Editing 2071: Indirect Detection

{{comic
| number    = 2071
| date      = November 12, 2018
| title     = Indirect Detection
| image     = indirect_detection.png
| titletext = I'm like a prisoner in Plato's Cave, seeing only the shade you throw on the wall.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a PLATONIC PRISONER. Is this PLATONIC LOVE on joking here? Any REAL reason why this isn't complete? Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} 

This comic shows an angry social media post by one of Randall's spiky-haired friends, objecting to the views of unknown third parties, which appear to be a cartoonishly and unrealistically evil take on the proper treatment of abandoned animals. Sometimes when posting something on social media, such as Facebook, that post can be seen by all the people you have designated as your "friends." In this case the original comment was intended to be read by the people holding these views, people who are not direct friends of Randall's and whose posts he therefore could not see, but because it was posted by his direct friend he could read that response and was able to imagine what it was those other people were saying. Knowing a little about what these other mystery people are saying, through direct quotes from within his friend's comment, and having to fill in the rest by his imagination, he reflects on how weird it is to learn that people who hold such views exist in such an indirect manner.

Some users of social media, such as the unwilling participants in Facebook's [https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregorymcneal/2014/06/28/facebook-manipulated-user-news-feeds-to-create-emotional-contagion/ emotional contagion study], have found that despite having many friends of one slant in real life, the posts they see on social media reflect a different slant.  Some consider this could happen to affect political views, or to pursue people suspected of crime.  The comic reads as if Randall's friend has entered one of these "false bubbles" somehow on a social media site, but that as Randall's "bubble" reflects his views, he can only infer what it is like by reading these posts of his friend.

The title text is a pun comparing the shadows of [[Wikipedia:Allegory of the Cave|Plato's cave]] to the practice of "[[Wikipedia:Throwing shade (slang)|throwing shade]]" (slang for throwing insults, usually subtly), and "the wall" could have a double meaning of both the wall of the cave and the term for someone's social media page.

Plato's Cave is an allegorical tale taking place in a hypothetical cave. The cave contains lifelong prisoners who are chained such that they may only look at one wall.  A fire burns, and the goings-on are cast as shadows upon this wall.  Lacking a more complete or direct source of information, the cave occupants can only guess about the world by interpreting these shadows as a view of the world itself, and therefore base their other beliefs about the world upon the transitory appearances of these shadows. In this way, Plato's Cave serves as an allegory for our limited understanding of phenomena that occur primarily or entirely outside direct perception by our natural senses.  It also offers imagery of how our perceptions and beliefs can be so restricted by what our information channels provide to us, which are now controlled by hidden computer algorithms and marketing teams.

In the same way one might make incorrect assumptions about the makeup and chemical properties of air if one's information on the subject were gathered entirely from watching wind blow through leaves, the hypothetical occupants of Plato's Cave may reasonably be expected to produce wildly inaccurate theories about the outside world, a world they experience only as a kind of shadowplay. To be more specific, if one sees only a reaction (shadow) to an unseen post, one might become polarized against an imagined horrible thing, like if there were a large percentage of people who supported killing pet animals from shelters for sport, when in fact it is only the shadow which you have observed anything about, rather than the object that cast it.

A further joke behind the pun about "throwing shade" may be that judging anything based only upon the most outrageous points of measurement available will likely produce an inaccurate assessment.

==Transcript==
:[A single social media post is shown. On the top left is a portrait of a spiky-haired face, the text right aside is not readable. The post is:] 
:Everyone on here needs to stop laughing about how "adopting pets from a shelter is for losers" and "those animals should all be hunted for sport instead." It's reprehensible on so many levels! First of all...

:[Caption below the frame:]
:Sometimes, one of my friends posts an angry response to some terrible opinion I've never heard before, and it's a weird indirect way to learn how awful their other friends must be.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Social networking]]