Comic for Thursday, August 2nd, 2018
I think some people might be confused why Naomi mentions Arkady here, as most of his appearances have been cut, but he is pretty good friend’s with Naomi – we see that he’s one of the people she recruits for shopping for Ila, and when she gets shot, she considers going to his place instead of Miko’s when the IDS doesn’t seem to be giving up on chasing her, and she thinks Miko might be annoyed if she leads a bunch of goons to Miko’s place.
It’s one of the problem of the size of the cast is that there’s always got to be some people that are rotated out of what we’ve seen before – Lisa and Arkady we’ve definitely seen less of than I expected, to the point where I’d guess half of you don’t even know who Lisa is… 😉
Anyway… still pretty busy unfortunately. This page was a bit of a struggle to get out on time, and is clearly still rushed, but I didn’t want to delay/miss it. Hmm, I’m not sure what the status will be there. There will be a comic on Monday almost certainly, but maybe cut Thursdays to get a buffer again, but I’m worried in the current climate of free-time-forecast, if I get a buffer I’ll just instantly squander it…
Oh… someone asked if Naomi and Mium’s hair was just always going to black. The answer is: [That would obviously be spoilers, pfff, did you think I would post spoilers??].
I know reading order might be a little confusing, but you can think of it like this – the half page comics are almost always basically always two stacked three panel comics (though, being me, I tend to break the panels a lot). I know it’s not really creative layouts, but a) I’ve always been sort of bad a page composition, and b) the goal is to make the half-pages faster. I actually reduced the panel count of this half page after the initial layout it… it was original 13 panels somehow, but I decided that was stupid, as that’s as many panels as many of my full page comics (more than most even).
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If you only have enough space to publish once a week, without feeling you’re rushing it, do that. We understand.
I find a small taste of the story (half comics) works well in terms giving me my fix. It also feels like it makes the creator choose/focus in a way I am enjoying —like by embracing limits as part of the process of creativity (eg. your time) the message/art is honed. Curious what others think?
If we are talking preference, I prefer a full page, because I always want more comic. I certainly prefer half a page to nothing, and I understand the author is busy.
Anyway, his version of half a page is still a lot of content. That is 11 panels in a “half” page.
To me it would seem logical that Past quits his day job to make me more comics. To make US more comics. Us, obviously, not just me.
I’ve gone on record numerous times in favor of the half comic approach to rebuilding buffer. Also it makes me feel like middle management, voting on what to make the developer code up this week.
How about this?
Half pages from now on until a very healthy buffer is built, but call them “full pages”. If an actual full page is produced, call it a “double page”. It’s the old dieter’s trick of using a smaller plate so it looks fuller. ^^
I like where your mind is at.
-G-
I actually strongly agree with Peter’s points here. Denying a country the ability/right to go to war with another country is the equivalent of conquering it. When you take away the ability to say what is worth fighting and dying for from a country, it no longer has the ability represent itself.
It is fine to say that war is terrible, but the ability to choose what you fight for is a prerequisite for self-rule. Those who cannot fight are unable to negotiate terms at the table of peace. When you cannot fight, the word “Unacceptable” is just a word and not something with content. For historical example, if England claims the right of Prima Noctis (trigger warning if you look this up) for the nobles it has decided to put in charge over Scotland, Scotland is not going to be ok with this. However, if it is unable to fight England, then there is little it can do.
The exception to this argument requires effective use of news media and is exampled by Ghandi. However, Ghandi’s method requires a great amount of suffering on the side of the persecuted, information (preferably in picture or video form) of said suffering getting to the population of the persecuting country, the population of the persecuting country caring, and the population of the persecuting country being able to effect change in the behavior of it’s government. Without all these conditions, Ghandi’s nonviolent methods fail. And when they succeed, it takes a long period of time and suffering to achieve those goals.
I am rambling a bit, but I am unsure how to make it clear that suppressing armies or wiping out invading armies is a really big deal ethically. Stopping other countries’ wars because they are inconvenient is the action of someone who believes that their values (or convenience in this case) are more important than the values of all of the citizens and rulers of the participating countries. That is insanely arrogant. (As an aside, this is also a response to the underlying questions and answers in the latest Black Panther movie.)
So, I wrote this thinking that this was Kallisto yelling at Peter because yelling is what she does and because the victim attitude that Naomi is taking here fits her classic attitude toward Peter. I am obviously not a super visual person. I was not ok with Kallisto potentially having Mium stop the war. The victim attitude and holding Peter responsible for a lot of what happens in the world fits her. I would argue the naiveté and arrogance required for the position also fit her a little, but only unexamined. Peter saying what would be required to have “Peace” and “help people” would almost certainly stop her in her tracks. On the other hand…. Naomi is perfect for it. She brings naivety and arrogance to the table in spades. She thinks the solution to most problems is hitting it, and, if that doesn’t work, asking Peter where to hit it. I still think it is casually horrifying, but I have no narrative problem with it. It fits Naomi perfectly.
I brought up that both Naomi and Kallisto have a touch of a victim complex with Peter. It might be more accurate to say that they have an external locus of control. By this I mean, they assume that the correct way to change reality to their will is to go to Peter to have him change it. They also assume that Peter is at fault if there is something wrong with reality or if they just don’t like it. Pete definitely calls this out in the last panel. Naomi, when faced with a war she doesn’t want, took no action to change it, nor did she use her authority over Mium to change it. She waited for Peter so she could yell at him for “allowing” it. I acknowledge that neither Naomi nor Kallisto is one dimensional in their reliance in Peter for any fans of them (I am a fan of both). I merely was very sympathetic to Peters macro-perspective on the situation in today’s comic and its contrast with Naomi’s perspective of “War is bad.”
Further side note, as I am rambling: I would not have bothered writing this much if I didn’t really appreciate this comic. It’s a lot of fun and I enjoy the characters. Keep up the good work.
and Gandhi himself said that Britain was the only ‘imperial’ power against whom he’d have considered his method worth trying…
I’m divided on your statement about taking away a nation’s “right to go to war”.
On the one hand, I see your point. Certainly, Peter does not want to get involved in the politics of every nation. It’s not his job and he certainly doesn’t want the responsibility, nor the cleanup in the aftermath. And I’d agree that the U.N. sometimes regulates and gets involved in wars and things that it has no business in (such as total control and regulation over what some condemn as “hate speech” – or contrary opinions or words that hurt fee-fees – on the Internet).
But, on the other hand, wars and conflicts are often started for the most selfish and asinine reasons imaginable. (And the actual, secret reasons are often hidden behind propaganda, lies and honeyed words.)
For example, in this case: Arpon’s president had secretly planned to invade and conquer Malsa long before recent events gave him the perfect excuse. Malsa’s recent aggression was rather convenient for his plans.
You might want to look up some stuff on “Just War Theory” and then look up some examples of when that was abused or inappropriately applied. The question gets a lot more difficult when you take into account “secondary” results (that some people say might have been the TRUE primary motivator). Is stopping slavery or genocide a worthy cause for war, and what of the economic benefits for the invaders and the potential for closer diplomatic ties with the new government that replaces the old? Is preemptive war justified to protect against an “aggressor” who hasn’t actually attacked yet but you are certain is going to (like what might be Malsa’s Consoul’s reason for attacking Arpon)?
In the end war is a really messy affair and the sad thing is that you really can’t get rid of it in one form or another. Even if outright fighting doesn’t break out the very threat of it can make things happen. Eventually fighting will break out, always; because eventually the other decides to no longer let the threat of war force their hand and the “aggressor” must back up their words with action. Also note that the aggressor isn’t always in the wrong, though they do tend to get the blame, as they may be little more than the one who finally pulls the trigger when the other side has been pushing things too far (or both could have been pushing things till they erupt). For instance the aggressor might demand that the other side “stop building tanks and lining them up on the border for an obvious planned invasion or, in a couple more RW examples: one side might demand the other stop letting armed groups use military hardware within their land to fire rockets and such across the border at the “aggressor’s” cities, or the “aggressor” might demand that the other stop claiming the entire strait as their land (even though you only own one border of it or less) so that they can tax all the ships that pass through it.
I am curious if Naomi will stop the war or not given the option. She has shown some awareness about Mium’s nature, like when explaining why Mium is not allowed to future proof his plans (as he will just kill everyone that could wreck them).
Mium’s homicidal tendencies are actually fairly worrying because of how much more accurately it is portrayed than many AI depictions. He does not want to kill all humans, he even does not really seem to like killing any humans. But he also has a very good understanding of certainty and how to achieve it.
The easiest way to stop the tanks, after all, would be very big explosions, and we already know Mium is fairly fond of blowing things up. Maybe he actually does have some similarities with Rovak.
What is really scary is that MIUM’s homicidal tendencies tend to be true of most people without specific rules or guidelines to temper that aspect. The basis of it, in humans, is called “in group bias” and basically consists of a bias toward good things happening to your “friends” (along with an assumption of them being good/justified/nice people) and letting the bad things happen to others (which includes assuming they are bad if they are opposing you or yours).
The issue is in that “letting bad things happen to ‘other people'” extends all the way toward things like “not having enough food to eat” (even if it was because you took their food to feed your people) or even sometimes to the death of those who would oppose you in order to protect your people’s plans (even if the consequences of failure for your people would not lead to a similar result of death). Raiders, pirates, thieves, marauders and the like, that we know existed historically and still exist today in smaller numbers, were not and are not without concern or empathy or human decency; they simply apply those characteristics to the most important people in their lives and less to others.
The only real difference between Mium’s homicidal tenancies and that of other people is that other people tend to have some sort of moral framework that either says that outsiders are valuable (even if that moral framework simply comes from a general awareness of normal society’s standards and not from some actual formalized ethical system that holds to the universal decency of man), or they don’t hurt people because they themselves have reason to fear the consequences of hurting those outside their group.
Mium has no reason to fear the consequences of hurting those outside his group with the exception of how that may impact his future plans (which I personally expect is him underestimating the effects of eliminating everyone you can and only being left with those people who are REAL problems that can’t be eliminated) and he has no grounding of a moral system in the general societal standard. The only morality that he has been given is what has been programmed into him, including that whole “you can’t future proof your plans by killing people” thing. The biggest problem with not /starting/ with a flushed out system of ethics is having to put one together peace by peace, which is what leads to MIUM looking so bloodthirsty when the only thing restraining him is a simple command (no future proofing through murder) rather than an entire system that leads to the same result.
I don’t know if I would call Mium homicidal. I think if you gave him no orders, he would just sort of sit on top of a skyscrapper and watch the world go by while slowly taking over all digital systems that have ever existed in the background.
He only shows an inclination to kill people because what people ask him to do things naturally implies that if you look at them rationally, humans just are bad understanding that when they want something, it has to be taken away from other people (freedom, information, security).
Rovak himself (an expert on being homicidal) says that Mium’s flaw is not a good homicidal killing machine.
You definitely have a point about “in group bias”. Too many people in the world only care about friends and relatives and don’t give a rat’s behind about anyone else. It’s very sad, but a lot of people seem to be like this. Though, I tend to call this straight up “apathy”. But, to be fair, I can sort of see why some become this way. I’ve had people I trust betray me – people I thought I knew – in terrible ways after trying hard to help them. It becomes difficult to sympathize with others or extend a helping hand after experiencing that more than once.
On the other hand, there are virtue-signalling “social justice warriors” who pretend to care about all sorts of things affecting other people, making other people’s business their business and taking away all sorts of rights and hurting others in the name of “justice”, but who are often only motivated by increasing their social standing and/or inflating their ego or self-worth.
Mium actually has displayed a moral grounding of sorts.
http://pastutopia.com/?comic=comic-for-thursday-april-19th-2018
He states that there are people he likes, and that he chooses to interpret the request in a way that will be least likely to cause them consternation. While caring about the opinions of friends is not a very solid moral grounding, it still is one, and in many ways is how one gets started on building one.
I agree that Mium having a care about his friends opinions is important. I disagree that it is a weak basis of morality.
How many religions have core rules of love for others, and treating others as you would treat yourself? Mium might still be learning to embrace that, but the concept seems to be a good moral basis.
The reason I call it weak, is because there is a massive gap between caring about those one likes and caring about ‘others’ in a more general sense. Caring about family and friends is the most basic starting point for compassion and concern for someone other than the self.
A strong moral foundation provides guidance on what to do, even when no one you know is involved or affected by the outcome. A moral foundation that only provides guidance when something affects you or someone you know, is a weak foundation.
… strong and weak may not be the right words for what I’m trying to convey. I’m not sure what word would be better though.
Perhaps my sense of morality is weakening as I age.
Is there an option for cynicism with morality? Or are they mutually exclusive? 😉
Suddenly the consequences of a request have a lot more impact if they apply to you…..
Interesting though. If the war isn’t “particularly convenient”, why doesn’t he do something about it?
Because Naomi is wise enough to know ASKING Mium to do something is a tricky thing in itself? Her last such interaction resulted in a “Friends & Family” exception & Ila joining the crew…
Well of course a war is not “particularly convenient”… but we STILL don’t know exactly what Peter is trying to achieve… but we do know he (Mium?) does a lot of prediction modelling & trying to control outcomes (“Step one of any plan. Take control of the timeline of events.”)… so perhaps having a war is necessary part of that timeline of events? Inconvenient to be sure (since war is probably a little trickier to control), but necessary? Or perhaps the outcome is to get Naomi to intervene… because you can’t tell me Peter doesn’t try to 2nd guess what the response of the people closest to him would be (we’re sure Mium does… he does exactly that when he indicates he won’t be removing Arron’s arm).
I suspect by “not particularly convenient”, what he means is, he’s plotted out all of the different angles of this war, and he hasn’t found an outcome he really likes. As such, he’s meddling less and thinking more about how he can make it work for him.
Issues with the war:
– If he lets it take its natural course, it demolishes the base of operations he’s established, and he’ll need to find a new place to set up, which means going back into hiding, and that’ll be more difficult. It’ll also give Biana time to deal with her fallout in a way that works out for her rather than everyone else.
– If he just causes it to not be, he plays out his hand too soon, and he’s back to only Mium, Naomi, and Miko trusting him. It’s also possible that it would have a detrimental effect on his relationship with Mium – that is, if Mium started to think that he’s getting a lot less out of the relationship than Peter, it could be bad. Someone has already noted that Query’s past the generally understood useful SMAI lifespan. Or was that M.Y.M.?
Regarding the SMAI lifespan, that was Arron talking about Query without really understanding the difference between Query and M.Y.M. Which, to be fair, is not yet entirely clear.
As for the war between Malsa and Arpon, I am not sure Peter really wanted that war to happen at all. He was trying to prevent Arpon from attacking Malsa with the support of the IDS and PACT, but as soon as he neutralized the threat, the Consul invaded them. That makes sense in geopolitics where countries tend to be naturally expansionist, but to Peter it would just seem unncessary, as he was able to neutralize what he viewed as the threat (Biana using Arpon as a platform for conquering Malsa).
Look at his point to Naomi here. If he does interfere, he could probably make Malsa crush Arpon. He has access to Mium, Kally, and probably Skyhammer if he really wanted. But if he does, where does that stop? If the Consul can easily win wars, history suggests she would just invade the next country.
Naomi thinks on the microlevel – she is concerned about losing a battle because people she likes might get hurt, but I do not really get the sense she cares a lot about the geopolitics of it. Peter on the other seems like he just does not really see the point of winning it.
In defending himself, Peter started that he allowed the Consul to ask Mium questions. A bit later he admits Mium would probably stop the war if Peter asks, and suggests that he might stop the war if Naomi asks.
This combination leads me to wonder if Peter knows that the Consul had already moved from asking questions to asking favors. And that Mium has responded in her favor! What if the Consul thinks to ask Mium to stop the war?
I do like your line of thinking here. Yeah, the Consul may not even realize what she has in having M.Y.M.’s ear. And it may be that Peter planned for all this to happen, including Naomi’s anger, expecting her to get involved by asking Mium for a favor. Maybe he wants Naomi to do this for some unknown reason?
However… Just like one has to be extra, extra cautious in how one words things when asking a literal genie to grant a wish, one should be very careful how one words things when asking an ultra-powerful SMAI for a favor, such as to “stop the war.” There are many ways that M.Y.M. could accomplish this request, including by hastening Arpon’s conquest of Malsa’s forces, such as by disabling the latter.
I’m just saying that one should be very specific around genies and god-like AI. And, knowing Mium, he just might interpret a request too literally out of a twisted sense of humor.
That would be a pretty big favor for the Consul to ask. I don’t think she’s ready to accept the fact that he could possibly do it if requested. I expect that his response would be to ask Peter, Miko, and/or Naomi whether he should or not.
You’re right: That would be a mighty big favor to ask. However, M.Y.M. would not necessarily have to do something major, like take over enemy assets or disable the tanks, in order to turn the tide of this war. He could do something comparatively minor, such as analyze the tanks for a weak point and reveal this to the Consul.
And, yes, I would expect M.Y.M. to ask Peter or Miko whether or not he should… under normal circumstances. But this page reveals that Peter already knew about Arpon’s “secret” new tanks. So, Peter must have already taken them into account in his grand-chessmaster-level plans. Likely, M.Y.M. already knew, too.
Since M.Y.M. seems to want to forward Peter’s plans, and since he should have the ability and freedom to do so within Peter restrictions, M.Y.M. may be able to help the Consul counter the threat of Arpon’s tanks without bothering Peter for permission. He does seem to have some degree of freedom to decide and act on his own. Indeed, on the previous page, M.Y.M. forwarded the realtime locations of these tanks to Malsa’s military forces as a favor to the Consul. And I’m pretty sure he did not ask Peter for permission beforehand.
I expect that Peter has already outlined what might be generally allowed in helping the consul, probably with a few specific things on the war
You know what could single handedly win the war for Malsa without MYM having to touch a single weapon or show up in person at all?
A detailed real-time description of the locations of the enemy forces and how they are moving on the battlefield.
I think people are really REALLY underestimating exactly what Mium is already doing because they don’t realize the importance of that aspect. This is especially true when the “units” are capable of destroying the normal infantry completely unopposed and can only be stopped by the opponent’s high level units. Arpon has already defined that their plan for the war is to eliminate the lower level infantry so that Malsa lacks the manpower to effectively hold any terretory and has to retreat and regroup (even if the family mages are capable of taking it). Malsa’s plan would supposedly be to place their family mages in the correct positions to take out any and all real resistance and to use their infantry only to hold terretory already taken (and presumably to prevent the enemy from advancing). Mium, with his one contribution, has completely invalidated Arpon’s tactic and ensured Malsa’s plan will almost certainly succeed.
A real world example of this would be WWII where Brittan had radar, something that Germany had never heard of. Every time they tried to bring in their arial forces they were met by the ENTIRE British air force and were very easily repelled. Germany concluded that what they were seeing when they attacked was normal British air patrolls and marveled at how absurdly powerful the air defense of British home soil was.
I think the World War 2 story is apocryphal, given that the Germans had started building air-defense radar (GEMA) in the late 30s.
However, a similar effect happened with ULTRA and air patrols out of Malta. The British would decrypt a message about ship movements and send a scout to provide an excuse to attack it. The Axis command concluded that Malta had hundreds of scout-planes on patrol.
Possibly what Mium / Peter are looking at here long term is to make Malsa dependent on Mium to the point that their own intelligence agencies atrophy. They can then effectively assume control without Malsa noticing.
Nah, not really. But the more difficult thing might be avoiding that result rather than causing it.
I did some research and can confirm what Gurst said, that story is false. That said there are at least a dozen other stories out there about how good data or incomplete data changed the course of a battle or war.
This seems like it could go very wrong. Naomi is fundamentally an idealist, and idealists can be some of the most dangerous people to give power to. Given that the Consul is already acting on this information, if Naomi then asks Mium to interfere… seems like a recipe for disaster.
On a side note, Naomi actually seemed to lose paintball, and now notes that Mium seems faster, but if we pay attention, no scarf. That means this is probably the F5. Maybe the F5 is just a faster/stronger than the F8 prototype?
I think it’s more that Mium is upgrading F5 to F8’s specs. We already know he’s way more capable than he is supposed to be, so it make sense he would be modifying the new chassis to his improved specs.
And his hair is still dyed, so he’s still technically undercover. That might explain the absence of the scarf.
Perhaps it’s the extra server Miko assigned… she did sort of request Mium beat Naomi.