This plays during the end credits

It was more in response to your comments. I don’t think anyone has a problem with useful FOSS alternatives per se.

So, lick the boot instead of resisting you say?

Edit: actually, read zerakith’s comment instead.

Construction workers push wheelbarrows. This particular feature of the image is not mysterious at all and does not need explaining. In the crop circle interpretation, the wheels of the wheelbarrows make the circles in the ground. That’s why they’re in the picture.

You have a short personal observation from 1996 which happens to be published in a newspaper. You like sources? Here’s some sources on manmade crop circles that make explicit that the phenomenon was connected to new age beliefs in the popular imagination:

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/10/world/2-jovial-con-men-demystify-those-crop-circles-in-britain.html https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/crop-circles-the-art-of-the-hoax-2524283/ https://www.msn.com/en-sg/lifestyle/travel/the-fascinating-history-of-crop-circles/ss-AA1dFqlU https://pure.knaw.nl/ws/files/480768/Meder26.pdf

Some contemporary news clips of Doug&Dave:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzvuqs9Bf7Q https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XkGbnUXfh4U

Dowsing, however is old folk magic:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/dowsing http://dowsing-research.net/dowsing/articles/Dowsing_from_the_Late_Middle_Ages.pdf https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17532-why-dowsing-makes-perfect-sense/

I could go on, but let’s not.

I think my initial interpretation has now been proven correct.

Well, I certainly disagree, but I doubt we can find any common ground here. You seem content with any tenuous connection between concepts to fit your interpretation.

I don’t see an alternative explanation for the characteristics of the cartoon.

It’s definitely cryptic. I’ve suggested that it’s a reference to crop circles elsewhere in this thread, which is still the best interpretation I could find even if that’s not particularly satisfactory either.

In 1991, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley took credit for creating a lot of crop circles in Britain, using ropes and planks. It was a well known story and a cultural meme, even if people didn’t know about Doug & Dave specifically they knew that the crop circles that New Agers believed were messages from aliens actually were created by pranksters. The construction workers are walking around in circles so that the tracks from the wheelbarrows create…mud circles, I guess.

But as I said, this interpretation doesn’t feel satisfactory either, it’s just the best one yet. I’d love to hear a better idea.

No one seems to get this one, at least on the internet. The most likely interpretation I could find anywhere is that he’s referencing crop circles. Which kinda works, but also not…I’m not sure that’s it either.

I mean, if you bend over backwards, sure. But the idea that Gary Larson would expect readers in 1993 to associate the phrase “New Age construction workers” with dowsing practices – instead of actually using the term “construction workers dowsing”, or something – seems unreasonable. Plus it’s not funny at all.

Edit: just for reference, the word “dowsing” does not appear even once in this very long wikipedia article about New Age.

1. They are very specifically walking in circles, not staggering around randomly
2. Dowsing is not a New Age thing at all, there was a man in my grandfather’s village that did it and the practice is a lot older than that

Thanks, I needed that

Yes, the background pattern and colours should be chosen to actively interfere with reading any text on the page. For example, it’s great if there’s large patches of black in the background and the text is also black.

Flashing is also key. A lot of text should be flashing and there should be unreadable ticker tape text at random places.

deleted by creator

OK, I’m imagining it now.

Social media as a public utility

Well, if you experience consciousness, that’s what consciousness is. As in, the word and concept “consciousness” means being conscious, the way you experience being conscious right now (unless of course you’re unconscious as I write this…). Free will does not enter into it at the basic level, nothing says you’re not conscious if you do not have free will. So what would it really mean to say consciousness is an illusion? Who and what is having the illusion? Ironically, your statement assumes the existence of a higher form of consciousness that is not illusory (which may very well exist but how would we ever know?). Simply because a fake something presupposes a real something that the fake thing is not.

So let’s say we could be certain that consciousness purely is the product of material processes in the brain. You still experience consciousness, that does not make it illusory. Perhaps this seems like I’m arguing semantics, but the important takeaway is rather that these kinds of arguments invariably fall apart under scrutiny. Consciousness is actually the only thing we can be absolutely certain exists; in this, Descartes was right.

So, it’s meaningful to say that a language model could “fake” consciousness - trick us into believing it is an “experiencing entity” (or whatever your definition would be) by giving convincing answers in a conversation - but not really meaningful to say that actual conscious beings somehow fake consciousness. Or, that “their brains” (somehow suddenly acting apart from the entity) trick them.