explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1063: Kill Hitler

2021-08-06T00:33:56Z

108.162.249.130: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1063
| date = June 1, 2012
| title = Kill Hitler
| image = kill_hitler.png
| titletext = Revised directive: It is forbidden for you to interfere with human history until you've at least taken a class on it.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Black Hat]] creates a one-use time machine. [[Cueball]] selects a common suggestion for using a time machine: killing {{w|Adolf Hitler}}, the Austrian-born dictator who famously led the National Socialist Party (better known by the unofficial nickname "Nazi Party") to a hostile takeover of the German government, followed by a military invasion of the rest of Europe and a genocidal campaign known as {{w|the Holocaust}}, which then led to {{w|World War II}}. Black Hat has other ideas about how to use his time machine, but relents to Cueball's pleas and goes off to kill Hitler. He returns, commenting that he found Hitler in a very noisy bunker in the year 1945.

In the real world, {{w|Death of Adolf Hitler|Adolf Hitler committed suicide}} on April 30, 1945, in the {{w|Führerbunker}} in Berlin. Berlin was under assault by Soviet forces and it was clear that the city would soon be taken. Germany surrendered to Allied forces almost immediately afterward, bringing an end to the War in the European theater (the Pacific theater of the War, which was fought mostly between the United States and Imperial Japan, would linger on for a few more months until Japan was defeated). The fact that Black Hat killed Hitler in the Führerbunker in 1945 means that the War and the Holocaust had already resulted in the deaths of millions, and history would not be significantly changed by murdering Hitler at that point; also, Black Hat's comment that "1945 was loud!" suggests that Berlin was already under attack when he emerged in the Führerbunker, implying that the killing took place around the time Hitler would have taken his own life anyway, possibly immediately before (it also could suggest that Hitler wasn't actually planning to kill himself, but historians would have no other explanation after he was secretly killed by Black Hat). Cueball's intent was clearly for Black Hat to kill Hitler before the start of World War II (possibly long before) in the hopes of preventing both the War and the Holocaust. He's horrified by the realization that Black Hat had used his sole opportunity for time travel and probably made little difference at all.

This is typical Black Hat behavior, going out of his way just to troll people like Cueball and cause horrible things to happen, in this case deliberately ''not'' changing any history or avoiding any of the atrocities carried out by Nazi Germany. That might be for the best, however, since killing Hitler early {{tvtropes|HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct|might cause more problems than it would solve}}.

Incidentally, there are conspiracy theories that Hitler was shot by someone other than himself. Also, if the {{w|Novikov self-consistency principle}} is true, Hitler's suicide was interrupted by Black Hat in the first place, and Black Hat was merely going back in time to do the thing he already did.

"BRB" is an abbreviation for "be right back".

The title text refers to the time travel theme from the {{w|Superman}} movie in which Jor-El states, "It is forbidden for you to interfere with human history." Here it is suggested that Black Hat needs to know some history before going back in time to interfere with it, perhaps so that he would do the right thing and kill Hitler ''before'' the Holocaust and World War II.

==Trivia==
* Hitler was also the subject of Black Hat's [[29| third appearance]].
* In [[1617: Time Capsule]], [[Beret Guy]] has the same mission, but has instead "traveled" forward in time, and when he arrives Hitler is long dead.
* There is an episode of Love, Death and Robots that is entirely about going back in time to kill Hitler.

==Transcript==
:[Black Hat and Cueball stand in front of a double door, which bears the label 'TIME door'. Black Hat has his hands on his hips.]
:Black Hat: I finished my time machine, but it's one-use-only.
:Cueball: You ''gotta'' kill Hitler.

:[Close-up of Black Hat, one hand palm upward.]
:Black Hat: Why are you so obsessed with this Hitler guy? We have ''all'' of ''time'' we could explore!

:[Close-up of Cueball with both hands palm upward.]
:Cueball: He's evil incarnate! He murdered millions and sparked global war! ''Everyone'' agrees—if you get a time machine, you kill Hitler.

:[Black Hat enters the now open Time door as the other man looks on..]
:Black Hat: Fine, fine, I get it! Calm down. BRB, killing Hitler.

:[Black Hat returns, shutting the door with one hand. Cueball has outstretched arms.]
:Black Hat: There. Done. Are you happy?
:Cueball: ''Thank'' you.
:Black Hat: He was in some kind of bunker. 1945 was ''loud!''
:Cueball: '''''NO!'''''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hitler]]
[[Category:Time travel]]

Talk:2485: Nightmare Code

2021-07-06T01:17:24Z

108.162.249.130:

As I feared, I got into an Edit Conflict after doing (significantly more than I intended) editing of my own 'starter' explanation. '''Now resolved - thank you for your patience...'''  [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.124|141.101.98.124]] 20:24, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Is the Alphabet gag in the Title Text related to Alphabet, the company that owns Google? [[User:Kev|Kev]] ([[User talk:Kev|talk]]) 17:32, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
:It would be more expected that Alphabet would change their name if Alpha and Beta become associated with nightmare codes. OTOH, many thought that the Corona beer brand would suffer marketing problems during the pandemic, but it wasn't impacted very much. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 20:21, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

@Kev Well, the speaker ''is'' wearing Google Glass. [[User:Lightcaller|Lightcaller]] ([[User talk:Lightcaller|talk]]) 20:22, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

The speaker specifically mentions "'''Earth''' Language" and wears something that might well be some kind of life support. I don't think they are addressing earth-based humans, but rather some more diverse audience that is mostly not from earth. Many of them obviously don't know old earth languages too well. But the usage of the nightmare code seems to have spread beyond earth. Therefore, there's no implication that (earth-based) humans have forgotten the Greek language, the speaker may simply be giving a talk about their culture. -> I think the first paragraph is making wrong assumptions. @Abd are you sure? [[User:Chichak|Chichak]] ([[User talk:Chichak|talk]]) 22:37, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Wait, what? The ''future's'' character sets? ''Our'' character sets (or at least some of them) are known as alphabets! Or have we already forgotten the term "alphabet"?
^[[unsigned]]

How far off is "the (far) future"? Based on the retro-future styled headwear & relatively minor language drift, I was picturing 20-to-60 years, tops.

Heck, which objects count as "drones" has already changed ''twice'' the last 20 years, & YouTube still thinks Steam® is related to an ironing press. If we're looking more than 60 years out, I have to assume that "nightmare" could be common parlance for 'great', "scary" means 'informative', "negative" means 'removing', & "die" means equalize.

It's a joke about language drift, featuring a floaty person referring to ancient "Earth" languages: Sounds like someone teaching a 1st-grade class at Luna L2 circa 2051, ten years after 'the Oopsie'. I really didn't get a feeling of "oh wow ''lots'' of time has passed". I got the impression we were supposed to recognize the elements of the scene so that the grammatic drift stated in the comic would be highlighted as hyperbolic change.

Hovering & silly headgear are kinda the ''bare minimum'' to represent "the future" unambiguously, these days. The presumption of extraterrestrial habitation is the most futuristic reference I see. I'd be a bit surprised if that took us more than another decade or two, if ever.

Is this comic really about the ''far'' future, or is part of the joke that language changes faster than our perceptions of what is futuristic?
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 01:12, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

@ unsigned comment above: This comic is set in an imagined future in which the use of the word "alphabet" to describe a character set has fallen out of favour due to the negative connotations of the Greek root. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.130|108.162.249.130]] 01:17, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Does Cueball's "did you know" imply that the Greek language has died out entirely? At time of writing, the origin of the alpha/beta/gamma/etc. pseudo-numbering would already be referred to as "Ancient" Greek, but the same alphabet is still very much used to write modern Greek. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.130|108.162.249.130]] 01:17, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

2421: Tower of Babel

2021-02-05T22:50:38Z

108.162.249.130: Removed boldness on cueball

{{comic
| number = 2421
| date = February 5, 2021
| title = Tower of Babel
| image = tower_of_babel.png
| titletext = Soon, linguists will be wandering around everywhere, saying things like "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" and "more people have been to Russia than I have," and speech will become unintelligible.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a COLORLESS GREEN IDEA. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The story of the {{w|Tower of Babel}} is the Biblical explanation for the existence of different languages in the world. In the story, humans want to build a tower reaching the sky. This angers God and prompts him to sabotage the project. He does this by "confounding their speech" (commonly interpreted as giving everyone their own language) so that they cannot understand each other and cannot complete the project.

In this retelling, however, the tower is actually finished. God is happy to receive the human visitors, and offers them a reward.

The party that ascends to the top of the tower consists of Cueball, Megan and a third figure who might be linguist Gretchen McCulloch, previously seen in [[2381: The True Name of the Bear]]. When Gretchen expresses her love of words, God offers to create a panoply of languages. Megan immediately sees the problems with this, but Gretchen is enthusiastic. In the original story of the Tower of Babel, the different human languages are framed as a punishment by God for working together to build the tower; here, they're presented as a satisfying additional challenge.

The title text presents two meaningless English-language phrases that illustrate the language's ability to convey confusing or paradoxical information. "{{w|Colorless green ideas sleep furiously}}", coined by linguist {{w|Noam Chomsky}} in 1957, is an example of a sentence that is structurally correct but contains paradoxes and meaningless comparisons: something cannot be both colorless AND green (see {{w|Invisible Pink Unicorn}}), ideas do not sleep, and sleeping is not generally done furiously. That said, the sentence "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is so well known in linguistics that a competition to make the sentence meaningful was held in 1985 and {{w|Colorless_green_ideas_sleep_furiously#Attempts_at_meaningful_interpretations|attracted a number of entrants}}. "More people have been to Russia than I have" is a well-known example of {{w|comparative illusion}}.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:(Cueball, Gretchen McCulloch and Megan are standing at the base of the tower of Babel)
:Cueball: The tower of Babel is complete!
:Megan: Let's go meet god!
:(Cueball, Gretchen McCulloch and Megan are now standing at the top of the tower of Babel)
:Cueball: Hi god!
:God:Wow, nice tower!
:God:You did a great job! I'm so proud!
:Megan:Thanks!
:God:I'm going to give you a reward.
:God What do you like about the world?
:Gretchen McCulloch:Hmm. Words are really cool
:Megan:No, wait-
:God:Great! I;m going to give you lots of languages to study, each with its own phonology, :word ordering, morphosyntactic alignment...
:Gretchen McCulloch: YESSSSSS!
:Megan:We should not have brought a linguist.
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

2421: Tower of Babel

2021-02-05T22:49:43Z

108.162.249.130: Added appropriateline spacing

{{comic
| number = 2421
| date = February 5, 2021
| title = Tower of Babel
| image = tower_of_babel.png
| titletext = Soon, linguists will be wandering around everywhere, saying things like "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" and "more people have been to Russia than I have," and speech will become unintelligible.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a COLORLESS GREEN IDEA. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The story of the {{w|Tower of Babel}} is the Biblical explanation for the existence of different languages in the world. In the story, humans want to build a tower reaching the sky. This angers God and prompts him to sabotage the project. He does this by "confounding their speech" (commonly interpreted as giving everyone their own language) so that they cannot understand each other and cannot complete the project.

In this retelling, however, the tower is actually finished. God is happy to receive the human visitors, and offers them a reward.

The party that ascends to the top of the tower consists of Cueball, Megan and a third figure who might be linguist Gretchen McCulloch, previously seen in [[2381: The True Name of the Bear]]. When Gretchen expresses her love of words, God offers to create a panoply of languages. Megan immediately sees the problems with this, but Gretchen is enthusiastic. In the original story of the Tower of Babel, the different human languages are framed as a punishment by God for working together to build the tower; here, they're presented as a satisfying additional challenge.

The title text presents two meaningless English-language phrases that illustrate the language's ability to convey confusing or paradoxical information. "{{w|Colorless green ideas sleep furiously}}", coined by linguist {{w|Noam Chomsky}} in 1957, is an example of a sentence that is structurally correct but contains paradoxes and meaningless comparisons: something cannot be both colorless AND green (see {{w|Invisible Pink Unicorn}}), ideas do not sleep, and sleeping is not generally done furiously. That said, the sentence "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is so well known in linguistics that a competition to make the sentence meaningful was held in 1985 and {{w|Colorless_green_ideas_sleep_furiously#Attempts_at_meaningful_interpretations|attracted a number of entrants}}. "More people have been to Russia than I have" is a well-known example of {{w|comparative illusion}}.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:(Cueball, Gretchen McCulloch and Megan are standing at the base of the tower of Babel)
;Cueball: The tower of Babel is complete!
:Megan: Let's go meet god!
:(Cueball, Gretchen McCulloch and Megan are now standing at the top of the tower of Babel)
:Cueball: Hi god!
:God:Wow, nice tower!
:God:You did a great job! I'm so proud!
:Megan:Thanks!
:God:I'm going to give you a reward.
:God What do you like about the world?
:Gretchen McCulloch:Hmm. Words are really cool
:Megan:No, wait-
:God:Great! I;m going to give you lots of languages to study, each with its own phonology, :word ordering, morphosyntactic alignment...
:Gretchen McCulloch: YESSSSSS!
:Megan:We should not have brought a linguist.
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

2421: Tower of Babel

2021-02-05T22:48:12Z

108.162.249.130: Made a transcript for the comic

{{comic
| number = 2421
| date = February 5, 2021
| title = Tower of Babel
| image = tower_of_babel.png
| titletext = Soon, linguists will be wandering around everywhere, saying things like "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" and "more people have been to Russia than I have," and speech will become unintelligible.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a COLORLESS GREEN IDEA. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The story of the {{w|Tower of Babel}} is the Biblical explanation for the existence of different languages in the world. In the story, humans want to build a tower reaching the sky. This angers God and prompts him to sabotage the project. He does this by "confounding their speech" (commonly interpreted as giving everyone their own language) so that they cannot understand each other and cannot complete the project.

In this retelling, however, the tower is actually finished. God is happy to receive the human visitors, and offers them a reward.

The party that ascends to the top of the tower consists of Cueball, Megan and a third figure who might be linguist Gretchen McCulloch, previously seen in [[2381: The True Name of the Bear]]. When Gretchen expresses her love of words, God offers to create a panoply of languages. Megan immediately sees the problems with this, but Gretchen is enthusiastic. In the original story of the Tower of Babel, the different human languages are framed as a punishment by God for working together to build the tower; here, they're presented as a satisfying additional challenge.

The title text presents two meaningless English-language phrases that illustrate the language's ability to convey confusing or paradoxical information. "{{w|Colorless green ideas sleep furiously}}", coined by linguist {{w|Noam Chomsky}} in 1957, is an example of a sentence that is structurally correct but contains paradoxes and meaningless comparisons: something cannot be both colorless AND green (see {{w|Invisible Pink Unicorn}}), ideas do not sleep, and sleeping is not generally done furiously. That said, the sentence "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is so well known in linguistics that a competition to make the sentence meaningful was held in 1985 and {{w|Colorless_green_ideas_sleep_furiously#Attempts_at_meaningful_interpretations|attracted a number of entrants}}. "More people have been to Russia than I have" is a well-known example of {{w|comparative illusion}}.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
(Cueball, Gretchen McCulloch and Megan are standing at the base of the tower of Babel)
Cueball: The tower of Babel is complete!
Megan: Let's go meet god!
(Cueball, Gretchen McCulloch and Megan are now standing at the top of the tower of Babel)
Cueball: Hi god!
God:Wow, nice tower!
God:You did a great job! I'm so proud!
Megan:Thanks!
God:I'm going to give you a reward.
God What do you like about the world?
Gretchen McCulloch:Hmm. Words are really cool
Megan:No, wait-
God:Great! I;m going to give you lots of languages to study, each with its own phonology, word ordering, morphosyntactic alignment...
Gretchen McCulloch: YESSSSSS!
Megan:We should not have brought a linguist.
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]