Questionable Content XV: I HAVE MORE QUESTIONS! I Told You This Thread Was Weird

[Morquard]

In universe I think it's because Hanners' family is rich but, while she always has them as a safety net to fall back upon, she herself is not a business tycoon or a nobel-winning scientist and so still only has limited liquid assets.

It's also probably because, since I'm a jaded individual, there's a certain amount of favouritism on Jeph's part. He likes Hanners and would rather not have the focus of abused privilege aimed at her, not while there are nameless civil servants like the Parole Officer or moustache-twirling caricatures of Jeff Bezos to snipe at instead.

In short, Jeph doesn't do it because he says that Hanners is the nice type of millionaire, because reasons.

I totally agree that the actual reason is the second part, that Jeph doesn't wanna do it to Hanners.

But for example, we have NEVER seen her go and ask anyone for money or permission to spend any. When Winslow said "I want a body" She was "Ok lets go right now, and buy the most expensive one we can find, no big deal". When she decided she needed to figure herself out, she quit her job and went on a world trip with literally no advance planning and warning.
I think she could easily have thrown a few bucks at May to get her a decent body if she just wanted (especially after Winslow had his breakdown after that talk with her, it would have been easy for him to ask her to help). And let's be honest, while her mother is a stone cold bitch, she could easily have asked Daddy and he'd likely had given her enough to do any of that.

Why has she never? Because that's not the story of "rich friend fixes everything". Why he turns it into that now I don't know.

[Max_Killjoy]

Most people I know don't expect their friends with more money than them to just drop cash on other people's problems.

As for Roko, I think she's mad that "Spooky" treats two billion dollars like a joke.

[Rodin]

Part of the problem with Hanners' money is that outside of whatever allowance/remittance she personally gets, asking for money from her parents is rather complicated. Her mother might provide it, but she is also an evil CEO at best and a Bond villain at worst. The type of help likely won't be the type that Hanners wants, as we saw when the restaurant that gave Marten food poisoning got shut down.

Her father is more well-meaning, but utterly flakey and may be difficult to get hold of and focused on the task of distributing the wealth. Also, he is already putting his wealth towards the benefit of humankind by funding a massive space station and gathering the best and brightest scientists in the world there to do research. It seems churlish to say he isn't already doing his part.

[Felius]

As for Roko, I think she's mad that "Spooky" treats two billion dollars like a joke.

Maybe, but to me it came more of as a very self-centered "how dare you be able to do more good with much less effort than me!" To me that kind of anger gives the implication that she isn't into it to actually help people, but to feel better about herself, and helping people is just incidental to it.

That she's angry at Spooky Bot not because her actions were inprudent and ill-considered even if ultimately positive (if those weren't liquid assets, Spooky Bot likely caused a lot of harm to lots of people by suddenly liquidating it all, and not just other asset owners, and even if they were liquid, that's a lot of money to suddenly drop on people), but because it reduces her own sense of accomplishment.

It's very human and natural, sure, but at the same time it's not really right. The issue for me is more about Jeph likely going to portray Roko as right in this, when she's ultimately being selfish about it, even if it's a pretty normal reaction to what happened.

[Wraith]

But for example, we have NEVER seen her go and ask anyone for money or permission to spend any. When Winslow said "I want a body" She was "Ok lets go right now, and buy the most expensive one we can find, no big deal". When she decided she needed to figure herself out, she quit her job and went on a world trip with literally no advance planning and warning.

I think that might be debatable. Winslow's body wasn't the MOST expensive available for a start - his is the Deluxe Chassis, rather than the Super Deluxe or the Ultra Deluxe, and doesn't have a bunch of the more unusual features that were also available in the shop.

Similarly, saying that Hanners - personally, rather than her family in general - is in the top 1% because she bought an AI a new chassis on short notice isn't necessarily true because Marigold did the same thing for Momo, and the whole point of that plot was that it was expensive, but not entirely out of reach of someone with a job and low overheads. Marten was able to do roughly the same thing when he bought his new guitar and he probably makes barely more than minimum wage.

Especially since Marigold referred to "eating ramen for a few months" about it - either it cleaned out her savings, which was a reasonable enough amount that she could afford to be without it for a while, or she's just paying Momo off on credit. While we don't have an exact price for AI chassis, they feel to me around about the price of a small, second-hand car - a few hundred to a couple of thousand - rather than tens of thousands of dollars.
That about makes sense - May is not only on minimum wage, but she's an ex-con so her credit is FUBAR. The issue isn't that she could never buy a new chassis, but that her current one will fall apart before she can save up enough to replace it.

It's very human and natural, sure, but at the same time it's not really right. The issue for me is more about Jeph likely going to portray Roko as right in this, when she's ultimately being selfish about it, even if it's a pretty normal reaction to what happened.

This is what I was getting from Roko, too. She's recently been through a direct challenge to her worldview which resulted in her leaving her job, been subject to huge trauma that she has barely gotten over, and is possibly now coping with an AI equivalent to PTSD and/or body dysmorphia.

She's trying to get her life back together and re-establish her identity. Finding a way to usefully contribute at the charity was a big step toward that, and then it was almost immediately trivialised by Spookybot, so being upset is entirely justified, I think.

Hopefully Roko will explain as much and make her position clear. There's only so long that one can complain about 2 biollion dollars being given to good causes before it does start to sound quite petty.

[Max_Killjoy]

Not sure if I'm willing to let Jeph using Roko as a mouthpiece for his personal bugbears and prejudices ruin the character for me.

[Yana]

She's been that mouthpiece since she resigned. Nothing new there.

[Honest Tiefling]

She's been that mouthpiece since she resigned. Nothing new there.

Can't say that Roko has been a fave for a while...This is going to feel very awkward, isn't it?

[PhantomFox]

I think the emphasis is at least partly on the fact that Spooky thought it would make them friends.
"I asked, and did what you wanted. Is that not a friendly gesture?"
That is, she believes friendship is transactional. That, combined with the lack of thought or consideration on how or why to do it is what ticked her off, in addition to negative thought to Rokos feelings.

I expect a line of two debating what Roko intended by her request.

[Keltest]

This is... huh. This almost looks like... character development?

[Shadow of the Sun]

As a member of Jeph's Patreon, let me just say that if you're not a fan of ham-fisted political opinions, tomorrow's strip is... well, it's going to be interesting.

[Felius]

As a member of Jeph's Patreon, let me just say that if you're not a fan of ham-fisted political opinions, tomorrow's strip is... well, it's going to be interesting.

So, more of what we came to expect of Jeph?

[Kato]

I mean, I can like Roko even if I don't agree with everything she does. Or I'd stopped liking her long ago.
That said, Spooky is totally right.
I mean, yeah, Spooky definitely has their faults, too, but imo they still have the moral upper hand here.

[Evil DM Mark3]

As a member of Jeph's Patreon, let me just say that if you're not a fan of ham-fisted political opinions, tomorrow's strip is... well, it's going to be interesting.

You say ham fisted, I say painfully obvious.

EDIT: So I think this may need elaboration. You see QC has always been a wish fulfilment slice of life comic, sure it has dark moments and drama, but the result is always a net positive. Marten has a breakup, both he and his partner re-evaluate their lives, become better people and get new, better for them, partners and stay friends. Character has a drinking problem which hits a major crisis, they get help, their friends support them and they get a new job and a new romantic partner.

I think over the last five or so years Jeph has become more and more aware of the serious and painful chronic problems the USA has as a country and has wanted to express his anger and frustration with them. I mean look at this list of things QC has addressed or referenced over the last few years (no particular order):

• Trans rights & body dismorphia
• Neuro-atypicality
• prisoner re-entry
• police corruption/general abuse of power
• systemic racism
• income inequality
• Veteran neglect
• mass surveillance
• substance abuse

All real issues the US is not great at handling and all things that QC has had sugary "well we do our best" stories around. Jeph clearly wants to complain about injustice he sees and, unlike most people who just share and re-share Facebook posts, he has a platform.

For clarity, I am not American, but neither do I feel that my own country has these issues sorted either. I, too, feel the need to shout angrily into the void.

[Shadow of the Sun]

You say ham fisted, I say painfully obvious.

EDIT: So I think this may need elaboration. You see QC has always been a wish fulfilment slice of life comic, sure it has dark moments and drama, but the result is always a net positive. Marten has a breakup, both he and his partner re-evaluate their lives, become better people and get new, better for them, partners and stay friends. Character has a drinking problem which hits a major crisis, they get help, their friends support them and they get a new job and a new romantic partner.

I think over the last five or so years Jeph has become more and more aware of the serious and painful chronic problems the USA has as a country and has wanted to express his anger and frustration with them. I mean look at this list of things QC has addressed or referenced over the last few years (no particular order):

• Trans rights & body dismorphia
• Neuro-atypicality
• prisoner re-entry
• police corruption/general abuse of power
• systemic racism
• income inequality
• Veteran neglect
• mass surveillance
• substance abuse

All real issues the US is not great at handling and all things that QC has had sugary "well we do our best" stories around. Jeph clearly wants to complain about injustice he sees and, unlike most people who just share and re-share Facebook posts, he has a platform.

For clarity, I am not American, but neither do I feel that my own country has these issues sorted either. I, too, feel the need to shout angrily into the void.

All of those issues are important, and I agree with you (and Jeph) on most of them. However I don't think Mr Butts Disease has enough writing chops to actually examine them beyond a superficial level. Especially when the undertext of tomorrow's strip is, and I quote,

Spoiler

Show

billionaires should be illegal imo

He's addressing a real issue, but that opinion is short-sighted at best.

[Evil DM Mark3]

He's addressing a real issue, but that opinion is short-sighted at best.

I agree with his ability to handle them is, middling at best. However of all of his opinions, the undertext for tomorrow's strip is by far the one I agree with the most. I don't want to derail this thread with politics, so I will leave it there. Can explain myself in an IM if you like.

[Comrade]

You say ham fisted, I say painfully obvious.

EDIT: So I think this may need elaboration. You see QC has always been a wish fulfilment slice of life comic, sure it has dark moments and drama, but the result is always a net positive. Marten has a breakup, both he and his partner re-evaluate their lives, become better people and get new, better for them, partners and stay friends. Character has a drinking problem which hits a major crisis, they get help, their friends support them and they get a new job and a new romantic partner.

I think over the last five or so years Jeph has become more and more aware of the serious and painful chronic problems the USA has as a country and has wanted to express his anger and frustration with them. I mean look at this list of things QC has addressed or referenced over the last few years (no particular order):

• Trans rights & body dismorphia
• Neuro-atypicality
• prisoner re-entry
• police corruption/general abuse of power
• systemic racism
• income inequality
• Veteran neglect
• mass surveillance
• substance abuse

All real issues the US is not great at handling and all things that QC has had sugary "well we do our best" stories around. Jeph clearly wants to complain about injustice he sees and, unlike most people who just share and re-share Facebook posts, he has a platform.

For clarity, I am not American, but neither do I feel that my own country has these issues sorted either. I, too, feel the need to shout angrily into the void.

I'm all for artists using their creative vehicles to express their views on societal issues, but Jeph Jacques just ain't good at it. He approaches social commentary like a hammer approaches a nail and winds up with bad writing that deadens the impact of whatever point he was trying to make. And I'm saying that as somebody who's on board with a few of those points (although not all of them, especially some of the more repugnant ones he's prone to expressing via social media). It's not like he can't write well, but sometimes he puts his preaching hat on and the writing loses any semblance of subtlety or cleverness.

The whole point of social commentary through art is that the art acts as a kind of middleman, keeping the reader invested by being entertaining as well as expressive and informative. If it's not actually good art, then you might as well just write an essay about whatever social ill you're tackling (or just stand on a street corner yelling 'JEFF BEZOS SUCKS', which I feel is basically what QC is doing right now).

[Eldan]

He's unsubtle, but he's still better than a lot of webcomics I've seen.

[georgie_leech]

He's unsubtle, but he's still better than a lot of webcomics I've seen.

Not a high bar to clear mind you

The funny thing for me is, I started reading when someone shared a few of the comics that touched on some potentially rough subjects, and found them to be a nice take that managed to be halfway subtle about them. I found that rather nice. I guess he's gone into Some Anvils Need to be Dropped mode? (Tvtropes name not linked but verbatim if anyone wants to go make their browser tabs cry)

I keep reading because being written by Yelling Bird hasn't turned me off enough yet. It still has its moments.

[AvatarVecna]

She's been that mouthpiece since she resigned. Nothing new there.

I mean, when she started out, she was still a cop. At the time she came across as (at best) a rather incompetent and jumpy cop who meant well, and later shifted to focus on "well-meaning" when Jeph realized he wanted to say something about cops. But from the beginning, she was a cop-shaped Obstacle as far as the plot was concerned, an outside threat to the newfound stability in Faye's life.

[Traab]

I mean, when she started out, she was still a cop. At the time she came across as (at best) a rather incompetent and jumpy cop who meant well, and later shifted to focus on "well-meaning" when Jeph realized he wanted to say something about cops. But from the beginning, she was a cop-shaped Obstacle as far as the plot was concerned, an outside threat to the newfound stability in Faye's life.

Yeah it kinda hurts her well meaning and honest image when you remember she basically tried to strong arm faye into ratting on CW. Something along the lines of "Oh we dont care much about you as we have bigger fish to fry, but that can change if you dont help out." Of course this was, I think, before CW went full mustache twirling evil.

[mucat]

Yeah it kinda hurts her well meaning and honest image when you remember she basically tried to strong arm faye into ratting on CW. Something along the lines of "Oh we dont care much about you as we have bigger fish to fry, but that can change if you dont help out." Of course this was, I think, before CW went full mustache twirling evil.

That part, though, is just standard police work; it's not considered abusive or corrupt. As far as Roko knew (and she wasn't really wrong), Faye was breaking the law, and CW much egregiously so. So you press the little crooks to turn coat and give evidence against the big crooks, in return for which you don't come down as hard as you might have on the little guys.

It would be different if Roko were strongarming an innocent bystander who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. "Help me gather more evidence, and I won't claim that you were involved here." That would be bad-cop territory, even if she knew the bystander could be useful to her case.

[Keltest]

I agree with his ability to handle them is, middling at best. However of all of his opinions, the undertext for tomorrow's strip is by far the one I agree with the most. I don't want to derail this thread with politics, so I will leave it there. Can explain myself in an IM if you like.

I think this should come with a caveat. Jeph is bad at talking about societal issues. When it comes to personal issues like alcoholism or depression, he actually knows what he's talking about and can write interesting stories from it. Its pretty clear when he switches to Armchair mode in his writing because suddenly all the problems start having fairly simple and obvious evil causes that should just be Figured Out.

[Evil DM Mark3]

I think this should come with a caveat. Jeph is bad at talking about societal issues. When it comes to personal issues like alcoholism or depression, he actually knows what he's talking about and can write interesting stories from it. Its pretty clear when he switches to Armchair mode in his writing because suddenly all the problems start having fairly simple and obvious evil causes that should just be Figured Out.

I think you have your finger on it, even more so than you said. I think the problem is that he views societal issues mostly though the same lens he sees personal issues. Roko leaving because the american police is a dysfunctional and unreasonable institution is fine for Roko and her conscience, but it doesn't fix the issues with the police.

[Rodin]

Yeah it kinda hurts her well meaning and honest image when you remember she basically tried to strong arm faye into ratting on CW. Something along the lines of "Oh we dont care much about you as we have bigger fish to fry, but that can change if you dont help out." Of course this was, I think, before CW went full mustache twirling evil.

That still bugs the heck out of me. Corpse Witch was really interesting as a jerk with a heart of jerk who could not be faulted directly on her actual positions. She got mad at Faye for using company property without asking permission, got mad at her for bringing her friends to an illegal operation, and told Bubbles that people outside would be racist towards her and got proven right. She was the sort of antagonist I like in a story - one who has a strong foundation for her positions while still acting in a way that made her easy to hate.

And then because Jeph wanted to move the story in a different direction he turned her into a villain that required a literal Deus Ex Machina to get rid of. Yeesh.

[Keltest]

That still bugs the heck out of me. Corpse Witch was really interesting as a jerk with a heart of jerk who could not be faulted directly on her actual positions. She got mad at Faye for using company property without asking permission, got mad at her for bringing her friends to an illegal operation, and told Bubbles that people outside would be racist towards her and got proven right. She was the sort of antagonist I like in a story - one who has a strong foundation for her positions while still acting in a way that made her easy to hate.

And then because Jeph wanted to move the story in a different direction he turned her into a villain that required a literal Deus Ex Machina to get rid of. Yeesh.

That's the especially vexing part here. Spookybot didn't need to exist as a solution to the problem, the problem was escalated to that point to force open some room for Spookybot. Jeph had plenty of ways to proceed with solving the problem right up until he said "nope, none of these solutions will work, gotta use the Deus Ex Machina."

[Max_Killjoy]

I agree with his ability to handle them is, middling at best. However of all of his opinions, the undertext for tomorrow's strip is by far the one I agree with the most. I don't want to derail this thread with politics, so I will leave it there. Can explain myself in an IM if you like.

Kinda late for that given your post just prior.

[Max_Killjoy]

"Wealth hoarding is a disease".

Really... Jeph... come on.

[Felius]

"Wealth hoarding is a disease".

Really... Jeph... come on.

I'm not even disapointed with him, it just more confirmation. I mean, it's a bit more stupid than the rest of his political commentary (outside fiction land, the wealthy don't keep billions just sitting still. It's all in the form of assets that are essentially "working" to oversimplify things, be it in something they directly control or not (a company where they are the CEO vs owning a minority of the equity of a third company, or investing through bank or other investment manager). Basically speaking, the only type of entity that actually has that kind of money laying around "doing nothing" are banks, and only because they are legally mandated to have at least some liquidity on hand to cover their deposits and allow their day to day operations to work without breaking at any unexpected financial operation.

Rich people are not Scrooge McDuck. They do not keep giant buildings full of currency around to swim on. That's unproductive and wealthy people do not stay wealthy by letting their money sit.

Now, I suppose there might be some ultra rich idiots who inherited their money and decided to just put it everything on their checking accounts, but even then the money is not just "sitting", the bank is just more restricted in what it can do with it compared to less liquid accounts.

The only types that have really large amounts of physical currency laying around are big deal criminals and rich people from places where there's no rule of law to the point banks can't really operate. And the latter are probably criminals too, because without at least influence and ties to those doing the violence, they wouldn't be able to keep their cash.

Other than that? There's maybe the absolute rulers of oil-rich but otherwise destitute countries, but then the "currency" laying around is more likely to be about conspicuous consumption and making sure to show off their wealth. Plus no one disagrees they are *******s.

[LeSwordfish]

I'm not gonna say he's being the most eloquent social writer about it, but I agree with him, unironically ban billionaires.