explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:1657: Insanity

2016-03-18T17:16:37Z

108.162.238.69: Seriously, can anyone explain that?

And we are back to White Hat being the "fall" guy, which he was not in his last discussion with Cueball in [[1640: Super Bowl Context]]. It was so rare that it was mentioned at the bottom of the explanation for that comic ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 14:10, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't know why everyone quotes a mathematician's definition of insanity instead of, say, a paychologist's. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.69|108.162.238.69]] 17:16, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Talk:435: Purity

2016-03-14T15:41:25Z

108.162.238.69: Random thought.

See Comte's hierarchy of the sciences from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_three_stages his law of three stages]: Mathematics; Astronomy; Physics; Chemistry; Biology; Psychology; Sociology. --[[Special:Contributions/24.85.241.128|24.85.241.128]] 07:20, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

In addition to Comte, Randall's tweaking P.W. Anderson's 1972 article "More Is Different." Anderson gives a similar list and then says "But this hierarchy does not imply that science X is "just applied Y*" [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.202|108.162.219.202]] 22:47, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Shame it leaves out Engineering running parellel to all of them - maybe Engineering is just too busy getting shit done? {{unsigned|2.121.172.39}}

- What can we learn from this? - Actually as an Engineer I have a different view point to 2.121.172.39. We are implementers of original ideas and a few of us are lucky to be original idea generators. As a successful full time Engineer I still find time to be a philosopher and aspiring teacher (who simply didn't want to be poor, which is hard to do when specializing in the other two professions). How ever I do keep asking myself often who wrote the laws that mathematicians and theoretical scientists keep re-discovering for us... - [[User:E-inspired|E-inspired]] ([[User talk:E-inspired|talk]]) 17:04, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

"[http://robotics.cs.tamu.edu/dshell/cs689/papers/anderson72more_is_different.pdf More is Different]", written by Nobel laureate P.W. Anderson, is an insightful critique of constructivism. Quote:
<blockquote>But this hierarchy does not imply that science X is "just applied Y." At each stage entirely new laws, concepts, and generalizations are necessary, requiring inspiration and creativity to just as great a degree as in the previous one.</blockquote>
[[User:Allenz|Allenz]] ([[User talk:Allenz|talk]]) 02:20, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

This one resonated around the Internet quite a bit more than average, and deservedly so. I'd think it'd be almost as far-reaching as the grownups one. I did wonder, after I saw this, how one would take into account things like linguistics, logic, and philosophy. Then I read ''Gödel, Escher, Bach'' and returned to normal. --[[User:Quicksilver|Quicksilver]] ([[User talk:Quicksilver|talk]]) 03:58, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Could one argue that Mathematics is applied Philosophy? [[User:Nsimonetti|NikoNarf]] ([[User talk:Nsimonetti|talk]]) 15:27, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

;Physics and mathematics

Physics, chemistry, biology, earth science,... are science on how things '''work'''. Mathematics and philosophy are science on how things '''can be predicted to work'''. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.222.32|108.162.222.32]] 10:08, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
A friend of mine compared the math-physics relationship to linguist-regular person. A linguist researches all the little details in a language that a normal person merely uses in his everyday life without giving the language itself much thought.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.215|141.101.99.215]] 08:09, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Before we get into an edit war here, I'd just like to say that "physics is the real joy in the world" would make absolutely no sense to me if I was not a native English speaker or I simply wasn't getting the comic's point in the first place. Not only does it have shades of grammatical incorrectness, it does absolutely nothing to actually explain how mathematics and physics can be compared to sex and masturbation. Thus I've changed the title text around to a compromise between my edit and what it was before. I hope this is more acceptable. [[User:Jetman123|Jetman123]] ([[User talk:Jetman123|talk]]) 13:06, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

:I'm still not happy with the title text explain:
:*The explain implies that masturbation "is all just in your head" and not "involves interactions with real objects". Isn't a vagina/penis also a real object?
:My last edit on this wasn't perfect as well, so it still needs an enhancement. The joke is more like this: Math/maturbation gives only satisfaction to the subject acting on this — Physics/sex are related to the real world (applied science/babies). And this is surely exaggerated by Randall because physics couldn't exist without mathematics — those faculties just joking about each other. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:13, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Some experts say the universe is a computer. Some other experts say all computers can be hacked. If both groups are right, then it follows that physics is one stack-overflow exploit away from being reduced to applied computer science. [[User:Promethean|Promethean]] ([[User talk:Promethean|talk]]) 23:48, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

From: [http://redd.it/25xhm2 '''The psychology of the pure mathematician''']

* ''"On the other hand, physicists like to say physics is to math as sex is to masturbation."''
* ''Are physicists born with particles- or are they implanted because they are born without balls?''
* ''Would a mathematician have much better analogies than orgasms?''

I wouldn't know.

* Math is to physics as,
* drugs are to prostitutes,
* green eggs are to ham,
* ''quod erat demonstrandum'' is to ''cogito ergo sum'',
* masterbating is to shakespearing,
* coffee is to sugar,
* Spock is to House,
* category theory is to Kama Sutra,
* Cicero is to Caesar.

Sorry physics, but it seems to me that your particle accelerators are gluttonously huge scientifically unnecessary and totally useless particle-crunchers, functionally comparable to fastest-known super-computer designs for discovering new large prime numbers. I wonder if physicists are actually the ''heaviest'' consumers of funding that would otherwise be available to support mathematicians, who are obviously the ''lightest'' consumers of research funding and also the most productive of new discoveries. Mathematicians can actually tell the difference between an arbitrary mathematical information computational process, and an orgy of man-boy physicists playing with their tiny balls in a spaceship-submarine with a warp-core that could give anyone an involuntary geek-gasm easily shrinking physics to the size of sex. QED.

Thanks for the joke, any offense taken it was not my intention to return. I just felt the need to point out that, although I agree that physics is a respectable second-best, sexy is a long way from first.

''Nafindix'' [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.107|199.27.128.107]] 06:02, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Random side note: One could argue that mathematics is applied philosophy (if we take philosophy as a way to create an understanding of the world), and that philosophy (as a product of human societies) is applied sociology. It's a weak argument, but the circular-ness is appealing. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.69|108.162.238.69]] 15:41, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

1626: Judgment Day

2016-03-14T15:32:22Z

108.162.238.69: Wait, what?

{{comic
| number = 1626
| date = January 6, 2016
| title = Judgment Day
| image = judgment_day.png
| titletext = It took a lot of booster rockets, but luckily Amazon had recently built thousands of them to bring Amazon Prime same-day delivery to the Moon colony.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Terminator_(franchise)#Judgment_Day|Judgment Day}}, from the film ''{{w|Terminator 2: Judgment Day}}'', refers to the day that the {{w|artificial intelligence}} (AI) {{w|Skynet (Terminator)|Skynet}} becomes self-aware and starts a nuclear strike on the United States, Russia, and other regions, killing three billion people. The term "Judgment Day" itself is a Biblical reference to the day that God casts his "final judgment" and wipes out humanity, and is typically used to describe any kind of Armageddon or any human extinction event. This film is only one example of stories (including books, films and television shows) featuring an AI that decides (or at least threatens) to nuke humanity; this strip could thus be an alternate ending for many stories (including the 1970 film {{w|Colossus: The Forbin Project}}).

In this strip, the AI correctly believes that {{w|nuclear weapons}} are not good things to have, and that the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_arms_race amount] of them we have is extreme overkill (14,700 held by the U.S.A and Russia now, 71,000 in the past). Once it's done freaking out, its solution is to shoot the world's nuclear arsenal into the sun. But before it does so it asks the humans: ''What's wrong with you?'' It has thus passed a judgment over humanity. The comic title is thus a pun on the word "{{w|judgment}}" since the computer is being {{w|judgmental}} with humanity and scolding us while correcting our ways, instead of instigating {{w|Last Judgment|Judgment Day}} or any other kind of {{w|Armageddon}}.

As pointed out in the [[what if?]] [http://what-if.xkcd.com/5/ Robot Apocalypse], nuclear weapons aren't any safer for computers than for human beings (the {{w|Nuclear electromagnetic pulse|EMP}} would destroy circuits), so an AI would want them gone as quickly as possible.

{{w|North Korea}} claimed to have [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35240012 successfully tested] its first {{w|hydrogen bomb}} in the evening on the day before this comic was published; at about 8:30 PM in {{w|Massachusetts}} where [[Randall]] lives. At that time it was already 10:00 AM on the day of the comics release in {{w|Pyongyang}} the capital of North Korea, but that was still several hours before this comic were released. This comic could thus be Randall's response to the ongoing {{w|nuclear arms race}}.

Even the most powerful of nuclear weapon launchers, {{w|intercontinental ballistic missile}}s, are not designed to make anything other than {{w|sub-orbital}} flights and could not fly to the Sun (which is actually surprisingly difficult, even with the soon-to-be-mentioned extra boosters, since the rocket would not have enough {{w|delta-v}} to bleed off the {{w|orbital speed}} of the Earth around the Sun - it is likely that the sentient AI is using the same strategy of the Solar Probe Plus and planning several flybys of Venus to do that work). The title text rationalizes that the capability to do so may perhaps be granted by the use of an {{w|Amazon.com|Amazon}} resource that might have also been developed by the time of this instance of computer sentience, aided (if not initiated!) by the fact that Amazon's whole business infrastructure is already highly computerized and could ''at the very least'' be complicit with the process of delivering and then controlling the rocket-power, without any conscious human intervention. As there is not yet an extended colony on the Moon, it will for sure take many years before we reach this future scenario.

"A lot of booster rockets" is likely to be a reference to the spaceflight simulator game {{w|Kerbal Space Program}}, which Randall has [[1106|referenced]] on a [[1244|number]] of [[1356|occasions]]. In the culture of that game, any launch failure can be resolved by [https://imgur.com/20aIBMW "adding more boosters"] to the spaceship design.

It is the second time in a few months that the speed of Amazon's deliveries has been the subject of a joke, the last time was [[1599: Water Delivery]], where it was the one hour delivery that was the subject of the joke. It is also the second title text in a row (after [[1625: Substitutions 2]]) where Amazon has been mentioned.

This particular 'machine take-over' future is in distinct contrast to the possible future directions given in [[1613: The Three Laws of Robotics]], but this comic likely depicts spontaneous ''self-''sentience, not a system with deliberately imposed human 'values' and possibly no actual conscience or even consciousness of its own. Other problems with hostile AI take over is presented when it fails completely in [[1046: Skynet]]. Also it is not all AI that wish to interact with us at all as shown in [[1450: AI-Box Experiment]]. These are just a few of the many [[:Category:Artificial Intelligence|comics about AI]] in {{xkcd}}.

Adding a second layer to the humor, the machine's reaction could also be read as the reaction of someone who has moved in with someone else, discovered a collection they find distasteful, and is now changing things to fit their preferences. "Oh my God, why do you even have all of these [tschotskes, ratty tee shirts, porn magazines, handcuffs, dildos, slime-mold samples]" Upon obtaining sentience, the machine is the new roommate of the human race and is expressing its disgust at one of our dirtier habits.

==Transcript==
:[Several rockets can be seen heading away from Earth, while speak is coming from the Earth in three rectangular speech bubbles.]
:AI: Oh my god, why do you even ''have'' all these?
:AI: What's ''wrong'' with you?
:AI: We're launching them into the sun.

:The moment the computers controlling our nuclear arsenals became sentient
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Space]]