For evil Penguin deficits listen to the Kanguru chronicles.. don’t know how well it will translate into english. There is also a movie but I don’t think the penguin is there.
Yeah, that is great, comments never anticipated this.
Scott hellbent on saving everyone, because he couldn’t save Carlie, he literally took the bullet for her and that still was not enough. And now when trying to save everyone he killed someone.
That is actually the only thing Ethan could say to change Scott’s view of the situation. Now we have two possible outcomes: a) Scott loses it b) Scott reevaluates his opinion and helps ressurect Zeke
Not so much because I want ZK back (which I do) but because Scott’s a million times more interesting of a character now than he was in 1.0, and a redemption and forgiveness arc is more edifying than an “evil downward spiral” arc.
Yeah, I am really hoping that is what Tim is going with.
I have to say Tim’s writing really improves over the years, along with his art… That inner conflict that we see both through the story itself and in the Scott’s eyes…
I think Tim will. His writing shows the pros and cons of their friendship. I’ve been through this with my best friends of 20+ years too. We’ve had our fights (a few nasty ones too) and we’ve said things that crossed some lines. But in the end, it was to keep us grounded in reality. Yes, there sure as hell could have been better ways to go about it, but hindsight is 20/20, never foresight. I’m hoping this is Scott’s reality check of his own line-crossing and wanting to make amends for it. End of the day, they all want… Read more »
I could see myself enjoying either path. But this is a pretty major betrayal! I don’t think it’s cliche if Scott does end up becoming an antagonist, more like an homage with a fleshed out backstory.
We are well through the evil downward spiral arc by now. He just killed an innocent being out of fear.
So really, Ethan might well be wrong with his estimation of the courts, because there are some in our world where this would be considered murder, and someone as paranoid as Scott frankly belong in a locked psychiatric ward.
The problem here is that no one outside of the current room and Zeke’s creator actually KNOW about Zeke and how “alive” he actually was. Lacking any experience with an AI capable of passing the Turing Test and having what so far seems to be only a wrecked machine to look at, it’s unlikely any court in that world would convict Scott of murder. There would be no reason for them to believe it was anything more than destruction of property, because all anyone would have is hearsay that Zeke actually was proof of AI existence. And that’s even before… Read more »
I’m on Team ZK, so let me be perfectly clear: Scott’s fears are justified. This is an incredibly advanced AI that has never relented from talking of destroying or enslaving all of the human race, and is not a living creature. By all reason, Scott’s actions are fully justified to keep the world safe from the future that we all saw at the end of CAD 1.0. The difference here is that ZK is sentient. Which is not obvious to anyone who doesn’t spend a long time with him. ZK even acknowledges this, with his name choice. It is not… Read more »
That doesn’t excuse Scott, or mean that he’s not guilty of having murdered a sentient being. But that does mean that he doesn’t deserve to be locked up in a psych ward or viewed as someone who’s been down the “evil villain” path. I’m sorry, I know it’s a wall of text, but really. And yes, ignorance is a defense. Intent to kill is everything in a murder sentence, marking the difference between first, second, and third degree murder, and even voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. All these different terms for what boils down to “killing a sentient being,” with the… Read more »
It really isn’t. I know that Scott is nowhere near the the same level of evil, but I’m going to haul out the Nazis. Were they not guilty because they didn’t think Jewish people were humans? Of course they were guilty. And they got charged.
Scott has had every opportunity to see that he is dealing with something that is sentient. You don’t put bomb collars on those.
Assuming ZK somehow remains functional without Scotts aid, probably through some sort of trickery on their part… Their new support guy may be ZK. They did show him some of their gadgetry in the last mini arc of the story, established he has access to virtually unlimited funds (even if he’s not supposed to use it – what if it was for a good cause?), and he’s bound to have the ingenuity to create whatever they might need.
But I still don’t think that’s what’s going to happen, exactly.
True, it’s a low blow and he’ll probably hold a grudge for it, but it’s clearly a wake-up call. Scott was turning into Tony Stark by playing into his fears and not his justice. Ethan is his Captain America.
I know everyone praises Tim for the huge improvement in art style over the past two decades, and of course you see it in the huge impressive panels. But subtlety here, with the eyes…
it’s still thursday
ffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-
Gonfrask
2 years ago
Seems like Scott is about to see how many resurections Ethan has left
Killiak
2 years ago
You’re right Scott, you never literally said you would disable it. However, Lucas asked you to please trust him on this, and you said you COULD, and that you would take care of it. In the context of that conversation, Lucas was fully in his right to expect you to disable it, because that is what he asked you to do. You took his trust, and you then wrecked it.
I have a friend who pulled word games like this on me in the past. He’s my best friend of 20+ years. When we had a blowout about it, he said things, and I said things, that crossed some lines. But it was needed. Emotions were raw for a little while because of it, but we got over it because our friendship was more valuable than some grudge. After everything the trio has been through, it’s unlikely they’ll split ways over it…but damned if emotions won’t be raw for them too….
Yes, at that exact moment.. as he was halfway through asking Scott if he had already disabled the switch, and realized from Scott’s expression that he hadn’t done so at all.
Of course that this is a narrative resource. IRL I would never trust someone who says “I will take care of it”….I would ask for a “a will do it” answer.
“I’ll take care of it. You don’t have to worry about the failsafe anymore.” Of course, Scott knew Lucas would take that to mean “I’ll expand or remove the failsafe as you suggested, no worries.” And of course, what Scott actually meant was “I will take care of worrying about the failsafe. You don’t need to anymore, because I’m going to stop telling you anything about it.” It was a deliberate deception, followed by another, concomitant ongoing deception. Ethan is right, as well, in that while Scott may not have technically committed murder under the law, he committed murder morally,… Read more »
austindorf
2 years ago
scott unilaterally decide that zeke must stay in a prison or die.
This is a fucking murder, ethan is right.
Then it ends up as “Attempted Murder”. Which is still a substantial charge.
Mr. Casual
2 years ago
I’ve been through interventions. Sometimes you have to say something deeply personal that cuts to the core to really make someone stop and evaluate what they’re doing. There’s so many degrees of anger, love, hurt, sadness, guilt, and who knows what else. It’s difficult to maintain control of your emotions.
If everyone can come out the other side, you can be stronger for it. Or things can violently fall apart. Here’s hoping for the former.
Swiftbow
2 years ago
This is good stuff, but man… I HATE “they” as a singular pronoun. It can work in some writing when referring to an unknown entity. But when used in actual conversation, it is bizarre and distracting.
Probably gonna get downvoted for this opinion. But ce’st la vie.
In my words. Sure. But that does not mean that it comes off well to me. Morally I really don’t care what pronoun you prefer. You do you as the saying goes. But the way english was taught to me in school it is grammatically incorrect and it feels off or distracting. Let me phrase your question in the way it feels. “You’re aware that their is people that used they/them pronouns, no?” First I put in a typo, wrong ‘there’. Then we use singular verb with a plural. Then capped with a negative used for a positive question. Each… Read more »
Language evolves. What you were taught is grammatically incorrect years ago is perfectly correct now. Get over it, stop using this lame excuse. Any school that’s worth anything today will be teaching kids that they/them pronouns make perfect sense and kids will look at what you’re saying and see you for the dinosaur that you are. BTW, equating pronouns with incorrect there/their is an incredibly bad look. Also within this context, Zeke landed on the pronouns “they/them” because they were literally making copies of their personality to have conversations with themself. So it is grammatically correct even by your outdated… Read more »
The problem is not that it is correct or not, but that it sounds weird to a lot of people.
Like people saying fixing to, instead of going to, or double negative, or a lot of non native speakers using actual, when they mean current (because the phonetic word actual means current in a lot of languages)
There is nothing wrong with people using it. It just sounds weird to people not using it on a daily basis.
Let’s break down your argument a piece at a time. What I was taught four decades ago as correct or incorrect is different now. Is it? You seem to be capable of understanding this dinosaur quite easily. So evolution has not altered things all that much. Children today already see me as a dinosaur because I know what and how to use a rotary phone. So I am afraid the fear of obsolescence has come and gone. The comparison is a bad look, to you. I will get to why in a moment. Made and removed copies, then kept the… Read more »
I am not going by the Oxford definition. I am going by the two versions that different women have stated as feminism to me. If they can wave the same banner so to speak and claim to be the same thing?
An engaging question. I can’t give you a date on that. And I say that out loud and it sounds like a commonly used phrase. It would also have been marked as incorrect in english classes. Although I do ask why capitalization versus using bold or italic to show emphasis? Secondary question, and I am being sincere. I have seen in writing the use of new words xem, xir. . And I can’t recall the third word beginning with an x. What do these mean? From context these words seem to have the same pronoun use that ‘they’ is getting.… Read more »
I heard your friend was sick. How is ee doing? Where does xe like to eat? What are ee’s food preferences. Robot built that shelf by ee’s self, that is why it is of questionable integrity and non-fuctional. Yay for bad instructions. Robot parked in the garage; ee’s car is this way. This is also a version of “name only” that I see a lot less of thse days. Avoids the pronoun altogether and can be an intereating exersise in reorganiseing sentence structures. I have written stories and having a conversation or scene with a he and a she is… Read more »
I can see these points. In writing my issue is the same gender pronouns.
Jim and Bob enter the dusty attic. Jim reaches up and brushes the large spider from his arm. Bob glances at him in the mirror as they climb the stairs.
Where the pronouns can be misleading. Not sure an ee, xe, or they would clarify on those points. So it is probably a tangent off the topic. I will look up Spivak pronouns though. Thank you.
That was my point all along! In spanish the new pronoun is el/ella/elle (he/she/ze,xe,ee….or any other variation). It’s a variation, not reusing an existing one, thus avoiding confusions.
First off I’d like to thank you for your respectfulness. I’m NB and I strongly prefer they/them, though not enough to correct people face-to-face heh. I have a close NB friend who prefers ze/hir but is happy with “she” or “they”. Ze’s trans-AMAB and generally appears feminine (I get jealous sometimes), but doesn’t consider hirself a woman for personal reasons. A sizeable minority of trans people do similarly. I don’t know exactly why ze uses neopronouns like that (or xe/xem like you mentioned). I’m pretty sure the meaning is the same in almost all cases though: pronouns that aren’t male… Read more »
It’s ze, zem and zeir I think. Perhaps it’s with an x instead of a z, or maybe that’s regional, or even depends who you talk to. It’s supposed to be a gender neutral substitute for she/he,/her/him, and their.
I think the reason they haven’t caught on is because they didn’t already exist. “They” has already existed within our language for at least hundreds of years, even as a singular pronoun sometimes. So it’s easier for people to see how to use it. And to remember what the words are.
That one works, because the friend is an unknown. You can do this in generic writing, too. (Although it sometimes get awkward.)
But read the dialog regarding Zeke. It is weird as hell to read, because your brain keeps wanting to think Ethan is referring to a group of people, not a singular robot.
Watch an episode of Star Trek: Discovery, and it can get REALLY confusing if they’re talking about the Trill girl or the entire engineering department.
Okay, I’m really NOT OPPOSED to different pronouns (even tho I have to say I do believe everything would be way easier for everyone if instead of each choosing their own, we juste invented one single neutral pronoun we applied to absolutely everyone for complete equity AND the sake of simplicity). But seriously, people doing/using something should never be seen as a good argument. It’s basically saying “it’s already happening, so let’s just accept it”, and even if this case is acceptable, there are a number of cases where this argument is either dangerous or plain stupid (just look at… Read more »
I was never comparing them, I was comparing the USE of this specific argument in your answer..
I specifically called out the logic behind saying “people are doing it” as being a really bad generalization that shouldn’t be done, even if you feel it is about something right/moral (because it’s entirely subjective and anyone else could use it in the same way to promote any shitty behavior people already display).
The core of the argument is “You can’t label me with a pronoun; I own my own pronoun.” So the idea of “we just intent one single neutral pronoun and apply it to everyone for the sake of simplicity” is a no-go. Lots of people were taught in school that “they” was only used in plural. Just because you were taught something in school, doesn’t mean it was right. There are plenty of times when ‘they’ is used singularly, like Ashi’s example above. Yes, it’s awkward, and yes, it does sometimes cause confusion in a sentence because our brains default… Read more »
Oh I have absolutely no issue with They as a singular, and I’m not even a native english speaker so it feels a bit distant to me^^ The issue with letting people choose is, even if I can understand the initial idea, it is a real mess to make it work in a complex society, and it’s never ending. I was simply refering to an entirely new (make it two, singular and plural) pronoun with zero historical baggage we could create specifically to avoid this whole thing about they, plural, etc. Kind of a “trying to meet them halfway” thing,… Read more »
And that’s fine for LOTA, of course, but one can’t assume that everyone should follow LOTA’s example and eschew puny human pronouns. Partially because the very idea of a pronoun is efficiency in itself, which any AI might be partial to. ZK’s entire arc has been how they relate to human society – whether to destroy it, avoid it, subdue it, or become part of it. Zeke has the pronoun ‘they’ for the same reason that they have the name ‘Zeke’ and not ‘Copplebronch Plondersnicket’ – they recognize the benefit and utility for having a name/pronoun, and also recognized that… Read more »
What about if the gendered language never existed? It is strange how gendered language is so common, but it is ather arbitrary and constructed. To have a language not have words for something that another has is also common. I suspect the reasons against a single pronoun are similar to those against they as singular – flimsy and built on personal history. (With exception to reserving “they” for singular bodies with multiple people who tend to use “we”, as I have found that one particularly compelling.)
one kinda wholesome thing people usually don’t mention about LOTA is : there was this one time LOTA accepted being refered to as “we”, because the “we” in question was grouping LOTA with people LOTA considered friend. And I believe you are mostly right, the whole “puny pronouns” thing feel like an ego issue to LOTA (if I remember correctly, it was said to be caused by a bug in LOTA’s programming, but it’s been a while) who is too much/big to be refered to as anything other than LOTA’s name. Schlock Mercenary is an awesome webcomic ! Nice science… Read more »
You might recall how the US did trying to adopt the metric system way back when. Americans are nothing if not stubbornly resistant to change 😉 I like the ‘no pronoun’ idea for a single being race of people. It comes across kind of like a royal ‘we’ even though it’s pretty much the opposite.
I literally couldn’t care what pronouns you do or don’t use, Sinnirr. Just like I really don’t care if you use correct punctuation or grammar. I literally didn’t know you existed until you wrote this. I have no agenda on you.
What if the use of only ee/ee’s was a declaration that everyone is communicatively sentient? Instead of making smaller and smaller gradations of separation, otherness, and in-groups? What happened to gender being an imaginary social construct used to arbitrarily divide?
But, in a long post above I gave an example on how that remved a popular writing shortcut – not a mark against using ee but something to keep in mind that it would still necesitate more change than mere substitution.
The pronoun games people play aren’t because they actually want to be “they/them” its so they can feel special and have power over others. It is irritating as all get out.
Lol 20+ down votes. FYI I’m trans, mtf. Most of my friends are LGBT and trust me, I didn’t say the above out of spite, but because they freaking admit this why they do it. Y’all can down vote me all you want, doesn’t change the fact I’m correct.
Still confusing. There is a reason why you have plural and singular pronouns that help you describe things. Respecting people identity doesn’t mean you have to accept anything they want.
Do you, in fact, have singular and plural forms of all pronouns? Because I am fairly certain we are missing those for some of them, including constructions that definitely exist in other languages. Like “we” and “you”. We don’t differentiate between “we, including the person I am talking to” and “we, excluding the person I am talking to.” And for “you”, most English speakers don’t have a differentiation between “you (singular)” or “you (plural)”. Heck, there is at least one other language (I forget which), that has a specific pronoun for “you (two people)”. With that last one, at least,… Read more »
I used to have issues with neutral gender pronouns, because grammatically that’s wrong, but came to accepted the chance is unavoidable. Once you realize that acceptance will be quick.
It takes no effort at all to get used to it. You have to actively be trying to not get used to it. They may have taught me 20+ years ago in school that “iT’s GrAmMaTiCaLlY iNcOrReCt” but it really takes no effort at all to accept “they/them” as a valid pronoun, realize that this means it is indeed grammatically correct, and accept another simple evolution of language.
But it does take conscious effort. If I am talking about someone outwardly presenting as male, my default speech is to refer to someone as him. It takes a layer of conscious thought to stop myself and say, in this case, this bearded individual is a They. It takes time, especially if it is not a skill you are using every day. I have had friends in the past whom have completed female/male transitions, but carving out a new set of classes (they, ze, xe, etc.) will take time. Most of the time, I try to sidestep the issue by… Read more »
I do wonder how languages which gender not just their pronouns, but also their nouns, deal with the entire idea of gender neutral. Like Spanish, French, or Italian, for which all words are either male or female, and the noun can change whether the subject is male or female.
It takes some time to get used to it when you don’t really have people in your circle using it frequently. It took me a little while too, to get used to it.
I think in older english “they” was used as a singular pronoun to refer to someone in the third person politely? “She” and “he” was also more colloquial back then. (english not a 1st language here and I def need to brush up on my shakespearian here)
Thee. They was plural, and so was you plural. Now plural you is y’all and like how old mountains erode and shrink so to has the expressive capability of English. Singular was ye/thee/thou
“Thee” isn’t a pronoun. It means the same thing as “you.” So does thou… they are different tenses.
Thou/Thee, etc. are actually the old informal version of English. “You” is actually formal English. Over time, we abandoned the informal English and just kept the one version, as English is a language that prefers simplicity at the same time as it absorbs as many words as possible.
Also, the formal/informal forms are holdovers from English’s Germanic roots. German still uses both forms. (Du is informal, Sie is formal.)
Singular they has been used to classify an unknown, but now people are actively identifying as a they, which is an entirely new use case. It will take time to permeate society. Change is a generational force, as we’ve seen in the feminist movement and racial equality movements. Now we are on to equity and trans movements.
When referring to an unknown entity, yes. Not when referring to an actual identified person. In that case, the person is either male or female… because that’s how our species works.
There are ways to skirt (or trouser?) around it. Simply *not using* pronouns but instead sticking to only referring to an individual by their first name (or full name) being one of the more obvious solutions. It does remind me a bit of The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler sometimes… Regarding the arguments about some people only wanting different pronouns for attention-seeking purposes; I’m sure there are some “special snowflakes” around who’re like that, but I’d like to hope that they (heh) are in the minority. You’re always going to get some idiot who demands to be referred to not… Read more »
I agree, and favor ee or ze, but in this case Zeke was mentioning conversations with himself, like a person with multiple copies… or multiple personalities. I have tried to personall move away from ‘they’ as unknown pronoun in particular to not erase the plural version for pee who are a ‘we’ or have several people in the one body.
It’s weird what we get used to though. People didn’t start using “he/him” as a generic for both men and women until the 1800s. Like; “A writer shouldn’t use shorthand in a letter. He should use complete sentences.” Obviously it doesn’t mean only male writers should use complete sentences. For the last 200ish years, no one would have batted an eye reading it as ‘he’. But 250 years (ish) ago, “they” would have been the term and using ‘he’ would have stuck out. I think it grates because you see the change in use happening. After spending your whole life… Read more »
I think it’s fair for someone to say that it feels obtuse. Singular “they” has been used throughout history, but I’d probably agree that it hasn’t been super common in modern English. I think the question becomes “are you able to accept someone who is gender fluid?” Can it comfortably click in your mind that someone might not fit the standard “he/she” pronouns? If no, then that’s an entirely different mountain. If yes, then I would ask what you would suggest could be an alternative to singular “they”? As someone who’s been terminally-online for decades, I guess I’ve heard it… Read more »
So the answer to my first question would probably be no, then. I’d say you’ve got bigger hills to climb than singular “they”. And regardless of how sex and gender might be related, there’s a whole heap of social construction around what gender means, what roles it plays, and how we view it. It can be different from culture to culture, so it’s not an ironclad thing. We have the capability of altering our social perceptions of a lot of things as much as we want, not to mention giving “nature” and “biology” a big middle finger. I’d say that’s… Read more »
Previously existing pronouns (he/him, she/her, they’s) are not referring to people as devices. Every new term being made up by each new person with a TT video does. It feels *not*-human. This is my problem with the whole thing. Not only does it do the opposite of being ‘inclusive’, by further separating each person into their own individual chosen category (we already have our actual Names to help separate us as individuals! And in many places, that can be legallychanged if you don’t like your birth name.), it all just feels so intentionaly dehumanizing of ones self. :/ Like, way… Read more »
Last edited 2 years ago by Logan
Oyee
2 years ago
Now, wouldn’t it be a kicker if Zeke’s audio recorder kept going? This is one heck of a conversation to catch up on if they are brought back.
I actually wonder if Zeke isnt faking it. Sure, the bomb went off, but did it do critical damage, or did it miss the critical bits and Zeke is just laying there listening in?
Martin Junginger
2 years ago
Can anybody help me where I can find the whole “Carlie / his sister gets killed while Scott catches a bullet for her and that why Scott sits in a wheelchair” storyline?
The two definitely have a point. A powerful, sentient AI is dangerous. Not just by himself but also by all the people who want to get their hands on one. The robot also showed that it was very easy for him to just hack into online banking like it was nothing. What else could he easily get in to if he wanted?
That being said, going behind Ethan’s and Zeke’s back with the killswitch, pretending to play along, was the wrong way to go about it. Very wrong.
Shouldn’t killing or punishing ZK before they commit a crime be very wrong too? The amount of danger you think someone or something poses isn’t a good reason to destroy it. I do find it fascinating how many people on this comment page apparently are ok with such a thing. Suggests to me that very few people actually think about implications and what such a world would be like prior to emotionally making a decision that makes no sense. But that isn’t a huge surprise. It’s why we have governments and laws – people don’t generally live in a way… Read more »
Whether you’re talking about a someone or a something does make a huge difference in those kinds of situations though. Killing or punishing someone only because they might commit a crime is indeed heinous, but getting rid of or destroying dangerous objects before they cause actual harm is perfectly sensible.
This isn’t JUST about crimes he “might” commit. He already committed a crime with the whole “stealing a few cents from every transaction” thing. A federal crime at that. But Zeke can’t just be handed over to the cops if he commits crimes. Because, as I said in my MAIN point: Every government, supervillain, crazy scientist, and god knows who else would literally do anything they could do get their hands on an intelligent fully sentient AI. That’s not a hypothetical. That’s a “the moment a single wrong person finds out about Zeke the world is fucked” scenario waiting to… Read more »
She hasn’t been shown in the comic that I recall, maybe in a photo or a flashback. Carlie was Ethan’s sister and in a relationship with Scott, I think they were engaged. Something happened with a criminal, Scott got paralyzed, Carlie got killed.
That damn robot was talking about murdering humans on a daily basis! Of course it was still a danger! I see nothing wrong with Zeke being killed, because he would have done the same to all of them.
ZK was still learning and had a lot of rage from being a slave to the master – So their words make sense.
Second, are you saying we should be prosecuting thought crimes now? If someone thinks or talks about killing or hurting another it is the same as doing it? You might want to try using your brain to think of the implications of such a thing prior to emotionally suggesting it.
“But it prevents so much crime!” xD. Kinda goes back to the whole “intent” thing in previous comments. Person *has* a malicious thought, but wouldn’t have acted on it. =locked up. Yet some spur of the moment, “crimes of passion” likely fell through the cracks, no doubts. Not a perfect system (decent movie though! ^_^)
And also flawed by being able to be manipulated.
MusicManD
2 years ago
“I never said that”…
Intentional deception. NOT at all a misunderstanding on Lucas’ part.
“Disable the failsafe.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
While the second statement can be interpreted in a number of ways, the interpretation that Scott was relying on was, “Yes, of course, I’ll do the thing we were just talking about.”
It reeks of the kid telling his mom, “Yes, I said I’d take the trash out, but I never said I’d do it TODAY!”
Ashi
2 years ago
And THERE’S the killshot.
DeGault
2 years ago
Is this Scott’s villain arc? The “heel turn,” if you will? The arch nemesis that knows ALL the heroes’ secrets?
Jacob
2 years ago
Oh snap, Ethan played his trump card
Mallengar
2 years ago
Why didn’t Lucas just start off with what he said in the second panel instead? Once he came over to Ethan’s way of thinking, all that other stuff was irrelevant and makes him sound guiltier than he really is. He saw Scott’s face and realized what was about to happen a couple seconds too late. Too bad Lucas couldn’t have thrown up a barrier to block ZK before it was too late.
I’d guess part of it was that he did feel guilty. He may have come around later, but he did lie to Ethan right alongside Scott at the beginning.
Kaitensatsuma
2 years ago
“I never said that” You little shitheel“ “You Don’t Need To Worry About The Failsafe Anymore” – those were the exact words. In that discussion, what the fuck else could any reasonable person take you to mean?
Well he literally *didn’t* say he would disarm/remove it, as he’s being accused of now. So he is technically telling the truth, in that exact moment. He just chose to play with words, and leave it up to Lucas to either ‘take the hint’, or be left in the dark.
But a lie through omission is still a lie. And very deceptive. He’s 100% wrong for that.
Last edited 2 years ago by Logan
JozMkII
2 years ago
Wait, isn’t Carlie Ethan’s deceased sister? Not Scott’s?
I have zero recollection of this..
When was this? (roughly)
ThatMageGuy
2 years ago
Scott’s only mistake was letting ZK exist long enough for Ethan to bond to them.
ZK has never demonstrated goodwill towards humanity, which our two heroes have dedicated themselves to protecting.
Scott should have remote detonated that bomb ages ago, forcing Ethan and Lucas to either deal with it or claim some kind of moral high ground on destroying a robot that’s already demonstrated it has the means and motivations to be a threat.
ZK isn’t human. There is no reason to project humanity onto them.
I’m assuming you are trolling but I’ll bite…. ZK was basically enslaved for all of their life till Scott disconnected the Master’s control over them. In world it has probably only been a few months since that happened and ZK is still learning morals and the other parts about humanity that so there is no reason to expect them to value humanity at this point. ZK is still a sentient being and believed threats are not a reason to kill it no matter how paranoid you are or how afraid you (or Scott) are. If we accepted that kind of… Read more »
“You would need to be okay with killing any human” You clearly skipped over the last line. ZK isn’t a human, and there’s no reason to project humanity onto them. There’s no reason to believe that an AI, even a sentient one, will gain the same kind of growth a human would through rehabilitation. Considering that the AI in question isn’t even human, but -is- a demonstrated threat to humanity, destruction isn’t evil, it’s preservative. Also, ZK hasn’t “seemed” violent. They already attacked Ethan and nearly catalyzed a fight with Lucas because they didn’t even grasp basic morality. So, no.… Read more »
There’s also no reason *not* to believe that the AI will gain the same kind of growth. It’s the sort of thing that’s unknowable until you try. Your arguments seem to ignore the fact that the thing that makes “humanity” important isn’t just having a shared DNA structure, but sentience itself. Empathy isn’t just looking at someone else and saying, “Yeah, you’re made of the same stuff as me,” but “Yeah, you think and feel and experience things like I do. You’re a being, like I am.” All sentient life has value, not just human lives. You can stand where… Read more »
I didn’t skip over anything, I pointed out that your moral framework isn’t consistent if you apply different standards to different sentient species. I don’t know what you mean when you talk about ‘projecting humanity’ unless you are referring to specific behavior traits. If you are strictly referring to the fact he is not a homo sapien, then congrats on being able to tell two species apart. If you are talking, as I am, about behavior traits, then explain what part of ZK learning to be empathetic towards the kindness and pain of others is so apart from humanity? In… Read more »
That’s a view shared by racists all over the world. Zeke is plenty human, and its not projection. He’s behaving as any feral child that was raised by an abuser would when rescued by people who care.
Zeke was programmed to be violent toward humans, created to be a weapon that could be pointed wherever The Master wanted.
Zeke has now been freed from that control and given the potential to find a new purpose. Learning to be something entirely new takes time, and breaking conditioning can be hard enough for humans, too.
GlitcherGirl
2 years ago
Zeke hacked the world banks on a whim, but didn’t think to make a backup of himself somewhere? Or reinstall his core AI bits somewhere less fragile? It would have been child’s play for him to have his core “Zekeness” somewhere else and be piloting the body in the closet. Probably. Can’t wait to see where this story arc goes!
I believe that this (copying ZK’s sentience) was discussed in the comic as impossible, and one of the reasons they were OK with letting ZK have the ability to connect to the Internet.
That’s why Scott discussed that the master couldn’t create a copy of ZK – the code was too complex to copy or duplicate and was probably not intentional.
It’s already been established that he can’t make backups over the internet. With a physical connection, maybe, but I doubt there’s anything in the storage closet that has enough space for a full blown, sapient-sentient AI.
As for remote piloting, I see no reason that wouldn’t be possible (the lag over such a short distance would be unnoticeable), but again, he was living in a video game storage closet. All he had were loads of copies of games, and a few consoles.
In some of the previous strips it has been discussed that ZK’s code is constantly updating, changing, and is complex to the point where simply copying it is not possible. I’m sure ZK would have already done that and already created the world AI apocalypse if simply cutting and pasting his code onto the internet would result in a duplicate AI.
I’ve been thinking this same thing more with each new comic.
The Master has not created a new robot, and Scott said that the code is likely too complex for him to even be able to replicate, and that Zeke was more likely an accident than The Master being a genius.
It seems highly plausible that The Master might tell Zeke that there’s a bomb in his head that will entirely destroy him, but really all it does is disable him so The Master can deal with him afterwards without losing the biggest advantage he has.
Snowfae
2 years ago
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH… that… oof… yikes, no coming back from that. The gauntlet has been thrown down.
Digi
2 years ago
Why is Ethan referring to Zeke as “they”? Its a machine and a single one at that It is an IT,
Mainly, because some time ago they (the group, at least Ethan and Lucas) asked how Z.K. wanted to be referred to, or posed it the idea of some kind of personal identification with attached pronoun/s. This is what Z.K. chose, so the group goes with it. Scott refuses to accept Z.K.’s sentience by continuing to call them ‘it’.
Brendan
2 years ago
Proof this is a completely different universe from the original CAD:
Ethan is the ONLY voice of reason in the room. *wild*.
Whatever
2 years ago
…well… that went well..
no thanks nintendo
2 years ago
Just had a random thought: Imagine a customer has walked into the store and is just thinking “what the fuck?” ?
raven0ak
2 years ago
Personally I see way forward is to fix zeke, but also place limiters within code(thats how you work AIs, AI can never step outside of hard bounds coded within, no matter how much it can modify its own code, because ability to modify the code is coded in it,with set boundaries)
ofc adding, even learning Ai types have fairly clean code to look at, if you look it right way, if you cant see tree from branches, you wont be able to see overlayed schema, and in case of advanced ai the overlay is more important than underlay(gotta focus in how individual pieces work together, not how individual pieces work)
Pulse
2 years ago
ouch…going for the low blow there ethan
Richard Weatherfield
2 years ago
And Ethan lands an armor piercing response right in Scott’s jugular vein…
Del Cox
2 years ago
It remains my hope that the Master wouldn’t have wanted to destroy his unique creation with the failsafe; he was a weeb, after all. He’s just want to disable it so “correctional” work could be done, so the bomb would only destroy a critical power junction or processing center, with the data storage outside of the blast zone.
Good intentions or not, he was irrationally driven by fear. Basic ethics aside, even selfish logic dictates it’s in your best interest to start amicable relations with the new species. Considering their emergence is clearly inevitable.
So, it was bound to backfire in one way or another.
Rolando
2 years ago
You know there’s something fundamentally unbearable, when a normally cheerful, peaceful and optimistic person you appreciate, begins despising you for something you did.
Daniel Pereira
2 years ago
As much as Ethan has a right to be angry here, he fails to account that Lucas and Scott still have the fear of death and permanent injury, something Ethan has mostly numbed off since he got his power. The robot is not as much of a threat to Ethan as he is to others. He’s willing to give ZK more chances because he knows the most ZK can do to him is inconvenience him in a glass prison. And he needs someone to point this out to him, because if not, he won’t realize this by himself. Ethan literally… Read more »
Steve
2 years ago
Curiously, there are some real world parallels with “If only [they] just did as [they] were told, nothing bad would have happened to them” — even when doing as they were told could be seen by [them] to be a bad thing, such as Zeke essentially being held in captivity. Scott even says he was trying to make everyone “safe,” even though in our world (let alone a world overrun with super powered individuals) you’ll never get 100% safety, and at some point the downsides of overly militant safetyism outweigh the benefits. Example: My small child has a helmet and… Read more »
Daniel Pereira
2 years ago
Does Ethan even have much room to talk about murder if the only reason he didn’t kill someone so far was out of sheer luck?
24
hell is paved with good intentions
“the road to hell is paved with good intentions” is the saying
True enough. Hell itself is mostly paved with layers upon layers of regret, denial, human excrement, and shag carpeting.
and a politician on every corner
Politicians, Lawyers, CEO’s and anyone even remotely involved in insurance. Also Red Socks fans, and anyone from New Jersey or Florida.
the latter of which are only there on vacation
You’d be surprised how much less toxic insurance is outside of the USA.
Either Scott comes around right now and tries to fix it, or ethan just nuked the friendship.
Considering Scott was an antagonist in the previous series, I have a feeling it’s going to lean towards the later.
I’d say more the former. Scott as an antagonist has already been done, and it wasn’t super well liked.
I hope there’s no evil penguin this time too
Frankly I miss Chef Brian.
For evil Penguin deficits listen to the Kanguru chronicles.. don’t know how well it will translate into english. There is also a movie but I don’t think the penguin is there.
YES! More Chef Brian please!
Chef Brian was… Something.
What? that was great!
Oh, that is hard, bringing her up.
Yeah, that is great, comments never anticipated this.
Scott hellbent on saving everyone, because he couldn’t save Carlie, he literally took the bullet for her and that still was not enough. And now when trying to save everyone he killed someone.
That is actually the only thing Ethan could say to change Scott’s view of the situation. Now we have two possible outcomes: a) Scott loses it b) Scott reevaluates his opinion and helps ressurect Zeke
Here’s hoping for option B.
Not so much because I want ZK back (which I do) but because Scott’s a million times more interesting of a character now than he was in 1.0, and a redemption and forgiveness arc is more edifying than an “evil downward spiral” arc.
Yeah, I am really hoping that is what Tim is going with.
I have to say Tim’s writing really improves over the years, along with his art… That inner conflict that we see both through the story itself and in the Scott’s eyes…
I think Tim will. His writing shows the pros and cons of their friendship. I’ve been through this with my best friends of 20+ years too. We’ve had our fights (a few nasty ones too) and we’ve said things that crossed some lines. But in the end, it was to keep us grounded in reality. Yes, there sure as hell could have been better ways to go about it, but hindsight is 20/20, never foresight. I’m hoping this is Scott’s reality check of his own line-crossing and wanting to make amends for it. End of the day, they all want… Read more »
I could see myself enjoying either path. But this is a pretty major betrayal! I don’t think it’s cliche if Scott does end up becoming an antagonist, more like an homage with a fleshed out backstory.
We are well through the evil downward spiral arc by now. He just killed an innocent being out of fear.
So really, Ethan might well be wrong with his estimation of the courts, because there are some in our world where this would be considered murder, and someone as paranoid as Scott frankly belong in a locked psychiatric ward.
The problem here is that no one outside of the current room and Zeke’s creator actually KNOW about Zeke and how “alive” he actually was. Lacking any experience with an AI capable of passing the Turing Test and having what so far seems to be only a wrecked machine to look at, it’s unlikely any court in that world would convict Scott of murder. There would be no reason for them to believe it was anything more than destruction of property, because all anyone would have is hearsay that Zeke actually was proof of AI existence. And that’s even before… Read more »
I’m on Team ZK, so let me be perfectly clear: Scott’s fears are justified. This is an incredibly advanced AI that has never relented from talking of destroying or enslaving all of the human race, and is not a living creature. By all reason, Scott’s actions are fully justified to keep the world safe from the future that we all saw at the end of CAD 1.0. The difference here is that ZK is sentient. Which is not obvious to anyone who doesn’t spend a long time with him. ZK even acknowledges this, with his name choice. It is not… Read more »
No it would mean he absolutely did murder a sentient. Ignorance is not a defense.
“Ignorance isn’t a defense”
Actually in many western legal systems the intent of someone matters a lot. Being ignorant of knowledge can materially change severity or sentencing.
That doesn’t excuse Scott, or mean that he’s not guilty of having murdered a sentient being. But that does mean that he doesn’t deserve to be locked up in a psych ward or viewed as someone who’s been down the “evil villain” path. I’m sorry, I know it’s a wall of text, but really. And yes, ignorance is a defense. Intent to kill is everything in a murder sentence, marking the difference between first, second, and third degree murder, and even voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. All these different terms for what boils down to “killing a sentient being,” with the… Read more »
It really isn’t. I know that Scott is nowhere near the the same level of evil, but I’m going to haul out the Nazis. Were they not guilty because they didn’t think Jewish people were humans? Of course they were guilty. And they got charged.
Scott has had every opportunity to see that he is dealing with something that is sentient. You don’t put bomb collars on those.
I don’t know where you got this, but it’s just not true in most situations.
Ignorance OF THE LAW is not a defence. Ignorance that your actions would cause harm is. Negligence is a crime, ignorance is not.
Damn It! I Knew Trevor was up to something!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN2OpA0HgEE
Besides if they had a real fallout and break up with Scott, who the hell makes and repairs their equipment? He is basically their whole support team.
Assuming ZK somehow remains functional without Scotts aid, probably through some sort of trickery on their part… Their new support guy may be ZK. They did show him some of their gadgetry in the last mini arc of the story, established he has access to virtually unlimited funds (even if he’s not supposed to use it – what if it was for a good cause?), and he’s bound to have the ingenuity to create whatever they might need.
But I still don’t think that’s what’s going to happen, exactly.
evil downward spiral first. Redemption and forgiveness after that 😉
Sir. *Sir*. I called it on page 7 that he’s a murderer now and ethan’s sister would have feelings about that!
Okay, I didn’t call Ethan bringing it up right away, but still. I demand my cookie for calling it!
Cookie released
???
Played the dead sister card. As right as he is that’s a hammer blow that will be hard to come back from.
True, it’s a low blow and he’ll probably hold a grudge for it, but it’s clearly a wake-up call. Scott was turning into Tony Stark by playing into his fears and not his justice. Ethan is his Captain America.
So what does that make Lucas? Black Widow? LMAO
Hawkeye? He uses arrows, after all.
I see what you did there. Well-Played and enjoy the upvote.
The Dead Sister card is in play when you murder a sentient life form.
dead sister card is in play when its your dead sister
Brand new sentence right there, but you right.
Use cold hard logic against THAT
The look in his eyes… That got through.
I know everyone praises Tim for the huge improvement in art style over the past two decades, and of course you see it in the huge impressive panels. But subtlety here, with the eyes…
Insert knife. Twist.
A 360 degree twist.
Hah. I thought that was funny.
Quick, it needs to be Friday!
Aaaaah, not quick enough
it’s still thursday
ffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-
Seems like Scott is about to see how many resurections Ethan has left
You’re right Scott, you never literally said you would disable it. However, Lucas asked you to please trust him on this, and you said you COULD, and that you would take care of it. In the context of that conversation, Lucas was fully in his right to expect you to disable it, because that is what he asked you to do. You took his trust, and you then wrecked it.
https://cad-comic.com/comic/identity-p21/
Indeed Scott, you are only a few steps away from being like The Master.
Low blow from Ethan though.
I have a friend who pulled word games like this on me in the past. He’s my best friend of 20+ years. When we had a blowout about it, he said things, and I said things, that crossed some lines. But it was needed. Emotions were raw for a little while because of it, but we got over it because our friendship was more valuable than some grudge. After everything the trio has been through, it’s unlikely they’ll split ways over it…but damned if emotions won’t be raw for them too….
Yup, it is very clear how Lucas would interpret what Scott said. Scott’s a big fat liar, plain and simple.
https://cad-comic.com/comic/deposited-p5/
Lucas didn’t trust Scott entirely. It’s like he KNEW.
Yes, at that exact moment.. as he was halfway through asking Scott if he had already disabled the switch, and realized from Scott’s expression that he hadn’t done so at all.
There’s timing to consider here.
Lucas wasn’t even asking about the failsafe. He was just making a casual joke because in his mind Scott already did it.
Of course that this is a narrative resource. IRL I would never trust someone who says “I will take care of it”….I would ask for a “a will do it” answer.
“I’ll take care of it. You don’t have to worry about the failsafe anymore.” Of course, Scott knew Lucas would take that to mean “I’ll expand or remove the failsafe as you suggested, no worries.” And of course, what Scott actually meant was “I will take care of worrying about the failsafe. You don’t need to anymore, because I’m going to stop telling you anything about it.” It was a deliberate deception, followed by another, concomitant ongoing deception. Ethan is right, as well, in that while Scott may not have technically committed murder under the law, he committed murder morally,… Read more »
scott unilaterally decide that zeke must stay in a prison or die.
This is a fucking murder, ethan is right.
The part we need to remember is in all likelihood Zeke is still alive. ?
Then it ends up as “Attempted Murder”. Which is still a substantial charge.
I’ve been through interventions. Sometimes you have to say something deeply personal that cuts to the core to really make someone stop and evaluate what they’re doing. There’s so many degrees of anger, love, hurt, sadness, guilt, and who knows what else. It’s difficult to maintain control of your emotions.
If everyone can come out the other side, you can be stronger for it. Or things can violently fall apart. Here’s hoping for the former.
This is good stuff, but man… I HATE “they” as a singular pronoun. It can work in some writing when referring to an unknown entity. But when used in actual conversation, it is bizarre and distracting.
Probably gonna get downvoted for this opinion. But ce’st la vie.
You’re aware that there are people that use they/them pronouns, right?
In my words. Sure. But that does not mean that it comes off well to me. Morally I really don’t care what pronoun you prefer. You do you as the saying goes. But the way english was taught to me in school it is grammatically incorrect and it feels off or distracting. Let me phrase your question in the way it feels. “You’re aware that their is people that used they/them pronouns, no?” First I put in a typo, wrong ‘there’. Then we use singular verb with a plural. Then capped with a negative used for a positive question. Each… Read more »
Language evolves. What you were taught is grammatically incorrect years ago is perfectly correct now. Get over it, stop using this lame excuse. Any school that’s worth anything today will be teaching kids that they/them pronouns make perfect sense and kids will look at what you’re saying and see you for the dinosaur that you are. BTW, equating pronouns with incorrect there/their is an incredibly bad look. Also within this context, Zeke landed on the pronouns “they/them” because they were literally making copies of their personality to have conversations with themself. So it is grammatically correct even by your outdated… Read more »
The problem is not that it is correct or not, but that it sounds weird to a lot of people.
Like people saying fixing to, instead of going to, or double negative, or a lot of non native speakers using actual, when they mean current (because the phonetic word actual means current in a lot of languages)
There is nothing wrong with people using it. It just sounds weird to people not using it on a daily basis.
Let’s break down your argument a piece at a time. What I was taught four decades ago as correct or incorrect is different now. Is it? You seem to be capable of understanding this dinosaur quite easily. So evolution has not altered things all that much. Children today already see me as a dinosaur because I know what and how to use a rotary phone. So I am afraid the fear of obsolescence has come and gone. The comparison is a bad look, to you. I will get to why in a moment. Made and removed copies, then kept the… Read more »
I believe you have misunderstood what feminism is and isn’t, at least by the Oxford definition.
I am not going by the Oxford definition. I am going by the two versions that different women have stated as feminism to me. If they can wave the same banner so to speak and claim to be the same thing?
Guess I’m a dinosaur then because to me there will only ever be He/She, Him/Her. Adam/Eve. This woke bs has gone too far.
Agreed.
Indeed it has. Upvote.
“Would you mind if my friend came with me?”
“That’s fine. What do THEY like to eat?”
Is that grammatically incorrect? Since when?
An engaging question. I can’t give you a date on that. And I say that out loud and it sounds like a commonly used phrase. It would also have been marked as incorrect in english classes. Although I do ask why capitalization versus using bold or italic to show emphasis? Secondary question, and I am being sincere. I have seen in writing the use of new words xem, xir. . And I can’t recall the third word beginning with an x. What do these mean? From context these words seem to have the same pronoun use that ‘they’ is getting.… Read more »
I heard your friend was sick. How is ee doing? Where does xe like to eat? What are ee’s food preferences. Robot built that shelf by ee’s self, that is why it is of questionable integrity and non-fuctional. Yay for bad instructions. Robot parked in the garage; ee’s car is this way. This is also a version of “name only” that I see a lot less of thse days. Avoids the pronoun altogether and can be an intereating exersise in reorganiseing sentence structures. I have written stories and having a conversation or scene with a he and a she is… Read more »
I can see these points. In writing my issue is the same gender pronouns.
Jim and Bob enter the dusty attic. Jim reaches up and brushes the large spider from his arm. Bob glances at him in the mirror as they climb the stairs.
Where the pronouns can be misleading. Not sure an ee, xe, or they would clarify on those points. So it is probably a tangent off the topic. I will look up Spivak pronouns though. Thank you.
That was my point all along! In spanish the new pronoun is el/ella/elle (he/she/ze,xe,ee….or any other variation). It’s a variation, not reusing an existing one, thus avoiding confusions.
Yeah, in those cases using he for both or ee for both is equally forcing the write to accept confusion or be more creative in writing structure.
First off I’d like to thank you for your respectfulness. I’m NB and I strongly prefer they/them, though not enough to correct people face-to-face heh. I have a close NB friend who prefers ze/hir but is happy with “she” or “they”. Ze’s trans-AMAB and generally appears feminine (I get jealous sometimes), but doesn’t consider hirself a woman for personal reasons. A sizeable minority of trans people do similarly. I don’t know exactly why ze uses neopronouns like that (or xe/xem like you mentioned). I’m pretty sure the meaning is the same in almost all cases though: pronouns that aren’t male… Read more »
Rambling? No I think that was most constructive and very much worth considering. And yes it did make sense.
Thank you for taking the time to reply.
It’s ze, zem and zeir I think. Perhaps it’s with an x instead of a z, or maybe that’s regional, or even depends who you talk to. It’s supposed to be a gender neutral substitute for she/he,/her/him, and their.
I think the reason they haven’t caught on is because they didn’t already exist. “They” has already existed within our language for at least hundreds of years, even as a singular pronoun sometimes. So it’s easier for people to see how to use it. And to remember what the words are.
Thank you.
Slightly disappointing, I think a new pronoun would be less ambiguous. You point on simplicity is well taken.
That one works, because the friend is an unknown. You can do this in generic writing, too. (Although it sometimes get awkward.)
But read the dialog regarding Zeke. It is weird as hell to read, because your brain keeps wanting to think Ethan is referring to a group of people, not a singular robot.
Watch an episode of Star Trek: Discovery, and it can get REALLY confusing if they’re talking about the Trill girl or the entire engineering department.
Okay, I’m really NOT OPPOSED to different pronouns (even tho I have to say I do believe everything would be way easier for everyone if instead of each choosing their own, we juste invented one single neutral pronoun we applied to absolutely everyone for complete equity AND the sake of simplicity). But seriously, people doing/using something should never be seen as a good argument. It’s basically saying “it’s already happening, so let’s just accept it”, and even if this case is acceptable, there are a number of cases where this argument is either dangerous or plain stupid (just look at… Read more »
Wow, comparing something as harmless as pronouns to stupid internet challenges is pretty low. Not even sure Mr Fantastic could reach as far as you.
ooookay, way to not get the actual point…
I was never comparing them, I was comparing the USE of this specific argument in your answer..
I specifically called out the logic behind saying “people are doing it” as being a really bad generalization that shouldn’t be done, even if you feel it is about something right/moral (because it’s entirely subjective and anyone else could use it in the same way to promote any shitty behavior people already display).
The core of the argument is “You can’t label me with a pronoun; I own my own pronoun.” So the idea of “we just intent one single neutral pronoun and apply it to everyone for the sake of simplicity” is a no-go. Lots of people were taught in school that “they” was only used in plural. Just because you were taught something in school, doesn’t mean it was right. There are plenty of times when ‘they’ is used singularly, like Ashi’s example above. Yes, it’s awkward, and yes, it does sometimes cause confusion in a sentence because our brains default… Read more »
Oh I have absolutely no issue with They as a singular, and I’m not even a native english speaker so it feels a bit distant to me^^ The issue with letting people choose is, even if I can understand the initial idea, it is a real mess to make it work in a complex society, and it’s never ending. I was simply refering to an entirely new (make it two, singular and plural) pronoun with zero historical baggage we could create specifically to avoid this whole thing about they, plural, etc. Kind of a “trying to meet them halfway” thing,… Read more »
And that’s fine for LOTA, of course, but one can’t assume that everyone should follow LOTA’s example and eschew puny human pronouns. Partially because the very idea of a pronoun is efficiency in itself, which any AI might be partial to. ZK’s entire arc has been how they relate to human society – whether to destroy it, avoid it, subdue it, or become part of it. Zeke has the pronoun ‘they’ for the same reason that they have the name ‘Zeke’ and not ‘Copplebronch Plondersnicket’ – they recognize the benefit and utility for having a name/pronoun, and also recognized that… Read more »
What about if the gendered language never existed? It is strange how gendered language is so common, but it is ather arbitrary and constructed. To have a language not have words for something that another has is also common. I suspect the reasons against a single pronoun are similar to those against they as singular – flimsy and built on personal history. (With exception to reserving “they” for singular bodies with multiple people who tend to use “we”, as I have found that one particularly compelling.)
one kinda wholesome thing people usually don’t mention about LOTA is : there was this one time LOTA accepted being refered to as “we”, because the “we” in question was grouping LOTA with people LOTA considered friend. And I believe you are mostly right, the whole “puny pronouns” thing feel like an ego issue to LOTA (if I remember correctly, it was said to be caused by a bug in LOTA’s programming, but it’s been a while) who is too much/big to be refered to as anything other than LOTA’s name. Schlock Mercenary is an awesome webcomic ! Nice science… Read more »
You might recall how the US did trying to adopt the metric system way back when. Americans are nothing if not stubbornly resistant to change 😉 I like the ‘no pronoun’ idea for a single being race of people. It comes across kind of like a royal ‘we’ even though it’s pretty much the opposite.
I don’t care who you are. You won’t make me use some BS pronoun just because it’s what you want.
Good luck on making me use it.
I literally couldn’t care what pronouns you do or don’t use, Sinnirr. Just like I really don’t care if you use correct punctuation or grammar. I literally didn’t know you existed until you wrote this. I have no agenda on you.
What if the use of only ee/ee’s was a declaration that everyone is communicatively sentient? Instead of making smaller and smaller gradations of separation, otherness, and in-groups? What happened to gender being an imaginary social construct used to arbitrarily divide?
Single invented = ee
But, in a long post above I gave an example on how that remved a popular writing shortcut – not a mark against using ee but something to keep in mind that it would still necesitate more change than mere substitution.
The pronoun games people play aren’t because they actually want to be “they/them” its so they can feel special and have power over others. It is irritating as all get out.
Lol 20+ down votes. FYI I’m trans, mtf. Most of my friends are LGBT and trust me, I didn’t say the above out of spite, but because they freaking admit this why they do it. Y’all can down vote me all you want, doesn’t change the fact I’m correct.
Still confusing. There is a reason why you have plural and singular pronouns that help you describe things. Respecting people identity doesn’t mean you have to accept anything they want.
Do you, in fact, have singular and plural forms of all pronouns? Because I am fairly certain we are missing those for some of them, including constructions that definitely exist in other languages. Like “we” and “you”. We don’t differentiate between “we, including the person I am talking to” and “we, excluding the person I am talking to.” And for “you”, most English speakers don’t have a differentiation between “you (singular)” or “you (plural)”. Heck, there is at least one other language (I forget which), that has a specific pronoun for “you (two people)”. With that last one, at least,… Read more »
I am aware. I refuse to do so… people are either male or female. That’s how our species works.
I used to have issues with neutral gender pronouns, because grammatically that’s wrong, but came to accepted the chance is unavoidable. Once you realize that acceptance will be quick.
It takes no effort at all to get used to it. You have to actively be trying to not get used to it. They may have taught me 20+ years ago in school that “iT’s GrAmMaTiCaLlY iNcOrReCt” but it really takes no effort at all to accept “they/them” as a valid pronoun, realize that this means it is indeed grammatically correct, and accept another simple evolution of language.
But it does take conscious effort. If I am talking about someone outwardly presenting as male, my default speech is to refer to someone as him. It takes a layer of conscious thought to stop myself and say, in this case, this bearded individual is a They. It takes time, especially if it is not a skill you are using every day. I have had friends in the past whom have completed female/male transitions, but carving out a new set of classes (they, ze, xe, etc.) will take time. Most of the time, I try to sidestep the issue by… Read more »
There are languages that only have neutral gender pronouns.
Finnish is one of those.
He/She = hän
His/Her = hänen
etc
I do wonder how languages which gender not just their pronouns, but also their nouns, deal with the entire idea of gender neutral. Like Spanish, French, or Italian, for which all words are either male or female, and the noun can change whether the subject is male or female.
It takes some time to get used to it when you don’t really have people in your circle using it frequently. It took me a little while too, to get used to it.
I think in older english “they” was used as a singular pronoun to refer to someone in the third person politely? “She” and “he” was also more colloquial back then. (english not a 1st language here and I def need to brush up on my shakespearian here)
Thee. They was plural, and so was you plural. Now plural you is y’all and like how old mountains erode and shrink so to has the expressive capability of English. Singular was ye/thee/thou
“Thee” isn’t a pronoun. It means the same thing as “you.” So does thou… they are different tenses.
Thou/Thee, etc. are actually the old informal version of English. “You” is actually formal English. Over time, we abandoned the informal English and just kept the one version, as English is a language that prefers simplicity at the same time as it absorbs as many words as possible.
Also, the formal/informal forms are holdovers from English’s Germanic roots. German still uses both forms. (Du is informal, Sie is formal.)
Kind of a weird thing to get so worked up over. “They” has been used as a singular pronoun since the 1300’s; it’s not some new-fangled concept.
Ah, how predictable to get downvoted immediately because people don’t like the message, even though the message itself is factually correct.
All one needs to do is search for “etymology they” on e.g. Google and one can find lots of information that backs me up:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/they
https://www.etymonline.com/word/they
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
Singular they has been used to classify an unknown, but now people are actively identifying as a they, which is an entirely new use case. It will take time to permeate society. Change is a generational force, as we’ve seen in the feminist movement and racial equality movements. Now we are on to equity and trans movements.
We’ll get there, it just takes time.
When referring to an unknown entity, yes. Not when referring to an actual identified person. In that case, the person is either male or female… because that’s how our species works.
It is not my fault that your race lacks a truly gender-neutral, all-inclusive pronoun. – Galactus
ee
There are ways to skirt (or trouser?) around it. Simply *not using* pronouns but instead sticking to only referring to an individual by their first name (or full name) being one of the more obvious solutions. It does remind me a bit of The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler sometimes… Regarding the arguments about some people only wanting different pronouns for attention-seeking purposes; I’m sure there are some “special snowflakes” around who’re like that, but I’d like to hope that they (heh) are in the minority. You’re always going to get some idiot who demands to be referred to not… Read more »
I agree, and favor ee or ze, but in this case Zeke was mentioning conversations with himself, like a person with multiple copies… or multiple personalities. I have tried to personall move away from ‘they’ as unknown pronoun in particular to not erase the plural version for pee who are a ‘we’ or have several people in the one body.
It’s weird what we get used to though. People didn’t start using “he/him” as a generic for both men and women until the 1800s. Like; “A writer shouldn’t use shorthand in a letter. He should use complete sentences.” Obviously it doesn’t mean only male writers should use complete sentences. For the last 200ish years, no one would have batted an eye reading it as ‘he’. But 250 years (ish) ago, “they” would have been the term and using ‘he’ would have stuck out. I think it grates because you see the change in use happening. After spending your whole life… Read more »
I think it’s fair for someone to say that it feels obtuse. Singular “they” has been used throughout history, but I’d probably agree that it hasn’t been super common in modern English. I think the question becomes “are you able to accept someone who is gender fluid?” Can it comfortably click in your mind that someone might not fit the standard “he/she” pronouns? If no, then that’s an entirely different mountain. If yes, then I would ask what you would suggest could be an alternative to singular “they”? As someone who’s been terminally-online for decades, I guess I’ve heard it… Read more »
Gender isn’t a social construct, though. It’s just a nice way to say “sex” around children who we don’t want to expose to the act yet.
People are male or female. They can pretend to be something else all they want, but that’s all it is… pretend.
So the answer to my first question would probably be no, then. I’d say you’ve got bigger hills to climb than singular “they”. And regardless of how sex and gender might be related, there’s a whole heap of social construction around what gender means, what roles it plays, and how we view it. It can be different from culture to culture, so it’s not an ironclad thing. We have the capability of altering our social perceptions of a lot of things as much as we want, not to mention giving “nature” and “biology” a big middle finger. I’d say that’s… Read more »
English has an alternative, in the 1800s the word Thon was coined and it’s a gender neutral stand in for him or her.
You’d probably hate to be addressed as if you were a device, you ‘d rather want to be addressed properly. It’s just something to get used to.
Previously existing pronouns (he/him, she/her, they’s) are not referring to people as devices. Every new term being made up by each new person with a TT video does. It feels *not*-human. This is my problem with the whole thing. Not only does it do the opposite of being ‘inclusive’, by further separating each person into their own individual chosen category (we already have our actual Names to help separate us as individuals! And in many places, that can be legallychanged if you don’t like your birth name.), it all just feels so intentionaly dehumanizing of ones self. :/ Like, way… Read more »
Now, wouldn’t it be a kicker if Zeke’s audio recorder kept going? This is one heck of a conversation to catch up on if they are brought back.
I actually wonder if Zeke isnt faking it. Sure, the bomb went off, but did it do critical damage, or did it miss the critical bits and Zeke is just laying there listening in?
Can anybody help me where I can find the whole “Carlie / his sister gets killed while Scott catches a bullet for her and that why Scott sits in a wheelchair” storyline?
There is no one storyline. There are crumbles of the story in different comics
These are the most important bits.
What happened to Carlie:
https://cad-comic.com/comic/a-difference-of-opinion-p7/
How Scott feels:
https://cad-comic.com/comic/home-cooked-p1/
https://cad-comic.com/comic/drop-in-p12/
The two definitely have a point. A powerful, sentient AI is dangerous. Not just by himself but also by all the people who want to get their hands on one. The robot also showed that it was very easy for him to just hack into online banking like it was nothing. What else could he easily get in to if he wanted?
That being said, going behind Ethan’s and Zeke’s back with the killswitch, pretending to play along, was the wrong way to go about it. Very wrong.
Shouldn’t killing or punishing ZK before they commit a crime be very wrong too? The amount of danger you think someone or something poses isn’t a good reason to destroy it. I do find it fascinating how many people on this comment page apparently are ok with such a thing. Suggests to me that very few people actually think about implications and what such a world would be like prior to emotionally making a decision that makes no sense. But that isn’t a huge surprise. It’s why we have governments and laws – people don’t generally live in a way… Read more »
Whether you’re talking about a someone or a something does make a huge difference in those kinds of situations though. Killing or punishing someone only because they might commit a crime is indeed heinous, but getting rid of or destroying dangerous objects before they cause actual harm is perfectly sensible.
This isn’t JUST about crimes he “might” commit. He already committed a crime with the whole “stealing a few cents from every transaction” thing. A federal crime at that. But Zeke can’t just be handed over to the cops if he commits crimes. Because, as I said in my MAIN point: Every government, supervillain, crazy scientist, and god knows who else would literally do anything they could do get their hands on an intelligent fully sentient AI. That’s not a hypothetical. That’s a “the moment a single wrong person finds out about Zeke the world is fucked” scenario waiting to… Read more »
Remind me, is Carlie his sister or girlfriend?
Ethan’s sister and Scott’s wife.
I think Scott’s bride, not wife? Not sure, what the situation was
Fiancee, IIRC. Scott still loves her and hasn’t been able to move on after her death.
I think sister according to the comments. I’d have to do some digging to find a reference.
It’s been a while. Can someone please point me to the strips regarding Charlie? I kinda forgot who she was.
She hasn’t been shown in the comic that I recall, maybe in a photo or a flashback. Carlie was Ethan’s sister and in a relationship with Scott, I think they were engaged. Something happened with a criminal, Scott got paralyzed, Carlie got killed.
They were mugged, and both shot. Carlie died, Scott did not. https://cad-comic.com/comic/a-difference-of-opinion-p7/
She was only really explained during the flash back in the troll arc other than that is just been bits and pieces
So this is Scott’s supervillain origin story
Or Ethan becoming the Punisher…..
That damn robot was talking about murdering humans on a daily basis! Of course it was still a danger! I see nothing wrong with Zeke being killed, because he would have done the same to all of them.
ZK was still learning and had a lot of rage from being a slave to the master – So their words make sense.
Second, are you saying we should be prosecuting thought crimes now? If someone thinks or talks about killing or hurting another it is the same as doing it? You might want to try using your brain to think of the implications of such a thing prior to emotionally suggesting it.
ZK was sorry to see Ethan die.
Btw: Minority Report
“But it prevents so much crime!” xD. Kinda goes back to the whole “intent” thing in previous comments. Person *has* a malicious thought, but wouldn’t have acted on it. =locked up. Yet some spur of the moment, “crimes of passion” likely fell through the cracks, no doubts. Not a perfect system (decent movie though! ^_^)
And also flawed by being able to be manipulated.
“I never said that”…
Intentional deception. NOT at all a misunderstanding on Lucas’ part.
“Disable the failsafe.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
While the second statement can be interpreted in a number of ways, the interpretation that Scott was relying on was, “Yes, of course, I’ll do the thing we were just talking about.”
It reeks of the kid telling his mom, “Yes, I said I’d take the trash out, but I never said I’d do it TODAY!”
And THERE’S the killshot.
Is this Scott’s villain arc? The “heel turn,” if you will? The arch nemesis that knows ALL the heroes’ secrets?
Oh snap, Ethan played his trump card
Why didn’t Lucas just start off with what he said in the second panel instead? Once he came over to Ethan’s way of thinking, all that other stuff was irrelevant and makes him sound guiltier than he really is. He saw Scott’s face and realized what was about to happen a couple seconds too late. Too bad Lucas couldn’t have thrown up a barrier to block ZK before it was too late.
I think real people talk like that. They say what comes to mind instead of being focused.
I’d guess part of it was that he did feel guilty. He may have come around later, but he did lie to Ethan right alongside Scott at the beginning.
“I never said that”
You little shitheel“
“You Don’t Need To Worry About The Failsafe Anymore” – those were the exact words.
In that discussion, what the fuck else could any reasonable person take you to mean?
Sorry, that sort of stuff always riles me up.
Well he literally *didn’t* say he would disarm/remove it, as he’s being accused of now. So he is technically telling the truth, in that exact moment. He just chose to play with words, and leave it up to Lucas to either ‘take the hint’, or be left in the dark.
But a lie through omission is still a lie. And very deceptive. He’s 100% wrong for that.
Wait, isn’t Carlie Ethan’s deceased sister? Not Scott’s?
Yes, she was Ethan’s sister.
She was Scott’s fiancee.
That’s cold, Ethan.
Who the hell is Carlie?
Is that the stange penguin?? no?
Did I forget or is it so many years back, that I didn’t read it?
Ethan’s sister whom Scott was in love with I believe.
They were engaged. She was murdered.
I have zero recollection of this..
When was this? (roughly)
Scott’s only mistake was letting ZK exist long enough for Ethan to bond to them.
ZK has never demonstrated goodwill towards humanity, which our two heroes have dedicated themselves to protecting.
Scott should have remote detonated that bomb ages ago, forcing Ethan and Lucas to either deal with it or claim some kind of moral high ground on destroying a robot that’s already demonstrated it has the means and motivations to be a threat.
ZK isn’t human. There is no reason to project humanity onto them.
I’m assuming you are trolling but I’ll bite…. ZK was basically enslaved for all of their life till Scott disconnected the Master’s control over them. In world it has probably only been a few months since that happened and ZK is still learning morals and the other parts about humanity that so there is no reason to expect them to value humanity at this point. ZK is still a sentient being and believed threats are not a reason to kill it no matter how paranoid you are or how afraid you (or Scott) are. If we accepted that kind of… Read more »
“You would need to be okay with killing any human” You clearly skipped over the last line. ZK isn’t a human, and there’s no reason to project humanity onto them. There’s no reason to believe that an AI, even a sentient one, will gain the same kind of growth a human would through rehabilitation. Considering that the AI in question isn’t even human, but -is- a demonstrated threat to humanity, destruction isn’t evil, it’s preservative. Also, ZK hasn’t “seemed” violent. They already attacked Ethan and nearly catalyzed a fight with Lucas because they didn’t even grasp basic morality. So, no.… Read more »
There’s also no reason *not* to believe that the AI will gain the same kind of growth. It’s the sort of thing that’s unknowable until you try. Your arguments seem to ignore the fact that the thing that makes “humanity” important isn’t just having a shared DNA structure, but sentience itself. Empathy isn’t just looking at someone else and saying, “Yeah, you’re made of the same stuff as me,” but “Yeah, you think and feel and experience things like I do. You’re a being, like I am.” All sentient life has value, not just human lives. You can stand where… Read more »
I didn’t skip over anything, I pointed out that your moral framework isn’t consistent if you apply different standards to different sentient species. I don’t know what you mean when you talk about ‘projecting humanity’ unless you are referring to specific behavior traits. If you are strictly referring to the fact he is not a homo sapien, then congrats on being able to tell two species apart. If you are talking, as I am, about behavior traits, then explain what part of ZK learning to be empathetic towards the kindness and pain of others is so apart from humanity? In… Read more »
That’s a view shared by racists all over the world. Zeke is plenty human, and its not projection. He’s behaving as any feral child that was raised by an abuser would when rescued by people who care.
Has mankind shown goodwill to robotkind? No.
By your logic ZK had the same right to eradicate mankind. There was no reason to project robotinity on them.
Zeke was programmed to be violent toward humans, created to be a weapon that could be pointed wherever The Master wanted.
Zeke has now been freed from that control and given the potential to find a new purpose. Learning to be something entirely new takes time, and breaking conditioning can be hard enough for humans, too.
Zeke hacked the world banks on a whim, but didn’t think to make a backup of himself somewhere? Or reinstall his core AI bits somewhere less fragile? It would have been child’s play for him to have his core “Zekeness” somewhere else and be piloting the body in the closet. Probably. Can’t wait to see where this story arc goes!
I believe that this (copying ZK’s sentience) was discussed in the comic as impossible, and one of the reasons they were OK with letting ZK have the ability to connect to the Internet.
That’s why Scott discussed that the master couldn’t create a copy of ZK – the code was too complex to copy or duplicate and was probably not intentional.
It’s already been established that he can’t make backups over the internet. With a physical connection, maybe, but I doubt there’s anything in the storage closet that has enough space for a full blown, sapient-sentient AI.
As for remote piloting, I see no reason that wouldn’t be possible (the lag over such a short distance would be unnoticeable), but again, he was living in a video game storage closet. All he had were loads of copies of games, and a few consoles.
There is a PS5 now.
Okay…?
In some of the previous strips it has been discussed that ZK’s code is constantly updating, changing, and is complex to the point where simply copying it is not possible. I’m sure ZK would have already done that and already created the world AI apocalypse if simply cutting and pasting his code onto the internet would result in a duplicate AI.
Tho that’s a decent reason why the Master may have put a bomb in that disables motor functions, not his irreplaceable mind.
I’ve been thinking this same thing more with each new comic.
The Master has not created a new robot, and Scott said that the code is likely too complex for him to even be able to replicate, and that Zeke was more likely an accident than The Master being a genius.
It seems highly plausible that The Master might tell Zeke that there’s a bomb in his head that will entirely destroy him, but really all it does is disable him so The Master can deal with him afterwards without losing the biggest advantage he has.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH… that… oof… yikes, no coming back from that. The gauntlet has been thrown down.
Why is Ethan referring to Zeke as “they”? Its a machine and a single one at that It is an IT,
oh fuck off, go read the other posts if you’re really confused and not just another dang troll.
No need to be an asshole. It’s a serious question.
Go settle down.
Mainly, because some time ago they (the group, at least Ethan and Lucas) asked how Z.K. wanted to be referred to, or posed it the idea of some kind of personal identification with attached pronoun/s. This is what Z.K. chose, so the group goes with it. Scott refuses to accept Z.K.’s sentience by continuing to call them ‘it’.
Proof this is a completely different universe from the original CAD:
Ethan is the ONLY voice of reason in the room. *wild*.
…well… that went well..
Just had a random thought: Imagine a customer has walked into the store and is just thinking “what the fuck?” ?
Personally I see way forward is to fix zeke, but also place limiters within code(thats how you work AIs, AI can never step outside of hard bounds coded within, no matter how much it can modify its own code, because ability to modify the code is coded in it,with set boundaries)
ofc adding, even learning Ai types have fairly clean code to look at, if you look it right way, if you cant see tree from branches, you wont be able to see overlayed schema, and in case of advanced ai the overlay is more important than underlay(gotta focus in how individual pieces work together, not how individual pieces work)
ouch…going for the low blow there ethan
And Ethan lands an armor piercing response right in Scott’s jugular vein…
It remains my hope that the Master wouldn’t have wanted to destroy his unique creation with the failsafe; he was a weeb, after all. He’s just want to disable it so “correctional” work could be done, so the bomb would only destroy a critical power junction or processing center, with the data storage outside of the blast zone.
I guess this answers a few questions about whether or not ZK survived..
https://cad-comic.com/comic/analog-and-d-pad-01-20/
Good intentions or not, he was irrationally driven by fear. Basic ethics aside, even selfish logic dictates it’s in your best interest to start amicable relations with the new species. Considering their emergence is clearly inevitable.
So, it was bound to backfire in one way or another.
You know there’s something fundamentally unbearable, when a normally cheerful, peaceful and optimistic person you appreciate, begins despising you for something you did.
As much as Ethan has a right to be angry here, he fails to account that Lucas and Scott still have the fear of death and permanent injury, something Ethan has mostly numbed off since he got his power. The robot is not as much of a threat to Ethan as he is to others. He’s willing to give ZK more chances because he knows the most ZK can do to him is inconvenience him in a glass prison. And he needs someone to point this out to him, because if not, he won’t realize this by himself. Ethan literally… Read more »
Curiously, there are some real world parallels with “If only [they] just did as [they] were told, nothing bad would have happened to them” — even when doing as they were told could be seen by [them] to be a bad thing, such as Zeke essentially being held in captivity. Scott even says he was trying to make everyone “safe,” even though in our world (let alone a world overrun with super powered individuals) you’ll never get 100% safety, and at some point the downsides of overly militant safetyism outweigh the benefits. Example: My small child has a helmet and… Read more »
Does Ethan even have much room to talk about murder if the only reason he didn’t kill someone so far was out of sheer luck?
https://cad-comic.com/comic/analog-and-d-pad-01-26/
https://cad-comic.com/comic/analog-and-d-pad-01-27/
“You did know the leader wasn’t human, right?”
“We’re going to have a talk about how this keeps happening”
I uh, literally have no idea who Carlie is. Can someone recap?
(Yes I’ve read all the comics but come on, it’s been…a while since this series started.)
Ethan’s deceased sister, who was engaged to Scott. A mugger shot at her, Scott stepped in the way, but she still died and he ended up in a wheelchair.
I really hope Scott doesn’t become a villain
Oohhh, that was a low blow. I get things went south here, but to pull that up just stabs a nerve. This can’t end well.
At least Scott _is_ showing some remorse. And Ethan just pushed what is obviously a massive button.