember, Alison represents privilege. If you took a census of the entire timeline of the human race, any average, modern, first-world adolescent is among the top .00000001% in terms of quality of life. Hell, if you take a census of right now, they're still in the top 1% or so. (Which made the "1% movement" deliciously schadenfreude-y) Nowadays, the majority of people living in the US, Europe, etc. are basically demigods. And with great privilege, comes great mental steps to duck responsibility. I wasn't being flippant when I made the comparison to a 20-something barista in a modern city. No one person today is going to fix the world. No one person in SFP is going to fix the world. Alison is (probably) deluding herself by thinking so. Writing off actual, real change as "A band-aid" is a coping mechanism to come to terms with the fact that she isn't actively doing anything to make things better. Helping one person will not save the world. Helping 0 people does less to save the world. The thing is, when you color things in a binary, "Entire world is saved" vs. "Entire world is not saved" it makes sense to not sweat the small stuff. When you actually look at things in terms of "percentage of people doing alright", you can see how every small bit of effort makes a difference. The real problem comes from self-esteem. Right now, the world population is 7 billion people, give or take. That means that doing something which changes one person's life affects .0000001% of the population. You see it in those terms, and it becomes a matter of "Is it really worth the effort?" You don't want to make a difference, you want to make a significant difference. To be fair, Alison was pressured into this. It's the whole thing with the news interview asking if she'll go to war with China, people were pressuring her into making a bigger difference, and she rejects that. But she's still trapped in that mindset, it's been drilled into her, and so she can't come to terms with truly being happy making a small effort. In the same way that so many Millennials have been brought up into believing that they'll do something great, and become disillusioned when their life doesn't reflect that. Hell, I might as well just link the drat monkeysphere, because it really ought to be required reading. When you think of masses of people as a giant abstract, when you're not visualizing individual faces, names, and families, it's too easy to fall into a trap of depersonalizing people. This exact strategy is exploited in a lot of unwholesome ways by a lot of unsavory individuals. When you get close, and start thinking of people in terms of "Bob", "Dan", and "Akeem", it becomes a lot harder to ignore the call to action. Which is why so many people choose to purposely isolate themselves from the entire shebang, because it's a lot easier to ignore the actual impact you are able to make on society and just decry the whole thing as "broken" when you're interacting as little as possible with it. This swings both ways, and the author is savvy enough to exploit this. It's also easier to ignore the reprehensible things people do when you have a personal relationship with them. "He's not a rapist, that's Miles from Philosophy class!" Again, Alison reinforces her character traits by explicitly denouncing that way of thinking. Now, of course, she was right in that instance, but the comic immediately swings things around, and has the girl's friend bring up the flip-side. By being involved in her life, they know she does this often. They know the uniqueness of that girl, and how things could be improved in her life. Alison does not, she only sees the girl as a statistic (drunk girl who almost got raped) and as a demographic. (20-something year old young woman) When Alison's world view is again confronted, this time by someone she can't write off as obviously being in the wrong, she bugs out. Alison, by virtue of her past, has learned not to see people too close. She has a breakdown when she digs too deep into a professor's life, and realizes the consequences her actions can have. She saved people in such large, broad swathes that she never got a chance to really connect with any one of them. And she reflexively avoids becoming too close with anyone outside her family and close friends, because it just becomes that much harder to try and keep focus on her "big picture". Which, again, I've pointed out becomes a major issue when you realize that her "big picture" is nothing more than a pipe dream at this point. It's a hope and a prayer, with nothing to back it up save that she's really good at punching robots. It becomes a vicious cycle, in which a teenage Alison rebels against people depending on her to solve all their problems, but is still so stuck in that mindset that she still believes she must solve all of their problems. She oscillates between the realism of what she can do, and the idealism of what she believes she should do. I would bet that the big chapter showdown which seems to be building is going to force her to come face-to-face with this.
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Aug 25, 2014 14:53
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I think it's odd how hard on Alison people are because I can't see how she's not doing the right thing. She's a young women in college trying to figure out the world and her place in it. Trying to figure out how best to help the world before diving into doing this is not a bad thing. How many well intentioned charities have done serious damage rather than helping? She has a lot of power, and taking steps to try and make sure she's using it well strikes me as the more moral choice. Remember that Feral spent years journeying across the world before deciding on how she was going to make a difference.
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Aug 25, 2014 16:51
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The main thing Allison is doing wrong is continuing to associate with Violet.
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Aug 25, 2014 17:28
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Captain Bravo posted:It becomes a vicious cycle, in which a teenage Alison rebels against people depending on her to solve all their problems, but is still so stuck in that mindset that she still believes she must solve all of their problems. She oscillates between the realism of what she can do, and the idealism of what she believes she should do. I would bet that the big chapter showdown which seems to be building is going to force her to come face-to-face with this. This is what it comes down to in my eyes. Her worldview is colored by the fact she's a (retired) superhero. The analogy to privilege, as you pointed out, is painful. Society expects her to come out someday in a flashy costume and announce that she is the Woman of Tomorrow and will lead the world into an age of prosperity, because that's big and flashy, just like Superman punching giant robots. Wittgen posted:I think it's odd how hard on Alison people are because I can't see how she's not doing the right thing. She's a young women in college trying to figure out the world and her place in it. Trying to figure out how best to help the world before diving into doing this is not a bad thing. How many well intentioned charities have done serious damage rather than helping? She has a lot of power, and taking steps to try and make sure she's using it well strikes me as the more moral choice. The argument can be made then that the people who do the small things are needed. The firefighters and doctors without borders and all of the other people who put down their time for the good of others. Sure, they're small things that ultimately only work to keep society maintained and prevent it from unraveling when the masses get mad enough to start bloody revolutions to put the next group of rear end in a top hat monkeys in charge (and not actually change anything because of said Monkeysphere limitations), but necessary. However, Alison is just as right as these many small worker ants desperately trying to prop the colony up, because like it or not, we do have to think in terms of the big picture. Society runs on the big picture, as our Cracked article points out. Someone has to look at the big issues, the statistical overview of humanity, and work at that level, whether as a politician or an activist, whatever. If you know about your limitation in empathy, there's no reason you can't control for it. Yes, things will slip through the cracks (the broken glass and garbage man example comes to mind), but you'll also be in a much better position to make positive ethical choices about decisions that will affect 150+ people. And as long as you continue to want wine from California, syrup from Canada, cars from Detroit, and oil from Saudi Arabia, someone's gotta run the big picture. Same thing goes for charity and 'changing the world.' If we're in the business of making predictions on where Alison is going to go, I think it'll be that she does realize that there's no 'silver bullet' for the world's problems, but will realize that someone has to organize and direct the other disaffected individuals like herself to inflict meaningful change. Back to my first post on the subject: There's no shortage of well-meaning 20-somethings who want to change the world. There is a shortage of people who can effectively organize them and point them at problems to solve so that their own ennui doesn't render them useless. If she doesn't end up making big speeches to lots of people, I'll be very surprised. She has quite a few character traits to break through before she can do that though. Her abrasiveness being one of them.
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Aug 25, 2014 19:21
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I hate Pintsize because the dude is doggin' on science. < > Science rules.
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Aug 26, 2014 15:13
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rotinaj posted:I hate Pintsize because the dude is doggin' on science. < It does. But it is so, so boring to actually do.
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Aug 26, 2014 15:29
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