explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1539: Planning

2015-06-17T22:15:23Z

Leifsegen: Clarified grammar

{{comic
| number = 1539
| date = June 17, 2015
| title = Planning
| image = planning.png
| titletext = [10 years later] Man, why are people so comfortable handing Google and Facebook control over our nuclear weapons?
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|First attempt at an explanation.}}
[[Ponytail]] asks [[Megan]] why people seems to be comfortable with {{w|Google}} and {{w|Facebook}} getting so much control of their lives through access to a wealth of personal information. For example, online advertisements are often tailored to the viewer based on their Google searches or web browsing history.

Megan says she does not know. Then she compares Ponytail's comment with the fact that humans have built thousands of {{w|nuclear weapons}}, once used as a source of political control, which are now stored in bases and silos all over the world. She comments that now no one seems to care anymore, and world concerns have moved on to other things like internet privacy, as indicated by Ponytail's original question. In reality there is still much world concern surrounding nuclear weapons proliferation, but it is not the common household topic that it was in, for example, the 1980s.

Megan's best solution to appease Ponytail is to just go with the flow, since this kind of big-picture planning actually doesn't exist (it just seems to happen on auto-pilot), without anyone actually thinking about the consequences. This is of course a scary thought, but it seems like [[Randall]] believes this is what happens in the world (perhaps as human nature), and probably not just with weapons and data. Innovation throughout history has happened to solve specific short-term problems, and rarely has long-term consequences in mind, as evidenced by the debate over {{w|Climate change}} brought about in large part by atmospheric pollution that comes from unchecked innovations in transportation, manufacturing and industry that prioritize profits over global well-being.

In the title text we move ahead 10 years, to a similar conversation where the two parts of the above have been inexplicably mixed. A future equivalent to Ponytail asks why we all think it is OK to hand over the control of our nuclear weapons to Google and Facebook, which would certainly be a nonsensical route to take. This could also be seen as another step toward the {{w|Technological_singularity|singularity}}, from which perspective handing over control of nuclear weapons could be desirable, catastrophic, implicit and/or unavoidable.

This comic was posted on the day after {{w|Vladimir Putin}} had [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/17/world/europe/putin-40-new-missiles-russian-nuclear-arsenal.html announced] that Russia would add 40 new {{w|intercontinental ballistic missile}}s to its nuclear stockpile this year.

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Ponytail are walking]
:Ponytail: Why are people so comfortable handing Google and Facebook all this control over our lives?
:Megan: I dunno.
:Megan: Our species built thousands of nuclear weapons, scattered them around the planet, and then moved on to other things.
:Megan: Maybe it's best to accept that some of this big-picture planning is just happening on autopilot.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

1539: Planning

2015-06-17T22:14:32Z

Leifsegen: Added nuance to climate change comparison

{{comic
| number = 1539
| date = June 17, 2015
| title = Planning
| image = planning.png
| titletext = [10 years later] Man, why are people so comfortable handing Google and Facebook control over our nuclear weapons?
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|First attempt at an explanation.}}
[[Ponytail]] asks [[Megan]] why people seems to be comfortable with {{w|Google}} and {{w|Facebook}} getting so much control of their lives through access to a wealth of personal information. For example, online advertisements are often tailored to the viewer based on their Google searches or web browsing history.

Megan says she does not know. Then she compares Ponytail's comment with the fact that humans have built thousands of {{w|nuclear weapons}}, once used as a source of political control, which are now stored in bases and silos all over the world. She comments that now no one seems to care anymore, and world concerns have moved on to other things like internet privacy, as indicated by Ponytail's original question. In reality there is still much world concern surrounding nuclear weapons proliferation, but it is not the common household topic that it was in, for example, the 1980s.

Megan's best solution to appease Ponytail is to just go with the flow, since this kind of big-picture planning actually doesn't exist (it just seems to happen on auto-pilot), without anyone actually thinking about the consequences. This is of course a scary thought, but it seems like [[Randall]] believes this is what happens in the world (perhaps as human nature), and probably not just with weapons and data. Innovation throughout history has happened to solve specific short-term problems, and rarely has long-term consequences in mind, as evidenced by the debate over {{w|Climate change}} brought about in large part by atmospheric pollution that comes from unchecked innovations in transportation, manufacturing and industry prioritizing profits over global well-being.

In the title text we move ahead 10 years, to a similar conversation where the two parts of the above have been inexplicably mixed. A future equivalent to Ponytail asks why we all think it is OK to hand over the control of our nuclear weapons to Google and Facebook, which would certainly be a nonsensical route to take. This could also be seen as another step toward the {{w|Technological_singularity|singularity}}, from which perspective handing over control of nuclear weapons could be desirable, catastrophic, implicit and/or unavoidable.

This comic was posted on the day after {{w|Vladimir Putin}} had [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/17/world/europe/putin-40-new-missiles-russian-nuclear-arsenal.html announced] that Russia would add 40 new {{w|intercontinental ballistic missile}}s to its nuclear stockpile this year.

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Ponytail are walking]
:Ponytail: Why are people so comfortable handing Google and Facebook all this control over our lives?
:Megan: I dunno.
:Megan: Our species built thousands of nuclear weapons, scattered them around the planet, and then moved on to other things.
:Megan: Maybe it's best to accept that some of this big-picture planning is just happening on autopilot.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

1448: Question

2014-11-17T12:10:17Z

Leifsegen: Updated AC meaning to match Asimov's story. Citation: https://diigo.com/072b7t

{{comic
| number = 1448
| date = November 17, 2014
| title = Question
| image = question.png
| titletext = The universe long dead, IsaAC surveyed the formless chaos. At last, he had arrived at an answer. 'I like you,' he declared to the void, 'but I don't LIKE like you.'
}}

==Explanation==
The comic depicts a note to “Isaac”. The note asks Isaac whether Isaac likes the note-writer and asks Isaac to choose either “yes” or “no” as the answer, but Isaac (whose pen is red) has filled in a third answer and selected that one.

Notes of this form – “Do you like me?”, “yes”, “no” are sometimes written by young schoolchildren to each other as a way of gauging or inciting romantic interest. That is, the note-writer is interested in Isaac, or maybe is wondering why Isaac is staring at her so much, and passed him this note to get his answer without the embarrassment of asking face-to-face. Isaac is supposed to check an answer and hand the note back.

The comic is a reference to a short story by Isaac Asimov "[http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html The Last Question]", where humans kept asking successively more complex computers whether entropy can be reversed, and the answer was always "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER". In the end, it figured out the answer, but there were no humans left to give the answer to.

We won’t spoil what the machine said at the end of “The Last Question” here. (Although the title text is a reference to this ending.) However, in this comic, Isaac has instead being ruminating on the question of whether he likes the note-writer. He answers that he likes the note-writer as a friend, but not as a romantic partner – “LIKE like” is a childish euphemism for “love”.

The odd capitalization if "IsaAC" implies that the note's recipient, rather than being a human, is a supercomputer named with an abbreviation in the style of the real "UNIVAC" or the fictional "MULTIVAC". The final two letters stand for "analog computer" - according to the computer naming scheme in "The Last Question."

==Transcript==
:[A piece of paper.]
:Dear Isaac
:Do you like me?
:□Yes
:□No
:[Written in red.] ☒there is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer
{{comic discussion}}

1448: Question

2014-11-17T12:08:06Z

Leifsegen: Linked "AC" meaning to Asimov's story.

{{comic
| number = 1448
| date = November 17, 2014
| title = Question
| image = question.png
| titletext = The universe long dead, IsaAC surveyed the formless chaos. At last, he had arrived at an answer. 'I like you,' he declared to the void, 'but I don't LIKE like you.'
}}

==Explanation==
The comic depicts a note to “Isaac”. The note asks Isaac whether Isaac likes the note-writer and asks Isaac to choose either “yes” or “no” as the answer, but Isaac (whose pen is red) has filled in a third answer and selected that one.

Notes of this form – “Do you like me?”, “yes”, “no” are sometimes written by young schoolchildren to each other as a way of gauging or inciting romantic interest. That is, the note-writer is interested in Isaac, or maybe is wondering why Isaac is staring at her so much, and passed him this note to get his answer without the embarrassment of asking face-to-face. Isaac is supposed to check an answer and hand the note back.

The comic is a reference to a short story by Isaac Asimov "[http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html The Last Question]", where humans kept asking successively more complex computers whether entropy can be reversed, and the answer was always "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER". In the end, it figured out the answer, but there were no humans left to give the answer to.

We won’t spoil what the machine said at the end of “The Last Question” here. (Although the title text is a reference to this ending.) However, in this comic, Isaac has instead being ruminating on the question of whether he likes the note-writer. He answers that he likes the note-writer as a friend, but not as a romantic partner – “LIKE like” is a childish euphemism for “love”.

The odd capitalization if "IsaAC" implies that the note's recipient, rather than being a human, is a supercomputer named with an abbreviation in the style of the real "UNIVAC" or the fictional "MULTIVAC". The final two letters stand for "Automatic Computer" - according to the computer naming scheme in "The Last Question."

==Transcript==
:[A piece of paper.]
:Dear Isaac
:Do you like me?
:□Yes
:□No
:[Written in red.] ☒there is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer
{{comic discussion}}