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Terror Sweat posted:This is a rare miss from thorsby's thought experiments I think, why is overpopulation a problem when humanity is already going to other planets and easily terraforming them Could be intentional, though he’s usually very blunt so I doubt it.
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Nov 27, 2019 17:20
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Terror Sweat posted:This is a rare miss from thorsby's thought experiments I think, why is overpopulation a problem when humanity is already going to other planets and easily terraforming them I re-read the ending, just to make sure my memory of it was correct, and it's actually not the case that humanity has totally wrapped up terraforming other planets. Ulf's new girlfriend is a scientist specifically working on making the planet they're on habitable for animal life. Presumably they're in a small, protected area of it, or have some kind of hazmat tech integrated into their bodies? It's implied that full terraforming is coming soon though, which yeah, would probably allow Aisha to advance further life extension to her subjects.
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Nov 27, 2019 17:34
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Terror Sweat posted:This is a rare miss from thorsby's thought experiments I think, why is overpopulation a problem when humanity is already going to other planets and easily terraforming them Sending one billion people from a planet to another is actually more complicated than it seems!
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Nov 27, 2019 18:39
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Brain Chip, to me, is Thorsby at his craftiest. I love how it starts as another farce, but builds into a complex thought experiment. And he gets real creative with the format. The strip where one Ulf's world dies and then there's just an empty space still gives me chills.
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Nov 27, 2019 19:10
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Cat Mattress posted:Sending one billion people from a planet to another is actually more complicated than it seems! They have teleporters
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Nov 27, 2019 19:20
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Creating a functioning biosphere is probably the most difficult thing that we could ever theoretically accomplish in real life. It wouldn't destroy suspension of disbelief for it to already be happening in the end of the comic, but it's a good choice to show the idea that god hasn't quite finished her work in the universe by the end of the comic and that there are still things to be done and problems in the world that she can't just fix immediately and permanently with the snap of her fingers.
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Nov 28, 2019 09:55
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TDBC ends with a giant pervert living out a distorted version of a sex fantasy she admits to having earlier in the comic, with the entire world as unwitting participants. if you think that qualifies as a happy ending then that's your own business
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Nov 28, 2019 10:40
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break-up breakdown posted:TDBC ends with a giant pervert living out a distorted version of a sex fantasy she admits to having earlier in the comic, with the entire world as unwitting participants.  I never noticed that connection until now.Thorsby!
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Nov 28, 2019 10:46
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break-up breakdown posted:TDBC ends with a giant pervert living out a distorted version of a sex fantasy she admits to having earlier in the comic, with the entire world as unwitting participants. Frame this.
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Nov 28, 2019 19:45
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http://trixie.thecomicseries.com/comics/436 Lyndon has a sort of good idea for once.
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Nov 29, 2019 03:32
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from a narrative perspective, lyndon is 100% right. the scepter's existence muddles the plot ridiculously. as for the in-universe morals, idk i think i'd be fine w using the scepter. i mean, that universe that dies is all fake, so
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Nov 29, 2019 03:47
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Mr. Steak posted:i mean, that universe that dies is all fake, so That's a very bold ontological statement to make. They're as real as we are.
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Nov 29, 2019 03:53
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Reverting someone to an earlier point in their life is not the same as killing them.
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Nov 29, 2019 04:01
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The Lone Badger posted:That's a very bold ontological statement to make. They're as real as we are. in essence its the same ontological question of "would a teleportation-clone of myself really be me or would it just be a separate entity with the same memories and personality?" like, theres a theory that such a teleportation device would result in the individual's perceived death, and the individual who appears at the destination would not actually be the same consciousness who left, despite having the exact same experiences. that a theoretical digitized immortality would actually be impossible for us to experience, and it would only be a simulation of us living inside the computer. its also the same ontological question that "black mirror" poses with its favorite gimmick that it reuses every episode because its literally the best idea the show has had. that kind of question is something i'd prefer not to think about in real life. tbh i would never use the scepter in real life, not because of any moral quandaries but because the scepter's effect itself is terrifying to me. i wouldnt want to know how i potentially may die
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Nov 29, 2019 04:08
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But going on to say that the duplicated person isn't even a person at all is an even more extreme position. If it was possible to communicate with one of the people inside the sceptreverse they would pass a Turing Test / Voight-Kampf test / whatever else you devise.
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Nov 29, 2019 04:29
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The Lone Badger posted:That's a very bold ontological statement to make. They're as real as we are. This also means that ordering a sim into the pool and then deleting the ladder is okay, but only if you modeled the sim on someone you know. Ethics is complicated sometimes.
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Nov 29, 2019 04:42
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To be fair, we don't know that the simulation universe is destroyed. We know that at least two of the users of the scepter in the prime universe believe it is.
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Nov 29, 2019 04:46
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This is true, but only if the person who uses the sceptre is about to die. If the simulation runs for twenty years then lots of things have changed and lots of people have been born, meaning that destroying the universe is now unethical. Edit: this means that if you suspect the sceptre has been used your most ethical choice is to attempt to destroy the universe immediately. Or at least kill everyone on earth. The Lone Badger fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Nov 29, 2019 |
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Nov 29, 2019 04:47
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If the sceptre had the processing power to keep universes running forever then it wouldn't have to stop simulating an area of 5 light years around itself.
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Nov 29, 2019 06:46
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Classon Ave. Robot posted:If the sceptre had the processing power to keep universes running forever then it wouldn't have to stop simulating an area of 5 light years around itself. It could also be creating material pocket universes that are self-sustaining without any further scepter intervention, bridging one moment of communication, and then disconnecting from the pocket universe forever. Is it less distasteful to use the scepter if that's what it's actually doing? Probably. Given the way the comic seems to be winding down, though, Lyndon and the ambassador are probably canonically correct about how it works.
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Nov 29, 2019 12:15
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maltesh posted:It could also be creating material pocket universes that are self-sustaining without any further scepter intervention, bridging one moment of communication, and then disconnecting from the pocket universe forever. im fairly sure that to thorsby (or at the very least the characters), the stars thing is proof that its a simulated world rather than a truly self-sustaining world that exists physically in any capacity. its been reasonably concluded that astral bodies *never* exist inside the scepter-verse, and that the scepter-verse has physical bounds which are much smaller than a self-sustaining universe could be. let alone the concept of whether the new universe is "killed", im skeptical that a new universe is ever created to begin with. first, the stars thing is directly correlated to when the scepter gets touched, so that flat out cancels any notion that the scepter-verse(s) exist parallel or concurrently with the primary one. for all intents and purposes a universe is "created" but... who is living those simulated lives...? where...? when...? from the viewpoint of the primary universe, the scepter merely causes a short vision, and the individuals in that vision aren't real autonomous entities, the events seen in the vision never actually happened, and no actual time has passed in any universe. prior to touching the scepter, there was no such parallel universe to interfere with, and after touching the scepter, there is still no such universe. if anything, i think the moral question w using the scepter is less a matter of killing a universe with real people in it, and more a question of "is it okay to create life that otherwise wouldnt exist, and then take away that existence in the same instant it was granted", which... i dont think is too morally wrong
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Nov 29, 2019 12:34
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Lyndon's definitely right. We spent a huge portion of the comic in a sceptre universe, and it's hammered out over and over again that the people in that universe are equally "real". The logic behind it is just: for prophecy to work, you have to use determinism. To deterministically discover the future based on the present, you have to simulate future events with 100% accuracy. Even a tiny deviation ruins your experiment. So, to simulate future events with 100% accuracy, you have to create individuals who are identical in every single way to the individuals you want to generate a prophecy for. You also have to create circumstances for them that are 100% identical to their current circumstances. Anything that could conceivably affect their future in any way must be slavishly modelled. That necessitates an equally accurate recreation of the population of their entire planet. The sceptre is flawed because it can't model prophecy based on interstellar events - its scope is restricted to things that are going to happen in a ginormous, but limited, radius around the point it's used from. Other than that though, everything indicates that the inhabitants of the sceptre universe are as "real" as the characters in the main universe. If they weren't identical in every way, the sceptre's deterministic model wouldn't work, because being "not real" would be a deviation.
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Nov 29, 2019 13:32
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Android Blues posted:Lyndon's definitely right. We spent a huge portion of the comic in a sceptre universe, and it's hammered out over and over again that the people in that universe are equally "real". i agree with all of that, but my argument is that those "real" people exist for an unbelievably short amount of time, such that you could barely say they existed at all. in the real world, decades of the entire planet's population could get simulated in probably microseconds, which for the intents of the primary universe is just a shitload of random information. i mean, for all we know, the scepter merely calculates the trajectory of every atom on earth perfectly, and the "sentient" life in the simulation, despite behaving identically to the originals, are nothing more than a shitload of atoms moving in predetermined ways. im not sure how exactly to explain what im getting at with this, but i dont think the events the scepter "knows about" are real. its a prediction. audrey never killed lyndon in any timeline. all that happened was real lyndon saw a vision of audrey killing him, based on a perfect simulation where an unfeeling audrey and unfeeling lyndon, along with an emotionless rest of the world, all act identically to if they had real emotions, even though they dont. their feelings are only the result of predicted atomic movements in their brains
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Nov 29, 2019 13:52
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Lotta people arguing for me to flip this switch that says universal shutoff itt.
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Nov 29, 2019 14:34
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Mr. Steak posted:... a perfect simulation where an unfeeling audrey and unfeeling lyndon, along with an emotionless rest of the world, all act identically to if they had real emotions, even though they dont. their feelings are only the result of predicted atomic movements in their brains Dang. I’m glad my emotions are real and not just the result of atoms moving in my brain.
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Nov 29, 2019 15:02
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Couldn’t the scepter just be simulating the behavior of everyone besides the scepter-toucher the same way tech companies can make a ghost profile of who I am/what I like based on metadata? They don’t actually exist, but the scepter accurately knows what they’d do. Am I creating and destroying universes of people every time I dream?
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Nov 29, 2019 15:16
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Wild how many people itt want to destroy entire universes of people who are as real as they are for no reason.
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Nov 29, 2019 15:22
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Dinosaurs! posted:Couldn’t the scepter just be simulating the behavior of everyone besides the scepter-toucher the same way tech companies can make a ghost profile of who I am/what I like based on metadata? They don’t actually exist, but the scepter accurately knows what they’d do. Am I creating and destroying universes of people every time I dream? If those "ghost profiles" were accurate enough to actually predict the future in minute detail rather than just being a portfolio of your vital statistics, hobbies and interests (which is what they are), then they too would, by necessity, be as real as you are. You can't deterministically simulate the future from a series of premises: for true deterministic accuracy, you need a complete reproduction of every last circumstance. Likewise, your dreams aren't precisely accurate reproductions of real people or events, they're your brain jumbling your memories around. Not at all equivalent!
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Nov 29, 2019 15:46
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At some point you reach P-zombie territory of "if it behaves exactly like a person but isn't a person, why isn't it a person?"
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Nov 29, 2019 15:52
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Relevant Tangent posted:Wild how many people itt want to destroy entire universes of people who are not real
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Nov 29, 2019 16:36
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Relevant Tangent posted:Wild how many people itt want to destroy entire universes of people who are as real as they are for no reason. well, i wouldnt. but anyway youre missing the point that for the simulated universe, the only alternative to being destroyed is never existing at all. idk if you can objectively declare which of those is preferable edit: that extends to questions of "is birth unethical because you're dooming a person to die?" i say, obviously not
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Nov 29, 2019 16:51
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is birth unethical because you are dooming a person to live? what of the people who suffer before touching the sceptre, suffer during the sceptre universe and suffer during the regular universe as well
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Nov 29, 2019 16:55
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for every instant that a person in the primary universe isn't remembering their own death, an infinite number of potential worlds are being casually sacrificed to a fate of non-existence. the only truly ethical course of action is to use the sceptre over and over, as fast as you possibly can.
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Nov 29, 2019 18:11
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break-up breakdown posted:for every instant that a person in the primary universe isn't remembering their own death, an infinite number of potential worlds are being casually sacrificed to a fate of non-existence. the only truly ethical course of action is to use the sceptre over and over, as fast as you possibly can. this guy gets it!
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Nov 29, 2019 19:25
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How about a compromise? Destroy the loving sceptre.
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Nov 29, 2019 21:00
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Lyndon really doesn't know his fiancee if he thought she was gonna have any other reaction to hearing "you kill a billion people every time you touch that".
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Nov 29, 2019 22:21
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i want to know if you can smack someone in the face with the scepter repeatedly as a form of torture
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Nov 29, 2019 22:32
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Mr. Steak posted:i want to know if you can smack someone in the face with the scepter repeatedly as a form of torture As ever, Audrey's ahead of you: http://trixie.thecomicseries.com/comics/79/
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Nov 29, 2019 22:38
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Pistol_Pete posted:As ever, Audrey's ahead of you: well now this just has me thinking of the countless entire universes created and destroyed in the span of like a day. because of bugs that come into contact with the scepter.
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Nov 29, 2019 22:49
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Pistol_Pete posted:As ever, Audrey's ahead of you: somewhat off-topic, but it's the little things about Thorsby I appreciate, like that painting in the background also how do you say Øyvind? It is 'Owen'?
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Nov 29, 2019 22:59
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