Grrl Power #926 – Best and brightest
Hey, alien lady, just because some of us are total dimwits doesn’t mean our best and brightest can’t kick your ass. At least these two were smart and/or oblivious enough to circumvent the police cordon keeping lookie loos from wandering into an alien mercenary/superhero/supervillain rumble. (It’s the latter.)
I guess the best thing you can say about these two is that they’re remarkably upbeat about discovering the existence of lizard men and demons.
This page kind of makes me wonder about the intelligence distribution of alien races. (Granted “Intelligence” is kind of a broad umbrella term for a host of aptitudes, but I’m talking about overall averages. Also, IQ tests and scores are problematic for a number of reasons, but I’ll use them as a simple point of reference as I’m not aware of another standardized measurement.) So, if there are humans with IQ’s ranging from like 65 to 250 or higher, (yes, there are lower and higher scores, I’m doing Olympic rules and trimming the extreme outliers) are Vulcans like 90 to 300? Or are they 110 to 175? Are Orcs 45 to 105, or are they 85 to 110? Are the standard deviations consistent across races, or do some races have way more outliers?
In a lot of video games and RPGs, humans are the race with no racial bonuses, but also no limitations on class selection. They’re the generalist species. I kind of think humans should have bonuses to every class, as Quark has pointed out (correctly I think) that comfortable Federation humans are a bit milquetoast, but before they became semi-post scarcity, they were more savage capitalists than Ferengi, and you take away their food replicators and electricity etc., and they turn nastier than the worst Klingon.
Of course, when we meet actual aliens, they might have a worker class that can barely follow basic instructions and a scientist class that make quantum computers look quaint, and they’re all wildly bipolar. And then we’d be like, “No! All alien races are supposed to be a monocultures! You only get to specialize in one thing!”
The new vote incentive is up! 
Maxima won (or lost) the draw this time. There are several clothing/non-clothing variants over at Patreon, including a special version with guest art direction from JJ Abrams. (Yes, there’s a ton of lens flares, hah hah. I amuse myself.) The a-cups will return next month, so please enjoy this offering in the meantime.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
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What is that thing on Lapha head?
It seems to be a “thing” with members of her species: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-687-a-friendly-tongue/
Either it’s a part of her species, or a fashion accessory.
A fashion accessory that perfectly mimics the eyes in her head
Actually, it would depend on the social structure of the society. Humans have such a wide range of intelligence levels (and common sense levels) because we value all members of society equally, at least in theory. We have laws to protect everyone and allow for equal opportunities. Other societies may be a bit more cutthroat and could allow anyone who is stupid enough to die in whatever situation they find themselves. A very aggressive society or one where the most intelligent species isn’t the top of the food chain would have much higher average of survivability traits. A species that kills anything born with defects would have a much more stable set of all-around traits and would likely be a lot more predictable in what they are capable of. A deeply strict religious species would likewise have much less diversity if they killed heretics in their society since this would reduce the population to only people who are not intelligent enough to poke hole in their philosophy and those meek enough to just play along and not make waves.
I don’t think, giving people the ability to fall victim to their lethal levels of inaptitude is neccessarely cutthroat. It is equal opportunity, but without handholding and without slapping warning labels everywhere. Do we really need a warning of “Hot” on a paper coffee cup? Is a label warning to “do not stick hand in moving cutting parts” really neccessary? History has shown that, yes, if we want to outlaw all accidents and consequence of stupidity, we clearly need those warning labels. But if we accept that accidents happen and actions, including really really stupid ones, have consequences, even bad consequences, do we really need them?
Mind you, those labels don’t stop unintelligent or reckless people from committing dangerous acts, they’re merely there to keep the manufacturer from being held liable for not warning that they were dangerous. XD
IE handholding the deserving recipients of the Darwin Award
Morons will always blame someone else for their stupidity. Case in point: the world has been under Covid for over a year, right? And we have all been told about wearing masks and self-isolating, right? Recently, some bitch who was related to someone who tested positive (or was at least living in the household) decided to continue working and doing her usual shit, possibly spreading the virus to others. Her excuse? The horse-faced PM hadn’t told her directly and personally, via text, email or phone call, that she needed to self isolate!
The whole fucking country knows you need to self-isolate if you show symptoms or have come into contact with someone who has, but because she hadn’t been told personally, she’s not responsible
And that’s why COVID is basically over for us. We do have some retards who have seen Freedumb protests on TV (thanks ever so much for sharing, USA) and thought it would be fun to defend their imagined right to spread disease, and when our police ran out of patience and used force they were very confused by widespread community support for the officers’ handling of the situation. Popular media did try the “police brutality” angle but they soon worked out which way the wind was blowing. The whole mask and social distance thing was an easy sell in a country where people already have a large personal space and deep respect for rules that are rooted in common sense and obviously for the common good.
Without a right to be stupid , do you have enough rights?
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-kerry-liberties/kerry-defends-liberties-says-americans-have-right-to-be-stupid-idUSBRE91P0HJ20130226
Yet each of us must still dare to exercise that right.
My broken marriage was restored, if you need help Email (Robinsonbuckler11@) gmail com..
SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM
Not sure if Dave B. cleans these, but I feel the need to Flag it.
Seems like there is an email address there that should be subscribed to receive all kinds of interesting things. Perhaps donate to far right and far left fanatic groups in their name?
Or at least ensure they’re receiving newsletters from across the political spectrum.
Before you do that, consider the very real possibility that anonymous poster Nichole Bernier might have published the email address to entice just such a reaction.
Don’t be used as a tool by a fool.
Keep in mind the hot coffee court case was related to mcdonalds illegally serving their coffee at a much higher temperature than anything reasonable just for a marketing stunt. They has been repeatedly ordering to lower the temperature, but did some good old ford pinto math and decided it was worth it to just pay the court fees than actually comply.
The woman almost died and was covered with third degree burns after a few seconds of contact.
The “warning label” now on coffee is largely meaningless and only exists to try to convince people that they can’t sue if there is a warning label.
You’ve managed quite a few total fabrications in the first two paragraphs.
“Illegally” is false. No law was broken in the temperature of their coffee. The standard serving temperature of coffee across the specialty coffee industry (fast food, Starbucks etc) is in the 160–185 °F range (71–85 °C), and courts have repeatedly ruled that that range is not “unreasonably dangerous”.
“Marketing stunt” is false. It was a long term company policy, over a number of years… as in, four decades at this point.
“Almost died” is false. Liebeck was hospitalized for eight days while she underwent skin grafting, followed by three weeks of follow-up care at home and two years of medical treatment.
“covered with” is false. The burns were in the region of Liebeck’s thigh, buttocks and groin.
“Repeatedly ordered to lower the temperature [and refused to comply]” is false. No idea where you got that malarkey. Name three cases where such an order was given and the order was upheld on appeal. Zero such cases are listed on wikipedia regarding the case.
Actually TempoDiValse is correct about the specifics of the McDonalds hot coffee case.
It’s often used as an example of ‘ridiculous lawsuits’ but if you read what actually happened and the lawsuit itself…. McDonalds was intentionally making the coffee at dangerous levels of scaldingly hot temperatures, and had been ordered on multiple occasions to not do so. Tempo even got the reason why McDonalds did not lower the temperature earlier correct. They made a risk analysis and decided that they would have too many complaints based on their marketing data that most people did not drink the coffee right away when it was ordered through the drive-thru and the scalding temperature was so the coffee would remain hot when they customers eventually did drink it.
And she WAS at risk of dying from this. Stella Liebeck was 79 years old when she suffered the third degree burns to 16 percent of her body (I’d say 16 percent of her body is good enough to be considered ‘covered with’), and she legitimately was at risk of dying during the surgeries and from the liquid which was 190 degrees. For an octigenarian, this is DEFINITELY potentially deadly, especially from shock and complications during the multiple surgeries she had to undergo.
Also, yes, the coffee was hotter than any other coffee being sold at the time. It was 190 degrees F. 30 degrees higher than the next hottest coffee (Starbucks) which is typically 160 degrees F).
It’s usually described as a reason for tort reform because people ignore a lot of the facts surrounding the case. Mind you, tort reform is definitely needed, and there’s a lot of frivolous lawsuits out there. I can easily name dozens that are better examples than the McDonalds/Liebeck case.
The only mistake Tempo made was saying the coffee was ‘illegally’ hot. It wasnt illegally hot. It was recklessly hot.
Is this the same case where the woman deliberately poured the scalding hot coffee (after it was pointed out to her, that it was very hot, and to be careful with it) so she could sue, only to find out that she deserved a Darwin Award because she was a fucking scammer who got what she deserved?
Or is this a different case?
this is a different case.
No. Completely different case.
For reference of those not accustomed to Fahrenheit temperatures:
190’F = 88’C (McDonald’s Drive-Thru)
160’F = 71’C (Starbucks et al)
Your claims of an exact specific temperature for Starbucks et al is false. see wikipedia – an “admittedly unscientific survey” – as in, what really happens out there – found those temperatures to be all over the place, some higher than McDonalds at the time. MacDonald’s drive thru also varied quite a bit, via the same source.
I’m not claiming “an exact specific temperature”, I’m converting the approximate temperatures that Pander quoted above. It took me a minute or so to (have some software) run the maths, so I wanted to save subsequent readers that diversion. If you take issue with the accuracy of the figures, take issue with their source and not their translation.
Scott’s not claiming a specific temperature.
…
-I- am claiming a specific temperature, because it was listed as the specific temperature that the guidelines at McDonald had for how hot the coffee machines were programmed to keep the coffee at, and it was listed in the lawsuit, both by the plaintiff’s attorney and affirmed by the defense. They also listed, during the Liebeck lawsuit, that it was 30 degrees F higher than the temperature of the next hottest coffee sold ANYWHERE at the time (Starbucks et al).
So no, I do not use wikipedia as a source, and the lawsuit definitely did not use wikipedia as their source. I use the lawsuit as the source, which was admitted as evidence, so I’m pretty sure they also did not use wikipedia as justification or the judge would not have allowed it to be entered into evidence.
In short, don’t use Wikipedia as your justification. Just like if you were writing a paper for school, do not use wikipedia as your source there either.
It’s been a year or two since I last reviewed the specifics of that case. “illegally” in the sense of previous injury suit and court orders that the coffee was at too high of a temperature.
Pander- I know you know your stuff legally, which means when you state “had been ordered on multiple occasions to not do so” that there must have been relevant court cases where such an order was given. My challenge to the prior poster, since no such cases were listed on Wikipedia, was “Name three cases where such an order was given and the order was upheld on appeal.”
Presumably, since you hung your argument on such orders having been given, that some of them must have survived appeal. An order that does not survive appeal represents an error by a trial judge. So… were there any such orders that were not errors?
“I know you know your stuff legally, which means when you state “had been ordered on multiple occasions to not do so” that there must have been relevant court cases where such an order was given.”
Here is what as produced, as evidence, during the Liebeck lawsuit:
1) McDonald’s operations manual required the franchisee to hold its coffee at 190 degrees Fahrenheit.
2) Coffee at that temperature, if spilled, causes third-degree burns in three to seven seconds. McDonalds was aware of this according to internal memos at McDonalds corporate.
3) The chairman of the department of mechanical engineering and biomechanical engineering at the University of Texas testified that this risk of harm is unacceptable, as did a widely recognized expert on burns, the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Burn Care and Rehabilitation, the leading scholarly publication in the specialty.
4) McDonald’s ADMITTED it had known about the risk of serious burns from its scalding hot coffee for more than 10 years. The risk had repeatedly been brought to its attention through numerous other claims and lawsuits. So yes, there were multiple prior lawsuits against McDonalds – over 700 lawsuits. Where they were repeatedly ordered on multiple occasions. By magistrates and judges. They just did not win any major damage awards. Liebeck is so well known because (1) it got media attention and (2) it got a huge judgement by the jury.
5) An expert witness for the company testified that the number of burns was insignificant compared to the billions of cups of coffee the company served each year. The response by McDonalds about why they ignored the mutiple orders from over 700 lawsuits was they considered only 700 lawsuits to be minor compared to the amount of coffee they sold each year, as mentioned above, and they did a cost-benefit analysis to determine if the minor amounts they paid in the other lawsuits to be worth changing the guidelines. After the lawsuit, at least one juror later told the Wall Street Journal she thought the company wasn’t taking the injuries seriously and that, to McDonalds, those 700 injury cases caused by hot coffee seemed relatively rare compared to the millions of cups of coffee served.
6) McDonald’s quality assurance manager testified that McDonald’s coffee, at the temperature at which it was poured into Styrofoam cups, was not fit for consumption because it would burn the mouth and throat.
7) McDonald’s admitted at trial that consumers were unaware of the extent of the risk of serious burns from spilled coffee served at McDonald’s then-required temperature.
8) McDonald’s admitted it did not warn customers of the nature and extent of this risk and could offer no explanation as to why it did not. The jury decided that the only way McDonalds would change it would be to have massive punitive damages, instead of just the cost of hospital bills. The judge agreed, although he did lower the amount from 2.7 million to just under half a million dollars.
“Presumably, since you hung your argument on such orders having been given, that some of them must have survived appeal. ”
There was no appeal. McDonalds just paid the medical bills, or would settle lawsuits, and ignored the orders the judges and magistrates gave to lower the temperature over and over again.
“An order that does not survive appeal represents an error by a trial judge.”
There was no appeal because the plaintiffs did not appeal once they got their medical bills paid.
“No idea where you got that malarkey. Name three cases where such an order was given and the order was upheld on appeal. Zero such cases are listed on wikipedia regarding the case.”
I’m guessing that Tempo probably got it from the Shriners Burn Center of Cincinnati or the 700 complaints that McDonalds was given by customers and consumer agencies about the coffee being ‘dangerously hot,’ even though they did not result in lawsuits. In general, tort lawsuits only happen when there are actual damages and someone who is damaged enough to think their lawsuit had a shot at winning. Like Liebeck’s.
The Shriner’s Burn Institute in Cincinnati issued warnings that coffee served above 130 degrees was “dangerously hot.” McDonald’s knew that their coffee was not fit for consumption at the temperature it was served because at 190 degrees, it can cause third-degree burns within 3-7 seconds of contact with the skin. Which, again, it did with Liebeck.
In fact, in the ten years prior to this accident, McDonalds, had 700 complaints of burns from their coffee, including complaints of burns to children and infants from accidental spills. When you sue in a personal injury lawsuit, sometimes the judge will say that plaintiff was partially at fault (it depends on the state, different states have different requirements for placing fault). With Liebeck’s case, the majority of the fault was able to be placed firmly on McDonalds (the judge decided McDonalds was 80% at fault, while Liebeck was 20% at fault).
Also, originally Liebeck tried to settle with McDonalds for $20,000, just to cover her medical costs. McDonalds said no, and basically dared her to sue them. They should have taken the settlement. Because they didn’t, McDonals had to pay $200,000 in damages (reduced to $160,000 because Liebeck was 20% at fault and in that jurisdiction, that was how the tort law worked), and an additional 2.7 million by the jury for punitive damages (which was then reduced by the judge to $480,000).
It’s not really your fault that you might not know some of this – the newspapers largely ignored covering it, and instead tried to spin it as ‘Look at this craaaaazy lawsuit.. A lady spilled some hot coffee on herself and got millions.’
Thanks once again for a great and informed summary of the legal considerations. Hadn’t thought of that case in years!
I was told in one summary- the 2.7 million was either the profit, or the revenue from McDonalds coffee sales for one day.
That was the jury’s reasoning for the amount of punitive damages, but the judge lowered it to $480,000. Plus $200k for pain and suffering (lowered to $160k because of the mitigation of Liebeck being 20% at fault). In New Mexico at the time, damages could be mitigated by showing the plaintiff was partially at fault (in other jurisdictions, it doesn’t matter as long as one side was 51% or more at fault).
I am so saving that link. :)
Who the fuck gives hot coffee to a child, let alone an infant?
“including complaints of burns to children and infants from ACCIDENTAL SPILLS”
kids are chaos incarnate there is no way to avoid all possible accidents
It’s not ‘giving the kids coffee.’ It’s stuff like the coffee accidentally spilling and the child or infant being too close and getting scalded by it, the coffe being so hot the person drops it, and it splashes on the child, the kid trying to grab the coffee because kids are a whirlwind of accident-prone destruction, etc.
That’s a great analysis. Many thanks for the research Pander. When I was covering law myself (first year) the aspects weren’t covered as fully as this (we were using different cases). Very interesting to know.
Are you saying that Shriner’s is Tempo’s source for the claim that there were legal orders to reduce the temperature, that McDonald’s disobeyed? I find no examples of any such orders via google, but my subscription to search legal precedents has long since lapsed.
I can’t imagine a big org like that disobeying an injunction that was upheld on appeal. Far too much liability.
(BTW, I agree that McD’s was reckless, and I had that as the last paragraph in one draft. I just don’t think they are THAT reckless as to flout a bunch of valid court orders.)
“Are you saying that Shriner’s is Tempo’s source for the claim that there were legal orders to reduce the temperature, that McDonald’s disobeyed?”
Yes. There were legal orders to do so, and McDonalds kept ignoring those orders. The reason no judge pursued this is because after the plaintiffs would get their medical bills paid in the damages, they did not bother to appeal to make sure that McDonalds would abide by the judicial order. In order for it to be appealed, someone has to actually appeal the cases.
“I can’t imagine a big org like that disobeying an injunction that was upheld on appeal. Far too much liability.”
That’s the whole point. There wasnt ‘too much liability.’ They were just paying very small amounts as medical bills, no punitive damages. McDonalds didn’t give any reason WHY they kept ignoring the orders, except that no one was following through on the fact that they were ignoring multiple orders to do so.
The Liebeck case stood out because of the massive punitive damages on TOP of the actual damages.
“I just don’t think they are THAT reckless as to flout a bunch of valid court orders.”
And yet they did. It’s not the first time a corporation has done something like that either. They just did not feel that 700 cases out of hundreds of millions of sales was enough of a problem for their cost-benefit analysis, and given that no one was actually following through on the orders, that seems like enough reason for them to think no one was going to in the future.
Ford did something similar with the Pinto with ignoring warnings, although not nearly as bad as what McDonalds had done with ignoring actual orders by judges. The judge in Liebeck, and the jury, described McDonalds’ behavior as not only reckless, but ‘a callous disregard for the safety of people’ to a point where ‘the facts were so overwhelmingly against the company.’
…Get owned. Actually do research.
There is a difference between brewing temperature and serving temperature.
But is the fact we need to put “Hot” on a coffee cup really down to the fact that people are stupid or down to the fact that there are some very effective lawyers?
That there are a lot of very litigious people AND a lot of stupid people. It’s not just one blanket attribution.
Ever see the warning labels on some blow dryers? They specifically say not to use it when you’re in the bath.
I mean, that’s a no-brainer, not using a high voltage electrical device when you’re in water, but still… people.
Or to not stick your hands in a garbage disposal.
Or not to pick up your lawnmower to use it to clip your hedges.
Then again, some of the safety features of power tools these days make them hazardous. Power saws that require two-handed operation, one to push back a blade shield and the other to run the saw, are a great example. It’s just not ergonomic for half the things you need to use it for.
In my last job (traffic control) we often looked after Western Power (generating electrickity for WestOz) who had OH&S rules for the safe use of chainsaws. Said chainsaws also had factory “advice” for this: that kevlar leggings were a mandatory prerequisite before starting the beasts. I saw at least a dozen ocasions where the “mandatory” was… forgotten… and then the Safety Auditors turned up. So at least a dozen cases where the offender was replaced on the job and returned to his/her home base.
I have used those leggings. They are only partially effective when a blade breaks, and while still maimed, I was able to keep my leg.
Better to have partial protection than none. Think about Ned Kelly… He lived to be tried and hung because his armour only protected his body, which saved him being shot to death.
Again the McDonalds case is not a good example of a stupid lawsuit. It was actually a very reasonable lawsuit if you read the actual specifics of the lawsuit and what happened, both on the part of the plaintiff and what McDonalds had done to be rather reckless and negligent.
Here are some much better examples of stupid warning labels because of overly litigious people making stupid lawsuits.
1) GloxoSmithKline’s Nytol was forced to put ‘May cause drowsiness’ on their product.
Nytol are sleeping pills. One would HOPE they cause drowsiness.
2) Multiple hair dryer companies – Do not use while sleeping.
Because of a lawsuit by one Lori Broady, who was an idiot who had a pschological compulsion to take her hair dryer to bed with her and sleep with it running. She did so because she said the humming of the dryer helped her sleep. She needed mental help, not a lawyer.
3) Label on Eggland’s Best eggs – Warning: This product may contain eggs.
Ya think? I have no idea who was the person who sued them to cause them to need to put a warning label saying this but…. they had a warning label saying that.
4) Label on New Holland Tractors – Warning: Avoid Death.
Seriously. That’s the warning on it. Avoid Death. Again I have no idea what lawsuit prompted this. There are plenty of tractor-related deaths, but this is just an idiotic warning.
5) Huebsch Washing Machine – Warning: Do not put any person in this washer.
Because there was a lawsuit about it when a child died because they went into the washer and someone else turned it on. There are actually several examples of this happening btw resulting in the death of the child. But still, it’s idiotic because the people who did this were also idiotic. A little more forgiveable for the victims since usually they’re young children, and children tend to be stupid when it comes to self-preservation, but it’s also happened with a few adults somehow.
” Label on New Holland Tractors – Warning: Avoid Death.”
Mostly because farmers are among the most lethally stupid people I have ever come across. Let me put it this way: you don’t have to be very bright to figure out that drowning in a sea of grain is just as likely as drowning in water. But sooooo many farmers have let the kiddles climb up the silos to look-see… and then fell in. “Let them” by not installing fully locked ladder-gates and not installing fully locked silo hatches. Or how about not bothering to reset (or actually install) anti-flip wheels on back of their tractors to stop them rearing back and flipping when the throttle is shoved forward…
Between a farmer and a drunk driver? The drunkard’s passengers have a lower probability of injury.
“Mostly because farmers are among the most lethally stupid people I have ever come across.”
I actually disagree with that for so many reasons, but my point is the WARNING LABEL is stupid. Avoid Death. What…do people normally NOT avoid death? How does putting a warning label that says ‘avoid death’ help to…. avoid death? Did some business execs think ‘We are getting sued so much by tractor-related deaths. How can we protect ourselves from liability? Find out what is causing the deaths in case it’s actually a problem with the tractors? Nah, just put ‘Avoid Death’ on as a warning label, that should protect us from liability.
No. It won’t. Because it’s a stupid warning label. It hurts my brain with how stupid a warning label it is. :)
“Between a farmer and a drunk driver? The drunkard’s passengers have a lower probability of injury.”
I think a drunk driver is inherently dumber. On account that they decided to drive after having become drunk. Now if the farmer was a drunk driver, on the other hand….
I am placing this here in case people want more details regarding the McDonald’s coffee case:
http://www.jtexconsumerlaw.com/V11N1/Coffee.pdf
If you want to read something more chilling, search for details about the Ford Pinto. The below link provides a snapshot of how consumers were (and still are) viewed.
https://www.tortmuseum.org/ford-pinto/
People are also notorious for not employing common sense, hence the need for “DANGER, DANGER, DANGER WILL ROBINSON!” warning labels (accompanied with visual and textual enhancements at times).
However, we do need to be aware of, in general, retroactively applying current knowledge to what were “acceptable” consumer norms/values in the past.
I don’t know about around where you live, but that’s 60% of the drunk drivers, with 39% being guys who work on the rigs…
I will never forget about the one case with the thresher…
I live in New York City. Not exactly known for its multitude of farmers. But yet I see quite a few really dumb people. :) I just tend to not associate occupation with stupidity, because I’ve met a few janitors who were incredibly smart, and I’ve met a few judges who were godawfully stupid.
Grain is not a liquid though, how can you drown in a not-liquid?
Liquids are a bunch of loose particles capable of flowing and changing the shape of the mass to fill its container. Grain is a bunch of LARGE loose particles capable of flowing and changing the shape of the mass to fill its container.
when the seeds of grain are small enough to be sucked in when the co2 concentration in your lungs forces you to breath in when you are struggling to get above the surface, that’s drowning
Your examples were all anecdotal, so I’ll add my own.
My paternal grandfather was a farmer. He had a 3rd grade education. He did the newspaper crossword every day, and was one of the smartest and wisest men I have ever known.
He was certainly smarter, wiser, and had much more common sense than my father, who has a Masters in Chemistry.
My all-time favorite warning label said “Warning. do not lick the third rail.”
It wasn’t “official” of course, but for a fake it was very well done.
A warning sign that is really an advertisement is the slapping on of Gluten Free signs on things that are not made of wheat or wheat product…..like milk, eggs and cheese.
Obligatory XKCDs on food labels/a> and warning signs.
Those warning labels make sense if you read them more as “The part of this machine that can kill you is inside this bit” or “Caution: This coffee is far hotter than any reasonable human would expect it should be. Seriously. We’re talking skin graft territory. We honestly can’t remember why we decided superheated plasma hotter than the surface of the sun was the appropriate setting for our coffee machines, but we did, so try to be careful.”
There is this stuff called cream that is at roughly 35-40 degrees F. If you like lots of cream, then if they start the coffee at only 150 or 160 degrees, then by the time you add your cream, it’s tepid…. or merely warm and you have only a couple of minutes before it hits tepid.
Of course, McDonald’s coffee also tastes bad, so there’s that too.
Actually, MacCafe in Oz *does* taste good. There is bad coffee here, but not much and they usually don’t stay in business for long. MacCafe is within a poofteenth of BP’s Wild Bean for quality.
Aren’t our secret lizard-man overlords/British royals _supposed_ to be from outer space?
Are you referencing V from the early 1980’s?
the conspiracy “theory” claims the shape shifting lizards are the Annunaki; which are aliens.,
also yes this entire delusions likely descended from V rather than anything else, how they concluded it was the Annunaki was likely due to one nut job looking at images of gods with reptile heads. despite the fact bird features and horns were more common amongst Mesopotamian gods.
its the whole alien genesis (chariots of the gods) stuff getting mixed into the pot with other craziness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Doctrine is a _bit_ older than V. Ikes almost 15 years later, yes, but he is considered to have “popularized” the idea. At what point it cross from whacked-out story of type I to whacked-out stroy of type II is something I’m not going to bother to track down.
Who the fuck are the ‘Annunaki’? o_O
Sumerian gods. The “Annunaki” are the higher order of Sumerian gods, ranking just below the head god named “Anu” (and his wife named “Ki”).
For someone reason some versions of the lizard-people theory say that the lizard-people were also the Sumerian gods.
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As stated Sumerian gods.
the “chariots of the gods” crowd latched onto them because they are one of the oldest groups and everyother god in this group was either about agriculture or construction or some other thing that of course the earliest civilizations would ascribe gods to as being the biggest game changers they’ve ever experienced.
but alien genesis guys took it as everything was taught to humans by aliens.
then the shape shifting reptile people saw a handful of reptile headed gods and glued onto it that the Annunaki were reptile aliens
-despite most of the tablets depicting bird and bull features.
“theory” is a general term for every proposal that provides an explanation for things whether right or wrong, so you don’t need to scare-quote it. XD
a theory can be tested,
a hypothesis is an educated guess.
the correct term for a conspiracy “theory” would be a conjecture.
science classes in college kind of hammered this into my head.
Conspiracy theories can be tested as well. You can look for information and evidence that proves or disproves the theory.
In fact, several supposed “conspiracy theories” about the Crossfire Hurricane investigation turned out to be facts.
Of course, if you’re on the left, you’d retroactively reclassify anything that eventually got proven so that it had no longer ever been dismissed as a conspiracy theory.
Everything can be tested. If someone rejects a theory for being “unfalsifiable”, at best it’s a clumsy way of pointing out that proponents of the theory are using some shady tactics, such as equivocation or moving the goalposts. At worst it’s a way of excluding non-mainstream ideas from even being considered, by categorizing them as something outside of science.
I am referring to scientific theory and what my god damned text book described it as, something that can be tested over and over and still get the same provable result. Like the theory of gravity.
the definition of the basic word is not what I was thinking about when I typed that.
Nah, if i remember correctly, aren’t the British Royals supposed to be Werewolves? that is, at least, according to an episode of Dr. Who i saw…
vampires
Werewolf vampire alien lizard Germans.
Just remember it only takes One. https://xkcd.com/556/
My Husband came back to me with the use of love spell, if you need help Email Robinsonbuckler11 (@) gmail com…………………
I love Blondie Demonfan’s reaction to the discovery that Lizard Men Are Real: “Now my friend will be insufferable!!!”
She’s got priorities!!
To me, the funniest part is that Earth actually has Lizard people and Demons, yet these aliens are looking at the humans like they’re insane and such things couldn’t possibly exist.
an apparently there are troll like aliens and cyclops and whatnot, it kind of feels like with various aliens becoming common knowledge and some people like these two concluding they are supernaturals and accepting it, this could strain and break the veil’s hold on some people.
More likely the Veil would adapt and help people think anything supernatural is just another alien, and therefore nothing interesting.
the humanoid appearance of the ST universe aliens was explained in STNG “The Chase”.
Blegh. I’ve always thought that was lazy writing. I know it’s just to excuse the fact that human actors are cheaper than CGI and practical creature effects, but it still feels lazy. If there’s intelligent life throughout the galaxy, I imagine very little of it is as outwardly humanoid as humans.
I always liked the Tholians and Horta.
They’re going to be crab-like, octopoid or hominid. These are the body plans that recur (because they are evolutionary local maxima, inflexions at the junction of opposing needs) and are suited to tool use.
Don’t forget parrots and squirrels.
The parrot-like xenos would need to have six limbs (minimum) to have both wings and usable arms with hands, while still having feet/claws/talons to stand on when they aren’t flying.
Just like the Hawk Men from Flash Gordon (two arms, two legs and two wings)
Parrots can stand on one leg and manipulate with the other. While the human combination of hands and feet is more obviously fit to purpose to us, it doesn’t create an absolute limit.
Did David miss a memo? The woke 11yearolds who now comprise the DnD playing community has decided it is racist to say that orcs are less intelligent than humans. Protesting this move is exactly what got me banned from Enworld.
“woke” is a complete misnomer, a better term would be “too much coffee from Starbucks or w/e their fave place to get it is called has fried their synapses into a permanent state of flying off the handle at everything that bothers them”
It’s a term that is used to describe identity politics in today’s culture, and especially critical race theory.
It arose from the term “awake” to something, like awake to racial politics or issues. In its original context i have no problem with it, but it became hip and on fleek to say woke instead of awoke or awoken or awake, and now is just an easy label to apply to the single most racist, divisive, and radical part of the western world at the moment.
But yes, fried on starbucks and a liberal arts/gender studies degree is definitely an apt description of the perpetually offended at everything nanny state.
Are you still trying to convince people that BLM are the “real racists?”
Or is it, “using public resources to benefit the public is undemocratic,” this week?
Oh, wait…I see the “nanny state” bit. It must be “muh freedom” week again.
BLM are literally controlled by neo marxisists that want to demolish western society while promoting segregation.
And no, it’s not a hyperbole, it’s literally what they say themselves.
You don’t have to believe me, just believe what they themselves say.
Sure, there are probably reasonable people that have been duped claiming they support them, but they are just useful idiots.
“You don’t have to believe me, just believe what they themselves say.”
By which, I suppose, you mean we need to watch poorly edited youtube videos of a few individuals that we’re expected to extrapolate across several million individuals?
By that logic, all Republicans are of the delusional mindset of Marjorie Greene, Jake Angeli / Jacob Chansley / QAnon Shaman, Richard Barnett…
BLM is not “several million individuals”, it is an organization, a network with local affiliates, that is raking in lots of money from corporations and individuals. As far as the goals of the organization(s), they are explicit…. or, at least they were a year ago. You may need to go to the wayback machine to find the earlier version of the websites. Do your homework.
It might also be useful to ask where all the money went. It’s a grift.
People still use the term “On Fleek?
Everyone says that young people lack drive, but when else in history have so many 11 year olds had liberal arts degrees?
Yes, it is somehow racist to say that orcs as a species are less intelligent, because someone decided that orcs couldn’t possibly be a made up race but instead were racist depictions of black people.
And you know what, I’d be willing to agree with you, if there weren’t humans of every shape, size, color, ethnicity, background, religion, and nationality already present in DnD.
You can’t say orcs in DnD are black people, because black people in DnD are black people. If you look at an orc and think “that’s a black person!” Then you’re the racist one, not the fictional world with dice that allows you to pretend to be anything you can imagine.
Not to worry though, no serious TTRPG player took that news article or attempt at cancellation seriously, so if you got booted for pointing out that calling orcs black people is silly, they’re the silly ones and not you.
Holy shit, dude…complete failure to pay attention.
It’s not about stats. It was entirely about the idea of whole races being characterized as a given alignment, and why maybe that sort of thinking is both shitty, and way too reminiscent of both colonial justifications, and the literal arguments for the Holocaust.
Remove your self-indulgent head from your privileged point of contact.
On one hand, I agree that characterizing a whole species as beholden to a given ideology is simplicistic, unlikely, and unsatisfactory, short of special circumstances. On the other hand, I find the notion of fictional sci-fi or fantasy species being on average more or less intelligent, strong, dextrous, etc. than humans entirely plausible and harmless.
If the wokes somehow perceive an analogy with historical events and pick it as yet another excuse to feed their perpetual offense machine, that is their problem, not mine. Except I am beyond sick, tired, and disgusted of woke ideology and cancel culture messing with my cherished fiction and entertainment and various other aspects of my lifestyle I hold more dear that anything they care about. I simply do not care about their complaints, and their attempts to force the likes of me to care by bullying, harassment, censorship, canceling, mob rule, ostracism, deplatforming, and threatened loss of job, social status, and livelihood only turns me all the more hostile and defensive.
I am well read at history, and everything points to the basic fact that thoroughout it, any human group that was strong, competent, lucky, and successful enough to win the perpetual struggle for power, territory, and resources for a while dominated, exploited, robbed, kicked out, and/or killed any other group that was not able to resist. The pattern is universal and goes all the way back to Stone Age times when Tribe A extermined Tribe B to seize their hunting grounds. If you look far and wide enough, no human group is really special in terms of being a victim or an oppressor. Wokes’ efforts to single out certain events to burden a few groups with perpetual and all-encompassing guilt and bestow sacred cow status to other groups are arbitrary, unjustifiable, and unacceptable.
Therefore, I know everything but do not give a damn about anyone’s ancestors forcing anyone else’s ancestors to pick cotton at gunpoint generations or centuries ago, and certainly I do not accept it as an excuse to mess with my rights or lifestyle in present times. My freedom is more important than your feelings, and you can seize my ‘privilege’ from my cold, dead hands.
Having said that, I sympathize with a lot of the non-woke liberal agenda for my own reasons, and I am quite open-minded to implement sensible and effective color-blind and gender-blind practical solutions to present problems such as excessive and wasteful economic disparity, environmental problems, dysfunctional crime justice systems, poverty, and ensuring everyone gets full reproductive rights, to name but a few issues on the plate. But as far as I am concerned, playing the ‘isms’ cards automatically disqualifies the argument and the one making it in my court barring extreme circumstances.
“Darn Wokes, pointing out the connections between Bad Stuff and Stuff I Like. Who do they think they are, with their evolving & maturing interrogation of culture & it’s products?!”
Who I think the wokes are? On one hand I find woke culture to be the second coming of Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism-Maoism, in intentions if not (yet) deeds. This time, they have picked the (part present, mostly past, often dead and buried) grievances of a few arbitrarily chosen, historically disadvantaged minorities instead of the social problems of the lower classes in the messy early stage of industrialization as their excuse to pursue their usual totalitarian goals. The authoritarian far left never changed its aims and methods of intolerance and oppression; it just donned a new guise. They are just like the Communists during the Cold War, and deserve to be dealt with the same way.
On the other hand, I also think they are an unfortunate generation so twisted and spoiled by overprotective helicopter parenting as to be insufferable crybullies unprepared and unable to sustain the inevitable, harmless, and countless little stings and challenges of life. Hence, they lash out to the rest of society in a perpetual state of rage because the world is not and cannot be the 100% comfortable bubble they were accustomed to expect.
They can engage in arbitrary, ideologically biased, and shortsighted exploration of pop-culture to reinforce their prejudices and perpetual outrage machine as much as they like, as long as they keep their conclusions to themselves. When they try to impose their standards on the rest of society and the likes of me by force as they do all too often, they become my sworn enemy, just like fascists, communists, and religious fundamentalists. I could not care less about their ideology, which I find repulsive and an existential threat just like all the other manifestations of authoritarianism and totalitarianism.
As a rule, I care relatively little about equality, which I find a rather flawed and troublesome value except in moderate amounts strictly aimed at ensuring meritocracy, adequate development of human potential, avoidance of waste, and a decent minimum living standard for everyone. I give much more value to freedom, individuality, and pursuit of happiness, and I do not suffer illiberal ideologies and movements to compromise them. Moreover, I am a cynical misanthrope (albeit one tempered by an optimistic and cheerful aptitude) that cares relatively little for faceless strangers. I see no good reasons whatsoever to make special exceptions for members of groups that are the usual sacred cows of wokes.
My extensive knowledge of history persuaded me that successful human groups abusing the losers in the eternal struggle for power and resources is a universal pattern that drove all groups to play the alternating roles of victims and oppressors throughout history. There are no innocents and no special cases in the tale if you look at the grand pattern. Therefore, the wokes’ efforts to single out certain groups as eternal victims deserving of hand-outs and sacred status and others as eternal monsters doomed to all-encompassing guilt and perpetual atonement are short-sighted, arbitrary, and unjustifiable. You can make no worthwhile conclusion about history, politics, or pop culture on these premises.
Wow. X’D
You really chose to post this.
Well, I’m curious, now. Tell me, how you managed to connect all those scary “-isms” to, let me check my notes…
Not passively upholding the same sort of shitty stereotyping that actually occurs in the real world, with massively negative consequences.
Look, bub, what you posted here reads like my dad’s annual holiday rant. Sorry you’re being to asked to treat other people with respect. Sorry you’re not “comfortable” with restorative justice. Sorry you’re being required to spend one unit of plank time thinking about how what you say might impact the people around you, before casually spitting slurs or denigrating language. Sorry you’re being asked to recognize another persons identity, instead assigning whatever you feel it ought to be, based on your own limited perspective & experience.
I am, we are, all of us, so very, very, deeply sorry. Really. I mean it.
Now go finish drinking yourself into a coma, quietly, in the corner.
Thanks.
I dunno what stereotype you are assuming I embody, and I am sorry if your dad happens to have a nasty drinking habit, but I am actually close to a teetotaler, since I dislike the taste of most alcoholic drinks, and I never found much appeal in doing drugs for that matter. I find the reference puzzling, honestly.
I actually treat people with respect, assuming they did nothing serious enough to make me decide they do not deserve it, according to my criteria. As in everything else, I strive to live and behave according to my own rules as much as possible, not theirs, yours, wokes’, or anyone else’s. It goes with being an radical individualist. It usually works fine, at least in my social circle.
Consequently, I do not normally use slurs or denigrating language (according to my non-PC definition) since I deem them petty and unwarranted. If someone offends or harms me enough to make me go verbally ballistic, however, I’ll use whatever offensive language I happen to find most effective at the moment to lash at my current enemy.
Ofc I am going to assign identities as I deem proper according to factual reality, scientific knowledge, and practical assessment. I happen to find such criteria a much more useful and reliable guide in pretty much every field than fleeting and unreliable subjective feelings. If the two set of criteria happen to align to a sufficient degree, as they often do in the field you’re likely hinting, no problem. Unfortunate mismatch between biology and cognition about certain basic identity aspects is a well-known fact. If they really don’t, too bad. Down the rabbit hole of making feelings and ideology paramount over facts and science, only madness and destruction await, and this does not change whether the claim concerns religious crazy, woke crazy, conspiracy crazy, denialist crazy, or any other brand.
I actually think restorative justice, combined with rehabilitation, is a fine notion, and much superior to retributive justice, in its proper criminal justice field to deal with stuff that happened in present times. It should have nothing to do with the crazy notion of giving ‘reparations’ handouts to arbitrarily chosen minorities for stuff that happened generations or centuries ago.
If excessive economic disparity, education, and poverty problems exist (and they do) that prevent people from achieving a decent living standard and/or fulfilling their potential, the proper solutions are sensible and effective identity-blind welfare-state, education, and redestributive policies that equally benefit all people in the same situation. Those get my full support, just like most of the non-woke liberal agenda. If such solutions happen to benefit certain minorities more because they are more burdened by disadvantage for whatever reason, this is only fair and convenient.
But the past is dead and buried, and should stay so, b/c there are no innocents in history, and the blame game between groups only leads to a never-ending cycle of ever more strife. The sins of the parents do not belong to the children, and history only matters for all of humanity as inspiration and teaching to do better.
Well, when the Orcs start marching on Washington rallying for the poor depictions of them in fictional works, I’ll certainly pay atten… Oh, right. Fictional race.
Maybe you should wake up and focus your attention on the problems of the real world?
Weirdly enough, the products of a culture tend to reflect its attitudes & standards, which are then communicated to the consumers of said products.
Including kids.
Who then internalize these attitudes & standards, and propagate them.
Call me kooky, but I think that might just be a “real world problem.”
It shall never stop amusing me how much proof of the horseshoe theory you can find if you pay attention. It seemingly includes wokes using the same ‘kids shall get corrupted’ moral-panic arguments to justify censorship of RPG that fundies used a generation ago. They just replaced the Satanic boogeyman with the ‘-ism’ one, but the witch-hunt M.O. is basically the same. The radicals apparently can’t grasp the notion that kids are perfectly able to tell the vast differences between a troll and a dark-skinned human.
Ah yes, the horseshoe centrist, with their amazing power to say that encouraging bigotry and discouraging bigotry are, somehow, exactly the same.
Fun fact: horseshoe theory only serves to preserve the status quo, which advantages the oppressor/aggressor in any asymmetrical power dynamic, be it between individuals, or groups. I wonder why this appeals to you so much?
Actually a horseshoe anti-PC libertarian in social issues, left-of-center in economic issues, pro-science secular in cultural issues, pro-Western hawkish cosmopolitan in foreign policy issues, and likely a half-dozen other aspects I am not mindful of atm. I am a complex political animal.
Anyway, fact is I am thoroughly persuaded real bigotry has been in steady and substantial decline for generations thanks to vast historical forces that predate and act independently of the sad caricature woke ideology made of liberalism and progressivism. By the 21st century it is very much a spent and residual force, and ranks very low in the list of issues humanity needs to address in order to survive, prosper, and progress. It does not even begin to be in the same league, nay the same city, of environmental damage, sustainable energy and resources, global governance, runaway economic disparity, space colonization, etc.
The pervasive, all-powerful bogeyman wokes rage about all the time is very much a fake concern they manufactured in order for the authoritarian far left to keep relevance after the spectacular failure of communism and for whiny, thin-skinned millennials to give an ideological focus to their perpetual frustration the world is not the 100% comfortable bubble overprotective parenting promised them. I cannot be persuaded this bogeyman is real and relevant the same way I cannot accept the notion the fantasies of religious fundamentalists and conspiracy theorists are correct.
As it concerns the woke obsession with perceiving hostile and oppressive identity-based power dynamics in any less than perfectly symmetrical social interaction, and micromanaging society accordingly, I deem it quite suffocating, paranoid, inhuman, and dangerous. If you ask my opinion, equality is a flawed virtue that is only good in reasonable, moderate amounts to ensure certain basic goals such as civil rights, a decent universal minimum living standard, meritocracy, and fulfillment of human potential. Its maximum pursuit at all costs can only end in tyranny and tragedy as history eloquently showed.
+1 for your next comment.
Honestly when I thought about portrayal of race in fantasy (incl. D&D) it was something of a shock. Because while we use the word ‘race’ to code something like ethnicity or skin color, the word was being used in those works to code species.
And species is a very different concept. Being an orc isn’t just a matter of what color your skin is and where you were born. It’s very literally being on a different branch of the evolutionary tree, especially if your bunch ran the ‘species’ rules hardcore and disallowed crossbreeds. If Neandertals and the Denisovians were still around, then they’d be more closely related to us than orcs. Or for that matter elves or dwarves.
And they WON’T be like us. Their intelligence would be a different ‘shape’, the details they observe a different set of details, the concepts they use to think with a different set of concepts. Ever watch dogs and cats? From our perspective it’s hard to tell which is smarter, but we can see that the way they think is very very different.
From their perspective though, whether dog or cat, it’s easy to see that the other species isn’t as smart, because no member of the other species is as good at the things they use their own intelligence for.
And then there’s the actual question, no matter what they’re observing or what set of concepts they use to think with, of how much intelligence they actually have. It’s not racist to say that Great Danes are bigger than Spaniels, or that Greyhounds are faster than English Sheepdogs, or that Beagles live longer than Mastiffs. And that’s properly within the same range of things we’re using the word ‘race’ to code; variations within a single species. It’s not racist to say that monkeys are smarter than rats. The degree of intelligence is just one more axis along which different species are profoundly different.
So the problem isn’t with the theory that Orcs are less intelligent. They may very well have half as many neurons in their heads as humans and be literally unable to understand anything significantly more complicated than a fish trap. This doesn’t hold water if they have some technologies that go well beyond simple handicraft; if orc villages build a forge to make tools (or weapons) and a windmill to grind grain, then they’re clearly in the same ballpark intelligence wise. But, with an alien *kind* of intelligence from humans, it’d be easy for both species to identify the other as stupid anyway.
Here’s a tough nut of a question though; in the future when we are many different species because of geneteching and long population separations, and there truly *ARE* people who live twice as long, or who are twice as strong, or profoundly different sizes, or, yes, who are walking around with implanted computers or whose brains are just plain bigger/better than other people’s brains: How can you build a society that’s fair to all of them? Or can it be done at all?
Whether modern society as we know it can exist when individuals exist that have magic/psi/super powers and/or enhanced physical and mental abilities that make them factually and greatly superior to normal people in practical terms is a very meaningful issue. I have given it quite some thought and I have concluded that past a certain power level, size, and/or ability to cooperate of the superhuman population it becomes impossible.
Equality and democracy critically rely on an unspoken but very real and necessary premise that all humans are basically equal in their important abilities. If sufficiently powerful superhumans do appear and keep living with normals, the natural and inevitable outcome is they become the new ruling class and society reverts to aristocracy. At the very least to keep society somewhat recognizable and functioning requires to grant high-powered superhumans the rights and immunities of sovereign nations, and everyone else needs to treat them the same way you do with nuclear great powers.
The only feasible alternative paths are for the normals and the enhanced people to set up and live in separate societies (easy to do if humanity has achieved space colonization) or to use genegineering to give the superior abilities to everyone (easy to do if the enhancements were artificial in the first place or superpowers have a genetic basis).
Also take into account that the kind of enhanced abilities and magic/psi/super powers typically seen in sci-fi, fantasy, and comic-book fiction give one heck of a selection advantage in evolutionary terms to the individuals that have it. Therefore, if they have a meaningful genetic basis at all, and even more so if supers and normals remain interfertile, excellent chances are the enhanced people shall naturally outbreed and outcompete normal humans to extinction within a few millennia at most. It took much less of a selection advantage for modern humans to drive Neanderthals and Denisovans to extinction.
That’s a good question.
Off the cuff, I would say that step one is hard coding affirmative consent and individual autonomy into said post/trans-human society. Next would be developing a structure for collective decision making…that would probably have to be consensus-based, rather majoritarian, and also likely need to positively acknowledge & affirm that this will usually lead to slow, nuanced, complex negotiations, rather than quick, “efficient,” simple assertions of authority.
Just the tip of the iceberg, butyouu’ll notice that none of that needs to delve into the various capacities of individuals, or “species” clusters.
I find myself looking at the way dogs get along. Chihuauhas and Spaniels and Great Danes live on the same block, and treat each other – well, the way dogs treat each other. The Great Dane may wander in a bigger territory and claim doggly ‘ownership’ of a bigger territory, but respects the Chihuahua’s territorial claim and the two can be great friends when they go wandering together.
Collies are dimwits compared to most breeds (sorry Lassie fans), and their mental handicaps don’t seem to cut into their status in doggly society. Collies and other doggly dimwits have a tendency to become ‘clockwise dogs’ as they run in circles around the post they’re tied to and wind up the chain until they can’t go more than a foot from the post. And I’ve watched a Chihuahua patiently leading one counterclockwise until the chain was unwound, over and over until the Collie ‘got it’ and realized what it had been doing wrong.
Different breeds of dogs have profound physical differences. And they still seem to treat each other with the same degree of respect and dignity, even at the same time they exploit those differences in competition with each other. And they’re not always pleasant with each other, particularly when establishing their exclusive-territory claims, but even the Chihuahua whose butt would be kicked in short order in a fight with the Great Dane can make a small claim and get it respected because even though he may not be very tough, he can still be enough of a challenge that his little territory’s not worth the risk and trouble and time spent healing that the Great Dane would incur in the course of kicking his ass. And, with that understanding out of the way, the two can still be great friends and go wandering together or play together or whatever, with every sign of mutual respect and dignity.
And maybe that’s something to do with the ‘shape’ of doggly intelligence that doesn’t or wouldn’t translate to our descendants. But it’s surely an interesting and hopeful example to study.
I feel like making a joke about a societal greeting involving sniffing one another’s butts, but I havent really been following this thread.
Yes, because that’s totally a new thing… meanwhile, here’s a few posts by the author of another webcomic who has been adamant about this topic since before Pathfinder was a thing:
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?232652-Redcloak-s-failed-characterization-and-what-it-means-for-the-comic-as-a-whole&p=12718471#post12718471
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?232652-Redcloak-s-failed-characterization-and-what-it-means-for-the-comic-as-a-whole&p=12718550#post12718550
Yeah, Rich Burlew suffers from a surfeit of guilt, which made him say and do stupid things regarding subjects like this. D&D is a game, not a place to get bogged down in philosophical discussions of what is right and wrong from the perspective of the bad guys. The simple fact that they are the Bad Guys™ should tell anyone who cares to give it even a minute’s thought that this is the case. D&D further reinforces this with the alignment system, and with rules such as defining some races as being “always evil” and rules almost forcing some character classes (I’m looking at you, Paladin) to take certain actions if the DM feels a certain way about whatever issue might be up for consideration. And this is the rules set Burlew has based his comic universe around. He has resisted making changes to 4th or 5th editions. So he choose his rules, but wants to hedge them at the same time. And that’s not a winning
He takes it further than alignment and the evilness of characters such as Redcloak when he dips his toes into modern social issues. He felt such guilt about not having LGBTQ characters in his comic that he shoehorned a few in in such a ham handed manner that it was clear to anyone with a brain that he did it out of guilt/remorse and not because he thought it was a good thing for his comic or the story/plot. For me at least, adding a gay couple and hinting that a few others might be gay, especially in the manner in which he proceeded (wailing about his failings on the forums and explaining that these failures were why he was making the changes he was making… You do your praying in a closet, not loudly in front of the synagogue where everyone can see how devout and holy you are, hypocrite.) is neither enough while also being a very unwelcome too much. Can he not win here? Yes, he cannot. Not the way he went about things, at least. He wrote a story for years without LGBTQ characters, and then decided to try to make those years of failure go away and be forgotten forever by throwing in a few token characters and doing some wailing and gnashing of teeth on his forums. It doesn’t work that way.
He’s like the reformed drunk who goes to the bar and sweeps everyone else’s drinks on to the floor because of his own prior addiction issues. He never considers that other people might not have those same addiction issues, because he’s too caught up in the mess in his own head, and too busy deciding what is good for everyone else. Now that he has undergone his own change he just can’t conceive that others might not also need to change. The analogy isn’t a perfect one, but I hope I’ve made my point.
“How dare things change.”
Ya’ll working reeeaaally damn hard to dance around saying that.
I love those statements. Ty. <3
Huh? I haven’t taken a look at a MM in a long time, but Orcs are definitely less intelligent than Humans in D&D, AD&D, and 3.0/3.5 D&D. 4th and 5th editions may have changed that, as I think 5th edition completely eliminated stat penalties for any races, meaning that Half Orc at least are just as intelligent as Humans.
@Oberon: The complaint isn’t with the actual numerical scores. The complaint is that orcs are normally depicted as savage brutish “others”, echoing stereotypes of non-whites as savage, sub-human brutes. A lot of the fantasy tropes we draw on originated in a time when western thought had a decidedly different view of non-whites than our current viewpoints. Mix that with D&D’s insistence on continuing to use “race” as a stand-in for “species” and you can see why folks might take offense at how orcs and half-orcs normally get used. YMMV as to the viability of the argument, but it’s more involved than what William Pell is describing.
I dunno about “easily resolve,” but it certainly wouldn’t hurt.
Okay, maybe easily resolve is a step too far, but it would certainly calm certain things down a bit. At the very least it would give slightly less ammunition to people claiming that D&D, in its current incarnation, is just a racist power fantasy for white people to practice subjugating minorities. (Yes, this is a real argument I’ve seen people make.)
If history of mythology, folklore, and pop-culture is any guide, the storytelling need for certain basic hostile ‘other’ archetypes in fiction, including the savage brute, is universal, has always stayed with us since we invented culture, and is going to stay with us for the foreseeable culture as long as we stay recognizably human. Stereotypes of certain human groups as savage, sub-human brutes belong to a past age, have been recognizably fading with time and cultural changes during the last few generations. Consequently the echoes between such stereotypes and fictional archetypes are going to become ever more faint and distant. We can certainly help the former process go further and faster, but trying to suppress the fictional archetypes is a wild goose chase, b/c they fulfill a basic & universal storytelling need. ‘Orcs’, in whatever guise, are going to stay with us, just like vampires and alien infiltrators.
Use of ‘race’ to mean a fictional ‘species’ is frequent in pop culture but misleading and uncorrect for various reasons, not the least including the fact ‘race’ does not actually mean anything factually correct or useful, whileas species is very a very sound & valuable scientific notion that easily translates into a sci-fi or fantasy context. Striving to replace one with the other is certainly a worthwhile endeavor, if not exactly one with a high priority.
Yeah, I get it. I just don’t agree with it. Not everything, and especially not a game, needs to become an investigation of deep philosophical and sociological issues. Sometimes you just want to kick down the door, kill the bad guys, and take their stuff.
“Why do it drop loot and XP if we’re not supposed to destroy it?”
D&D could EASILY solve this issue by replacing “race” with “species”. The fact that they haven’t just boggles my mind.
I wouldn’t put too much stock into IQ.
The first test was to determine if Kindergartners in France could move to first grade
then America got a hold of it…
I figure the intelligence of all the alien species humans will encounter will be above average until we develop interstellar flight and visit their worlds. A stupid species won’t develop space travel, and stupid people don’t become astronauts. Successful interstellar space mercenaries, Like Cora and her crew, are going to be generally intelligent, or at least specialists in one particular field, and if you take a jack of all trades from the late 20th or early 21st century, and drop them down in the 18th century, they will look like a super genius for just what they can put together from remembering science class in public school. A member of a space faring race won’t necessarily have greater potential intelligence than humans, but they will certainly have access to more advanced tools and knowledge than humans do, which will make them look like geniuses or wizards or both
“We search for things. Things to make us go.”
“We are Pakled.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H64l5BsFokM
They did a really good job of messing up Federation ships in Lower Decks. :)
You think so? There are many reasons that could cause contact with stupid members of species with more advanced tech.
Maybe they have a caste system and only the science caste learns how stuff works while the traveler knows notthing more than how to pilot a mostly automated spacecraft.
Or they bombed theirselfs back to stoneage in a civilwar and only use the lostech they figured out to pilot for traveling while having no idea why it works the way it works and are screwed when their tech recieves major damage.
Of they plundered the tech of a peace loving species that visited their home
, or…..
Of course, when we meet actual aliens, they …
…have solved all of their problems on their home planet. They solved Climate Change, Overpopulation and the Energy Problem. And their civilization has survived. And then they had to find a way to build something that is capable of intergalactic travel.
I don’t think they’ll want to meet us.
or they are a cold logic species and there is nothing “wild” on their planet anymore, with all life forms either being pets, food, or medicine, and grown artificially in controlled facilities with all available additional surface space on their planet used for food facilities, housing, or energy production.
It is an error to assume having one kind of tech developed translated to specific social conditions being met. Maybe they just like to explore and if they meet humans they’ll think humans are silly backwards people who won’t survive unless they become just like them and regard all wilderness as “waste areas”…like humans have…in some disturbing and surprising ways *seriously, watch Son of Godzilla, at least in the dub it refers to Amazon Rainforests as a waste area and regards weather control technology to cultivate it a good thing*,
not hard to imagine a species whose one and only goal is the survival and expansion of their species above all other species and maybe has an ideology that all other life was created to serve them and test their resolve to control it and make it useful.
But again, you could have a species with interstellar travel because they put alot of focus on travel tech, but their other tech ends up lagging behind.
I say this while living in a civilization whose entertainment tech is the most advanced thing it has along with communication tech, yet uses energy storage and vehicle mobility tech that has changed in only small increments over the last century and some of the tech aside from the materials its made out of is virtually identical *granted light bulbs in the last two decades did change alot, I still have some filament bulbs*, but space heaters and fans aren’t much changed, and aside from material and small gains in efficiency neither are automobiles.
battery tech is really lagging behind.
it really comes down to priorities, cultural, economic, or ideological. they can push or hinder you.
It also comes down to physics and chemistry and what is possible. More science and engineering goes into the development of battery technology than you seem to realise, and even tiny incremental improvements are profitable. Every battery maker would LOVE to own a significant improvement, it would let them take over the battery world and make huge profits, and they all invest heavily in this hope.
That’s because thermodynamics is pretty well established, and form follows function. There have been some interesting developments in battery science… for instance, something discovered about gold microfilaments in a specific electrolytic configuration producing chargeable batteries that effectively would not wear out… but for the most part, what we can do is what we can do.
The short of that was this:
having advanced far in one kind of tech, does not mean they have advanced in all kinds of tech as their society may have hit a plateau they can’t figure out how to get ascend from or else some other factor such as priorities may focus on another avenue of technology coming back to the ones they couldn’t advance before when it becomes necessary or they stumble upon the answer in a later generation or while working on a different yet related technology.
there is another factor working against the utopian super advanced species not wanting to bother with humans. That is curiosity. Some degree of curiosity not just neccessity needs/should be present to propel a species to explore, especially into dangerous environments like outerspace. Curiosity can make one do things that seem needless or counter intuitive like abduct snakes and probe them to see what they ate and how healthy they are, this curiosity leads to a better understanding of local ecology. They could want to know about Earth’s ecology so abduct and probe humans to see how healthy you are, what you eat, tag and release specific specimens to observe migration patterns and diet, reproductive habits, ect…
hell scientists put stilts on ants to test if they count their steps, never underestimate what curiosity may bring.
Permanent Herpes cure Email Robinsonbuckler11 (@) gmail com…………………..
You should be replying to the post from “Nichole B” above!
Perhaps James Veitch can help them connect.
Well Justina Anderson and Nichole B do use the same gmail address, so there might be a simpler method.
I think someone might be trying to get revenge on an ex-boyfriend. Or just an enemy in general.
Lapha oh! just wait till ya meet the Kardasshians
Klingons are, at least, from the planet Qo’nos. Vulcans are from Vulcan, and Andorians are from Andoria — is that just lazy writing?
(As I recall, there was an issue of the old Superman comics where he revealed that “Kryptonian” was just anything from the planet Krypton, and his actual species had a different name — which was phonetically almost identical to “human”)
Well Englishmen are from England, The French are from France, the Germans are from Germany, Peruvians are from Peru, Australians are from Australia…if it IS laziness, it’s fairly prevalent IRL.
Where are Britons from? And why is the Spanish word for Germans “Aleman”?
Britons are from Britain, and Spanish German is because they were associated with the French duchy of Alemannia…
In Roman times, Germany was a place of many warring tribes, and one major tribe was the Alemani.
Modern Germans actually live in Deutchland, though.
And residents of Hamburg are Hamburgers.
and ‘Canada’ supposedly means ‘The Village’, so that makes Canadians The Village People
In a better timeline, you said, “So that makes Trudeau Number Two.”
I don’t even comprehend that one
Old tv show reference.
“The Village” was the location for a show called The Prisoner. Good stuff.
https://youtu.be/RqAm62U17Pg
..und Volk aus Deutschland sind “Deutsche”.
(..and people from Germany are “Germans”.)
It gets confusing when people have a different name for themselves and/or their homeland than most of the rest of the world. If you your Europe, you might visit Suomi or Magyarország, or spend some time among the euskaldunak.
Earthlings are from Earth.
But we’re also called Terrans. But then again… Earth’s latin name is ‘Terra.’
Maybe Qo’Nos is called Kling in …. Klingon space-latin.
Somewhere out there are a bunch of aliens looking for planet “Hu” (pronounced “hew”) because of all these weird and interesting humans they’ve heard about. XD
Maybe that’s why we haven’t had real space visitors: they keep going to the wrong planet!
Their space GPS probably keeps sending them to the wrong planet. Maybe if they had Space-OnStar, they’d be able to get here.
nah, you’ve had plenty of visitors, just when you go the nature park you don’t normally get out and make diplomatic relations with the wild life.
One doesn’t usually stop to boink the squirrels either.
now just because you regarded the tube being shoved into various orifices as sexual doesn’t mean they did. It was a simple procedure to take samples and perform experiments. Yes that includes taking ovaries from one specimen and implanting them in a tracked and monitored individual to see if the specimen would know the offspring isn’t hers or raise it anyway…is disturbingly something naturalists have tested for in animals. As well as fertilizing monitored specimens so they can observe the entire process with a tracked specimen they take regular health readings on.
Its all very medical, and from a human perspective comes across very *messed up*, but not to something that regards you as just a clever animal.
Maybe the upright Bilaterally symmetrical humanoid is the best result nature could come up with for O2 atmosphere breathers to survive to become intelligent.
I am a member of the Odd Fellows (AKA: the Masons for commoners. Historically speaking anyway.)
One of our chapters rents out their Lodge hall after the local Free Masons lost theirs. Part of the deal was that they also join our organization (mainly to pay dues).
My comment was that they should let us help them control the government since we are so close now. They laughed, I laughed, the lizard guy in the corner laughed. His name is ‘Steve’, nice guy.
Bit of a walk for that gag, but pleasant, all around.
As a member of the Odd Fellows, I can state with absolute certainty that we are not The Masons.
Nor have we ever been part of Freemasonry. People are always free to be members of either or both, but thy are not the same organization.
Sorry, pet peeve of mine. Had to “convince” a lot of local folks around me of this a few years ago.
I understand. I should have been more clear.
The deal that we struck with the Mason’s was that they would remain a separate organization, but the members also had to join Odd Fellows and pay dues. It is kind of strange situation though, and some at the Grand Lodge level were less than pleased by this because, in theory, they could have just completely taken over our unit and pretty much (legally) stolen everything and gave it to the Free Mason chapter.
Fortunately, they are very honest and held to the spirit of the deal.
Also, it is a rare pleasure to meet a brother or sister on the Internet. Thank you.
I love this page, for a whole bunch of reasons. A subtler one being that those conspiracy theorists are actually in the right, given that the Veil has actually been concealing lizard people and demons on Earth, for millennia!
Given how real-world conspiratorialism works, though, lizard and demon people controlling the illuminati probably wouldn’t be one of the Grrlpower universe’s conspiracy theories. We often view conspiracy theories as some sort of whackjob story that someone came up with and then other people latched on. Yet there are a lot of real conspiracies in our world and yet those never seem to gain any long-term traction even when they’re easily legitimate and compelling.
For example, Thermite/Thermate in the World Trade Center. Now hold on a moment. Don’t go debunking before you’ve even heard me out. I know about the meme “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams” (it can weaken steel) but think about that meme for a moment. Why is that so popular even though Thhermite is a much more effective incendiary?
Well, NIST, along with Discovery Channel and National Geographic, all put out statements of varying veracity regarding the effectiveness of Thermite. Their message? It can’t melt steel beams. What? How is a powerful incendiary unable to penetrate steel? Jet fuel – kerosene – is also just an incendiary.
It’s quite simple; they pulled a trick. In the demolition industry literally nobody just takes a pack of explosive, straps it to a girder, and calls it a day. They use what’s called “shaped charges” which are dozens or even hundreds of times more effective than raw explosive. Safer, too.
What do you think NIST, DSC, and NatGeo did? They all poured a pile of Thermite onto steel, lit it, and watched it burn – causing absolutely no damage. The kind of thing you’d do in 5th grade science. Not demolition.
I saw these demonstrations on Discovery and NatGeo and was appalled. I know very little about demolition but I do know enough to realize that their demonstration is pure idiocy. Which is when I found this video, where they conduct actual science on Thermate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d5iIoCiI8g
Forget about the Twin Towers for a moment. Forget about the molten steel, forget the office furniture, forget everything that happened on September 11. Can Thermite melt steel? Yes. So, why did the authorities inform everyone it can’t?
Even if we said there was absolutely no Thermite used to collapse the Twin Towers (remembering that Thermitic Lances were used during rescue operations)… It doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter whether this theory is right or wrong. It’s too believable therefore it’s not allowed.
I omitted a word, sorry.
So when do the tourists ask for selfies with the demon and the lizard person? They should have already. I mean, what is wrong with the younger generation?
jet fuel probably cant melt steel but i can probably weaken it, deform it, destroy its tempered state so it would collapse with the weight of the upper floors. catastrophic failure. who’s fault they failed?, who knows. could it have been prevented architecturally? again who knows.
Despite them starting the fight (well Lapha did anyway) and trying to kidnap Maxima as a bounty, I find these two SO VERY ENDEARING and I really, really, really hope they do get away for a future very awkward encounter in space. :)
“65 to 250, omitting extreme outliers”
Excuse me, but anyone *past 200* is an extreme outlier. Anyone below 65 generally *isn’t*. The average is 100, and you basically use standard deviations to measure “rarity”. 65 is exactly as common as 135 (and 135 is about, what, 1% of people, about 2 stddevs off, so not exactly rare). 250 is *four times that* and given how Gauss distributions and statistics work it’s unlikely there’s *anyone* who is 250. Hell, there aren’t all that many past 190.
Girl, the best we have seen from your Race is:
– a tourist
– someone dumb enough to attack earth openly
You do not get to judge our species based on that average performance of your own!
IQ is not a absoltue measurement. It never was.
It is by nature designed to be a relative measurement.
Vulcan IQ tests adjusted for the average Vulcan would have the same normal distribution – and be utterly pointless to apply to humans.
Making a IQ tests works like this:
1. You make a test, without giving any point values
2. You let a decent sample size of people make the test (1k-10k)
3. You [b]assign[/b] the points values so you get a normal distribution with the sample testers
4. Everyone making the test, is thus simply measured relative to the sample from step 2.
Trying to measure a alien by human IQ standarts is like:
– comparing a person with dwarvism to the average height of NBA players
– comparing a humans blood iron to the average blood iron of a Vulcan (their blood is copper instead of iron based)
Proper use the the IQ measure would be like:
– comparing the height of a NBA player to the average height of NBA players
– comparing a vulcans blood copper to the average blood copper for a Vulcan