Skin Horse

By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
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2019-10-17
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2019-10-17

by shaenon on October 17, 2019 at 12:01 am
Chapter: A Life in the Woods
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Discussion (33) ¬

  1. Urlance Woolsbane
    October 17, 2019, 12:02 am | # | Reply

    Death squads come and go, but Tea-Time is eternal.

  2. Alphaghoul
    October 17, 2019, 12:08 am | # | Reply

    I know it’s just surreal but a hivemind with leadership? Isn’t that a contradiction?

    • Regret
      October 17, 2019, 12:28 am | # | Reply

      I was thinking the same thing. This strip destroyed everything that was interesting about collective intelligences, instead of being a critique of our anthropocentric assumption that a mind needs a single brain leading to the idea that all sorts of things can be sentient, we are now only left with the traditional ‘the queen bee controls the hive’ which is a lot less philosophically interesting.

      • Schismatism
        October 17, 2019, 1:23 am | # | Reply

        I’m not so sure about that. Remember, in Figgs and Phantoms, Gavotte was represented not as one brain, but as a collective of different figures, working both together and at cross purposes. ‘Melissa’, the seeming head who got Gavotte as a whole out of the extirpation sim, specifically told Virginia that she didn’t lead per se, simply facilitated communication between hive members.

        This could well be the purpose of such a queen, rather than to be the ‘brain’ of the group. (And also, the reason why supersedure to a new and immature queen led to the loss of coherence.)

        Another such example of the hive mind is Whimsy, whose decision to take a central form was primarily to facilitate communication. Her parts, thoughts, etc. are still those moving pieces of the corporation, that is to say communication between its employees and shareholders.

        Because we, the readers, are not party to the modus of the hiveminds, we can only speculate based around what they tell other members of the cast, which I imagine is parsed down to a level which our much more singular brains can understand. Well, beyond the difficulty of translating several hundred individual dancing bees, of course. (We might need a chorus director to pull that off.)

      • Dranorter
        October 17, 2019, 9:02 am | # | Reply

        A hivemind has conflicted motivations and sub-motivations just like a human, but in the case of a hivemind, computation takes place in a more distributed way. Imagine the ‘queen’ as a moving wave within the dance.

      • Dr. Steve
        October 17, 2019, 10:00 am | # | Reply

        Yes – rather than having “A” leader for the hivemind, “Leadership” is an “emergent property” thus is may still be distributed. You might think of it as similar to having a “ruling coalition” or clique – expect that instead of being a ruling minority, it is a ruling supermajority. Conflicting or revolutionary sentiments are expected to pop up on the fringes of the collective mind, as Dranorter says. If the new ideas are good (such as tea) they spread across the collective. If not, they are viewed as revolutionary and stay on the fringes (perhaps, in time and changing circumstances, they will become the norm). In that way, we may see our own nation/planet as a hive mind. Only not so well organized. Oh, and don’t forget Gaia (from Asimov’s Foundation series).

      • NamesAreSilly
        April 4, 2020, 9:42 am | # | Reply

        Gavotte is, if I remember correctly, a gestalt entity. Using the definition from Red Dwarf (who seemingly coined that particular term): “A gestalt entity is a being that is made up of more than one consciousness, blended together to become much greater than the sum of its part.”

        Personally I find that *far* more interesting than a classical Hive Mind/distributed intelligence.

        • awgiedawgie
          April 4, 2020, 12:03 pm | # | Reply

          I wouldn’t give Red Dwarf credit for coining that.

          The word “gestalt” has been used for a hundred years in the English language to refer to a collection where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It has been used in reference to armies, sports teams, and yes, even beehives.

          Red Dwarf may have used it together with the word “entity”, but that’s superfluous here, since “gestalt” already refers to the whole, singular collection – in this case, a swarm of bees.

    • K. Iceclaw
      October 17, 2019, 12:33 am | # | Reply

      Heck I argue with myself on a fairly regular basis, and I manage that from inside one skull. I’d take it to mean whichever set of ‘brain cells’ has the upper hand at the moment. Like sleepy me is lobbying for going to bed right now.

      • Dr. Steve
        October 17, 2019, 9:55 am | # | Reply

        Yeah… sometimes I argue with myself and LOSE those arguments!

    • Barbara K
      October 17, 2019, 10:18 am | # | Reply

      Bees communicate using several modalities, responding to smell, touch, taste, sound, temperature, humidity, movement patterns, etc. The interaction results in a superordinate “consciousness “. The queen and her “attendants” are one communication nexus (the”dance floor” is another one). If the queen isn’t interacting optimally, things do not proceed as efficiently as one would like. If extreme imbalances are detected, extreme measures will be taken. E.g., if insecticide-poison is accidentally brought in and contaminates the brood, mass destruction will ensue; “public-health” workers will destroy and remove all contaminated workers, comb, and larvae, and then the “public-health death squads” who became contaminated by doing the dirty work will themselves be extirpated. (I’ve seen piles of hundreds of carcasses and larvae outside a hive after my neighbors sprayed their fruit trees.) Some purges may be in response to something as simple as a change of season. Every autumn, the workers turn on all of their large drone brothers who they have treated like rock stars all summer, and evict them from the hive (they’re no longer needed to spread the hive’s genetic material, since no mating flights occur in winter). I’ve seen a small worker grab a drone twice her size from the outside landing board, and fly off with him, dropping him several feet away.
      What’s “leadership”? My favorite definition involves providing the group with whatever it needs at a given time.

  3. K. Iceclaw
    October 17, 2019, 12:35 am | # | Reply

    In theory, one ought to disapprove. In practice it’s anasigma and they started it.

    • awgiedawgie
      October 17, 2019, 12:46 am | # | Reply

      Seriously. They were Anasigma death squads. They were practically asking to be destroyed. It would have been rude of the Cypress not to oblige.

      • BMunro
        October 17, 2019, 2:34 am | # | Reply

        As death squads, they’re quite good at dying!

        • D. Walker
          October 17, 2019, 12:12 pm | # | Reply

          “We are the Judean People’s Front! Crack Suicide Squad!”

  4. awgiedawgie
    October 17, 2019, 12:43 am | # | Reply

    If it helps (and even if it doesn’t), I like both coffee and tea – just not at the same time.

    • M. Alan Thomas II
      October 17, 2019, 11:58 pm | # | Reply

      I don’t like coffee, which is why I drink it when I wake up; otherwise I’m inclined to luxuriate until I’m late for work!

  5. BMunro
    October 17, 2019, 1:51 am | # | Reply

    It’s called “changing your mind”, Gavotte.

  6. sweetuncleLESLIE
    October 17, 2019, 2:23 am | # | Reply

    I believe Machiavelli’s ‘Prince’ has something to say about which form of government
    is easy and which difficult to ‘take over’.

    A great woman once told me, “Drink Tea, you become a gentleman. Drink coffee, a barbarian.” She was Chinese, and may have been referring to the parts of the world which produce tea or coffee.

    I prefer coffee. I accept good tea and intelligent companionship gladly.
    I hope Mama Swamp ‘hung ’em up’ with the Spanish moss, draping them decoratively about the upper branches.

    • soft
      October 17, 2019, 9:01 am | # | Reply

      So what does it mean if you don’t drink tea or coffee? Me personally, I don’t like either. Don’t like energy drinks, too. But I like soda.

      • Carl Fishman
        October 17, 2019, 12:21 pm | # | Reply

        An awful lot of soda/pop/coke/tonic/carbonated beverages are consumed in the real world. Yet they get surprisingly little respect (or even attention) in fiction. Not quite sure why. (I drink a lot of Coke myself.)

  7. h4rrish4wk
    October 17, 2019, 3:02 am | # | Reply

    HERESY! Tea is the ONLY CORRECT HOT BEVERAGE (with exceptions for Hot Chocolate during Winter, extremely rainy weather, or when in need of serotonin lifts – blanket permission given for all those under 12 years old).

    • awgiedawgie
      October 17, 2019, 3:45 am | # | Reply

      I drink coffee when I’m out, primarily because it’s more readily available in restaurants here. But I make tea for myself when I’m at home. I prefer Earl Grey, but English Breakfast is palatable.

      • waynezombie
        October 17, 2019, 10:40 am | # | Reply

        Iced Earl Grey FTW!

        Brew a batch, pour it over ice. Amazing flavour profile!

        • s854
          October 17, 2019, 12:05 pm | # | Reply

          Bees are cold blooded, though… Or at least heterothermic.

          I’m in the UK, so a typical restaurant/cafe will have at least a few types of tea (maybe “ordinary” tea, a decaffeinated version, Earl Grey and two or three herbal/fruit varieties), as well as a coffee machine and hot chocolate.

          • awgiedawgie
            October 17, 2019, 1:09 pm | #

            At my local eatery here in the States, I could order tea, but they have an appalling selection. Last time I got some, they had something that was labeled English Breakfast, but it was a horrid facsimile. I could take my own tea, and simply order hot water, but that’s too much bother (plus I’d never remember to take it with me).

            I used to drink a lot of hot chocolate, but after an accident and the resultant extended hospital visit several years ago, I can’t drink it any more. I don’t know what they did to me, but ever since then, any chocolate beverage of any kind triggers an instant and unbearable headache.

    • serpentrose
      October 17, 2019, 11:26 am | # | Reply

      Have you never experienced the joy of mulled cider or wine?

    • Robert Nowall
      October 17, 2019, 4:01 pm | # | Reply

      For caffeine and sugar, I’d recommend a cold beverage—Mountain Dew!

    • Barbara K
      October 17, 2019, 4:22 pm | # | Reply

      I had an anthropology professor who contended that the “civilization” (i.e., development of city-based life) of man was first accomplished because women learned to brew beer.

      • Shadowmehr
        October 17, 2019, 9:57 pm | # | Reply

        Okay, I can see said professor’s point. There could be, and probably has been, worse reasons for collective effort.

  8. Robert Nowall
    October 17, 2019, 7:24 am | # | Reply

    Don’t count much on Anasigma’s death squads. Remember the guys they sent out to guard Dr. Lee at the Idaho Notary Temple? They enjoyed being captured a little too much…

  9. Doug Relyea
    October 17, 2019, 9:34 pm | # | Reply

    It can never be said Anasigma was not an adherent to Truth in Advertising.

  10. Knuckles
    February 11, 2022, 3:57 am | # | Reply

    Well defending yourself against Death Squads can hardly be considered a controversial thing.

    Whereas I can think of thousands of people who would balk at coffee vs tea.

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