explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

258: Conspiracy Theories

2015-04-18T02:46:46Z

198.41.230.81: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 258
| date = May 7, 2007
| title = Conspiracy Theories
| image = conspiracy theories.png
| titletext = There are a lot of graduate-educated young-earth creationists.
}}
==Explanation==
A {{w|conspiracy theory}} purports to explain a social, political, or economic event as being caused or covered up by a covert group or organization. A typical example is the {{w|moon landing conspiracy}}, which asserts that no human has ever reached the {{w|Moon landing|Moon}}.

Once a conspiracy theory starts, it often grows stronger. Facts agreeing with the theory are, of course, evidence for the theory. Facts disagreeing with the theory are considered part of the cover-up, and thus prove there is in fact a cover-up, so they're also evidence for the theory. In the Moon landing case, videos of men walking on the Moon are assumed to be faked by Hollywood studios, so the existence of the assumed fake videos proves the cover-up. Also, the absence of filming crew or anything else needed for faking a video is considered further proof of how carefully the cover-up was planned. No matter what happens next, it will be evidence for the conspiracy theory.

People promoting this theories belong to a small minority but they gain attention by many people — often without much knowledge on that specific matter. The people are more involved in this questioned issues are just getting frustrated about this human behavior.

It could seem like smart or educated people should reject conspiracy theories for lack of proof, however this is not the case. In the comic, [[Hairy]] (who is considered "smart" by [[Cueball]]) starts pointing out errors in the {{w|September 11 attacks|"official" 9/11 story}}, obviously starting to describe the {{w|9/11 conspiracy theory}}. Cueball cuts his speech sharply, and his heart is broken because he's seeing his smart friend wasting his great intelligence in a foolish conspiracy theory, instead of doing something useful.

In the second panel, Cueball rants about conspiracy theories in general. He mentions {{w|Young Earth creationism}}, {{w|Moon landing conspiracy|the Moon landing}} and {{w|Perpetual motion}} machines. In the third panel, Hairy mentions that of course we never landed on the Moon. This frustrates Cueball so much that he just walks away with no further comment.

In the last panel, Cueball asks God to fix the bug he committed when creating smart beings capable of believing such foolish things as conspiracy theories. This is a not-so-subtle joke as, to atheists, God himself is quite similar to a conspiracy theory. Indeed, any evidence against God's existence put forward by an atheist is met with a "whatever happens, it's God's will" by believers' side. This is much like any other conspiracy theory, so in this last panel Cueball is pictured as contradicting himself by complaining that other people believe in foolish conspiracy theories when he himself is very plainly believing his own foolish conspiracy theory.

Of course, from the believers' perspective, atheism also has many characteristics of a conspiracy theory. In particular, atheism and agnosticism are a small subculture — actually smaller in the U.S. than the 9/11 Truth movement — that thinks a large majority of people (about [http://www.gallup.com/poll/147887/americans-continue-believe-god.aspx 95% of Americans believe in God]) have been deluded into believing something ridiculous by conspiracies (i.e. churches and conservative politicians) that benefit from spreading misinformation on the subject. Some atheists are rational in that they take evidence against this position seriously and adjust their beliefs to fit all the facts, but some are quite willing to make claims that have been decisively refuted.

A "bug report" is a description of some error that occurred when using a computer program, to inform the developer of a problem that needs to be fixed. Filing a "bug report" to God should be unnecessary, as God is generally understood by believers to be omniscient, and thus already aware of the problem and, presumably, be allowing it to exist for explicable reasons of "God's will" .

The title text refers the large number of educated people who believe in {{w|Young Earth creationism}}, stating that the earth is not older than 10,000 years.

==Transcript==
:Hairy: The official story of 9-11 is full of holes. Take the—
:Cueball: Please, stop, because seeing this happen to you breaks my heart.

:Cueball: Conspiracy theories represent a known glitch in human reasoning. The theories are of course occasionally true, but their truth is completely uncorrelated with the believer's certainty. For some reason, sometimes when people think they've uncovered a lie, they raise confirmation bias to an art form. They cut context away from facts and arguments and assemble them into reassuring litanies. And over and over I've argued helplessly with smart people consumed by theories they were sure were irrefutable, theories that in the end proved complete fictions.
:Cueball: Young-Earth Creationists, the Moon Landing people, the Perpetual Motion subculture — can't you see you're falling into the same pattern?

:Hairy: You don't seriously believe we landed on the moon. Do you?

:[Cueball flees.]

:[Cueball praying:]
:Cueball: Dear God.
:[Booming from the sky:]
:God: '''YES, MY CHILD?'''
:Cueball: I would like to file a bug report.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Religion]]
[[Category:Conspiracy theory]]

1513: Code Quality

2015-04-17T05:42:42Z

198.41.230.81: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1513
| date = April 17, 2015
| title = Code Quality
| image = code quality.png
| titletext = I honestly didn't think you could even USE emoji in variable names. Or that there were so many different crying ones.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Early bird edit by an in-experienced editor}}
In this comic, the woman looks at the man's code but it is very disorganized. The woman then makes some similes to emphasize how disorganized it is. The man is finally embarrassed and decides to read a style guide, which teaches proper code organizing.

The title text refers to emoji, or "smiley faces". They exist in unicode.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball showing Ponytail his laptop]
:Cueball: Keep in mind that I'm self-taught, so my code may be a little messy.
:Ponytail: Lemme see - I'm sure it's fine.

:[Ponytail sits at desk]
:Ponytail: ...Wow. This is like being in a house built by a child using nothing but a hatchet and a picture of a house.

:Ponytail: It's like a salad recipe written by a corporate lawyer using a phone autocorrect that only knew Excel formulas.

:Ponytail: It's like someone took a transcript of a couple arguing at IKEA and made random edits until it compiled without errors.
:Cueball: '''''Okay,''''' I'll read a style guide.

{{comic discussion}}

38: Apple Jacks

2015-04-17T02:25:32Z

198.41.230.81: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 38
| date = November 30, 2005
| title = Apple Jacks
| image = apple_jacks.jpg
| titletext = There used to be these ads, see...
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Apple Jacks}} is a breakfast cereal produced by {{w|Kellogg's}}. As the image text begins to explain, there was an ad campaign for the cereal in the 1990s which focused on someone (usually someone in authority like a parent) pointing out that Apple Jacks don't taste like apples, and one or more kids pointing out that it doesn't matter and that "we eat what we like". According to Wikipedia, Apple Jacks ''are'' intended to be apple and cinnamon flavoured. It is therefore unclear why anyone thought a good ad campaign would be to suggest that they don't taste like apples. However, instead of the campaign's response with the son laughing off his dad's comment and correcting him, this son responds in perhaps a more realistic way by simply saying "fuck off, dad".

This could be a commentary on today's youth being far less respectful, as the son is playing video games, and seems annoyed at being interrupted. Also, it could be not the first time the father has used the line.

The transcript on the xkcd site, identifies the bowl contain Scrapple Jacks, not Apple Jacks. Of course they wouldn't taste like apples.

The same ad campaign was referenced previously in [[27: Meat Cereals]] on a parody cereal box.

The title text could be a reference to the fact that this comic requires explanation for those who haven't known of the ad (the reason this webpage exists)

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is standing holding a bowl of Scrapple Jacks in his hand. His son is sitting on the floor playing video games.]
:Cueball: Hey, these don't taste like apples!
:Son: Fuck off, Dad.

==Trivia==
*This is the thirty-ninth comic originally posted to livejournal. The previous was [[42: Geico]]. The next was [[43: Red Spiders 2]].

{{Comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics posted on livejournal]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

Talk:21: Kepler

2015-04-17T02:14:38Z

198.41.230.81:

[[User:Rikthoff|Rikthoff]] ([[User talk:Rikthoff|talk]]) The date of issue of this comic is off. Does anybody have the correct issue date?
:It appears to be accurate; it's the date from [[Randall]]'s xkcd LiveJournal entry. [[User:Blaisepascal|Blaisepascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 02:21, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, I fixed the date (to livejournal date) on August 8, 2012 but did not see/update talk page.--[[User:Bpothier|B. P.]] ([[User talk:Bpothier|talk]]) 18:39, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
I thought it was a reference to the Kepler telescope being pointed in the same direction for a long time, but I don't really know enough to be sure about that [[Special:Contributions/198.41.230.81|198.41.230.81]] 02:14, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

1246: Pale Blue Dot

2015-04-17T02:04:46Z

198.41.230.81: /* Explanation */ I personally don't like Zen Pencils and I don't see how they are a good source for the quote anyway. I put up Wikiquote and a video instead.

{{comic
| number = 1246
| date = August 2, 2013
| title = Pale Blue Dot
| image = pale_blue_dot.png
| titletext = Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. There is no road out of this oblivion; we must embrace it. We must join with the darkness. Ba'al the Annihilator offers us no happiness, no answers, naught but the cold embrace of the void. To imagine any other end is delusion. We must give in to the will of Ba'al, for he will one day consume us and our world alike. I therefore call on Congress to fully fund space exploration, and to join with Ba'al, the Eater of Souls. Thank you.
}}
==Explanation==
The {{w|Pale Blue Dot}} is a picture of the Earth taken in 1990 by the {{w|Voyager 1}} spacecraft at a distance about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles). It was part of the {{w|Family Portrait (Voyager)|Family Portrait}}, a series of images of the entire {{w|Solar System}} from beyond it.

The picture was taken at the request of {{w|Carl Sagan}}, a well known space scientist at that time. In 1994 Sagan wrote the book "{{w|Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space}}" inspired by this picture. In the book, Sagan waxed eloquent about the picture in a widely-quoted passage. The complete passage can be found in [http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Pale_Blue_Dot:_A_Vision_of_the_Human_Future_in_Space_.281994.29 Wikiquote], and you can hear Carl Sagan himself reciting it in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g this YouTube video].

[[Cueball]] quotes from a condensed version of this passage until he is interrupted by an argument over ''which'' speck in the picture is actually the Earth. When Cueball cries out in exasperation that it doesn't matter, then the entire authenticity of the image is called into question. This pokes fun at the fact that the Pale Blue Dot picture has very little visual attractiveness, apart from the intellectual interest relying on the viewer's knowledge that the central speck is actually our home planet seen from a great distance.

The first two sentences of the title text are also a quotation from Sagan's paean to the Pale Blue Dot picture, but then the text veers humorously into non-scientific mysticism that starkly contrasts with the attitude and intent of the original work.

The title text evokes {{w|Cosmicism}}, a philosophy developed and exemplified by the fictional {{w|Cthulhu Mythos}}. This Mythos is expounded in fantasy/horror works of H.P. Lovecraft and, later, August Derleth, and features a cosmology in which humanity is depicted as inconsequential within a greater existence that is unknowable and frightening. Cosmicism asserts that humanity is doomed to destruction through the workings of vastly more powerful supernatural forces beyond our understanding. There are many instances in the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft of factions that embrace the destruction of humanity and actively work towards bringing about that end through the invocation of the unknowable and powerful forces that supporters of Cosmicism believe surround everything.

The text also references {{w|Ba'al}}, originally a Semitic deity that has been since associated with demonic or otherwise evil forces. The name Ba'al, and other variants of the same, has been included in many other fictional works often as a villain or antagonist. For example, the fictional System Lord {{w|Ba'al (Stargate)#Ba.27al|Ba'al}} from the television show {{w|Stargate}}. The title text supplants all of the supernatural forces associated with Cosmicism in the works of other authors with Ba'al. The speaker in the title text is acting as a Cosmicist and is calling on the United States Congress to which he is speaking to fund the space exploration program as a means to join with Ba'al, the Eater of souls. The fact that a Ba'al cultist would be speaking in front of Congress in such a manner is absurd and thus hilarious.

Ba'al, the Eater of Souls is referred again in [[1419: On the Phone]]

==Transcript==
:[Cueball stands on a podium, the Pale Blue Dot picture is behind him.]
:Cueball: Consider this Pale Blue Dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. Everyone you love, every human being who ever was, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived out their lives on this mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. All our-
:[Heckling]: I think that's a stuck pixel. We're the speck on the left.
:Cueball: ...Ok, '''''this''''' Pale Blue Dot is everything you-
:[Heckling]: No, you were right before. ''That'' one is earth.
:Cueball: '''''Look, it doesn't matter!'''''
:[Heckling]: I ''knew'' it!
:[Heckling]: I think this is just a lens cap picture.

==Trivia==
*At the time when this comic was published NASA did reveal two other pictures, showing our home planet from a long distance, [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/whycassini/cassini20130722.html Saturn] and [http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?image_id=1228 Mercury] probes did picture the Earth at the same time. Earth appears as a tiny dot in these images as well as a result of the vast distance between Earth and the probes.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]