Freefall

Gotta say, I loved Flo's nonplussed reaction after hearing that - it shows just how accustomed to Sam's ethical code she's gotten.

And the unquestioned presumption that, naturally, Sam will do what she says.

Sam learned that one fast. "Can't be a good scavenger if you're a dead scavenger."

Turning it down a bit◊

Doggy Door is closed and latched◊

It really is a doggy door.

Tee hee. I'd just be worried about Sam doing the job properly, although it's in his self-interest not to die from explosive decompression.

In early years of the comic, I would have expected this to be some biting satire of current events about misplacing a nuclear device◊.

Safety redundancy◊

I find it interesting that humans (or biological organisms at least) are even in the loop when this sort of heavy work is occurring. In the command loop, maybe, but robots and computers can perform the physical operations with far better precision and without the risk of making organic mistakes.

Maybe this is where Florence's status as an AI comes into play: she's still treated like a machine as much as like a person.

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 15th 2021 at 10:03:16 AM

No, that would apply to anybody doing physical work in the bay at the time. The thrusters check and lockdown is to make sure nothing will activate them suddenly and make the ship fly away from underneath her feet while she's there.

Signing body parts◊

Florence be famous, yo!

No emergency supplies for vanity projects◊

Exchanging pleasantries◊

Honestly, I'm not feeling great about Gregor. I think that, in his mind, he's waiting to make conclusions until he had more data, but his repeated references to Florence as A.I. is starting to really feel like the parent who insists on referring to the spouse they don't like as "your roommate", refusing to acknowledge them as something greater.

Yeah, he isn't waiting on data to form a conclusion, he's waiting to see if his pre-formed conclusion could be disproven.

But, rule of funny. I imagine he's coming around.

Helpful humans◊

"Humans are a great bunch." I love Sam's attitude.

Never hurts to network◊. I appreciate that Gregor is familiar with Sam. He strikes me as the kind of guy who'd do his research.

Parallel evolution◊.

I want to respond with that meme about how humanity is not a "survival of the fittest" species, that our evolution is helped by helping others... except that we really are very tribal by nature, and the Sqid philosophy includes that.

Edited by FuzzyBoots on Mar 1st 2021 at 9:46:01 AM

I'd say helping each other is what makes humanity the fittest.

The fact that humanity is capable of cooperation on massive scales is what has allowed us to become so dominant. We can subsume our competitive nature into activities that collectively benefit our tribes, especially when we can define "tribe" to include entire nations.

"Cooperation is against evolution" is just the newest edgelord version of "mercy is for the weak." It's an excuse for assholes to ignore, if not outright screw over, people they don't like, both on the individual and the large scale.

If cooperation is against evolution, far as we're concerned that's a criticism of evolution^note Not the theory, which is way beyond proven. The concept itself, being criticized in the manner one would criticize a person, even though it isn't one. This doesn't actually make sense., not cooperation.