Arguably. But I find that cast pages for comics are rarely totally complete in terms of the more fringe characters. It’s just too hard for creators to keep up, I suppose.
He was featured in Looking Glass Land, and faked his own death at the end. I think this is the first time we’ve seen him since then, so it’s been 4 1/2 years.
“Okay, apes, you’re smart now! Stop going to war with other tribes of apes over stupid shit, stop procreating through violence and coercion, stop rewarding thugs and bullies who rule as tyrants, and stop being irrationally angry and emotional balls of aggression and cruelty.”
Human level intelligence, but still a cat. It’s very anthropocentric to assume that giving a non-human human level intelligence automatically means it will have a human personality or thought process. It’s been one of the long running themes of the comic.
There’s a line I read a long time ago that was something like “Animal intelligence researchers ask if the cat can build a better mousetrap, forgetting that it doesn’t need to”.
It’s not all instinct, the trying to look big seems to be a conscious tactic. We had one cat, Moose (big fluffy cat), when challenged by another tomcat would make himself small, flatten himself against the ground and growl.
Seemed to confuse the other cat, but they’d eventually take the bait and pounce on him. He’d roll over real fast and be out top, biting. The other tom would scramble out of there and run for his life, it was all over in a couple seconds.
In my experience (we’ve owned nearly 40 cats over the years), puffing up to look bigger is the predominant instinctive behaviour. All of our cats have done it.
In a pinch, a can of pineapple will work, although they’ll be disappointed once you set it down for them to sniff. Still, better a sulky cat than an angry one.
And I thought he meant Artie in the second panel. 🙂
I don’t think Jeff and Shaneon are trying to give us an imaginative look at non-human minds: they have sentient animals acting in often absurd instinct-driven ways because it’s _funny_. (See, Gary Larson).
Sounds right to me. The rationalists are fascinated by truly alien intelligences like the paperclip optimizer and evolution, though of course many others (Solaris, anyone?) tried for unusually alien aliens. Progressives and allegorists usually go in the opposite direction, with the aliens being something like stand-ins for human cultures.
I don’t even think it’s wrong to treat smart animals how Shaenon and Jeff do. Until like 30 years ago, The Experts kept warning against anthropomorphizing, which sounds fine in the abstract but mainly it involved a lot of authoritatively claiming, “Animals don’t do ” and turning out to be wrong. They should have done more anthropomorphizing. Even dumb vertebrates don’t seem that alien.
1: Solaris — oof. I asked a Polish Lem fan whether Solaris made any more sense in the original language and she said no, that one is just confusing. (I like most of Lem’s other work).
2: Anthropomophization — non-human vertebrates might not think like humans or have human motives, but yeah, there are definitely recognizable moods, desires, thought processes. For domesticated species with a big incentive to communicate with us, even more so. My mother used to say, of her dog, “i think Pepper is trying to talk to us — can you believe it?” and my reaction was, “Of course she’s trying to talk to us; dogs and cats _do_ that, and some are better at it than others.
2.5: Tagentially but because the memory was triggered — Many years ago, a bunch of friends had pins made that said, “Anthropomorphizers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but Mr. Dignity!”
3: It has been said that the most alien intelligence on Earth (from a human standpoint) is probably the octopus. And even there, there are behaviours we can recognize.
4: If mentioning a friend’s book isn’t crossing a line (no hard feelings if it’s deemed to do so and this comment gets deleted), Karen Osborne’s _Architects_of_Memory_ has alien aliens, not so alien as to make their thinking unintelligible to humans, but different enough to lead to fatal mis-assumptions, for a complete human misunderstanding of what the Vai actually _are_, and for communication to only be possible under certain unusual circumstances. Less alien than C.J. Cherryh’s t’ca or knnn, but more alien than 99% of SF aliens. (And note that even Cherryh’s methane-breathers manage to cooperate somehow with oxygen-breathers like the Hani for trade and joint operation of space stations, so maybe “more alien/less alien” isn’t a linear comparison because that suggests that in some ways they must be less alien than the Vai in _Architects_.
Aye! And also in their holding grudges, recognizing individual humans, and squirting water at scientists they don’t like. Either some things are really universal, or “on Earth” puts a huge constraint on “most alien”. 🙂 Assuming the statement that octopodes are the most alien intelligences is correct, anyhow.
(The story of finding evidence an octopus had been practicing its aim at night to learn how to compensate for the optical shift at the water/air boundary, before squirting its most-hated human scientist when he arrived in the morning, was the one that drove home to me how much forethought and planning octopodes are capable of. And that’s oh so recognizable behaviour, to us humans.)
Oh, Sergio, you are going to have a wonderfully horrible time of it soon.
Robert Nowall and Awgie Dawgie called it right! Sergio appears! Things are gonna get hot in here…
Don’t give me any credit for that. It was all Robert.
And I misjudged his skin tone, apparently. Good call, Robert.
Apparently, being on the run does wonders for your melanin.
Oh hey, it’s Sergio! I forgot he faked his death.
I’d forgotten him entirely. We need a character guide/wiki…
That cast page needs to get updated.
Arguably. But I find that cast pages for comics are rarely totally complete in terms of the more fringe characters. It’s just too hard for creators to keep up, I suppose.
Well in a comic that has been running 13 years so far, it’s easy to forget the secondary characters who don’t get seen frequently.
I mean, seriously… how along ago did we last see Sergio? Has it been years?
Unless I’m mistaken, he last showed up in Choose, which was back before they invented colour.
He was featured in Looking Glass Land, and faked his own death at the end. I think this is the first time we’ve seen him since then, so it’s been 4 1/2 years.
Kudos to Robert Nowall!
Look, it was just a thought.
I usually get spooked when my guesses turn out right.
Robert Know-All!
+1!
Hey hey hey! Back in the box while you’re on BART buddy. And don’t try that therapy animal b.s.
My therapy animal is a saltwater crocodile. He removes many sources of commuting stress.
Well, that’s one way of cutting down on pet food costs . . .
So human speech skills but basic cat intelligence or lower.
I think a bit smarter than that. More like how Sweetheart is intelligent but still acts and thinks like a dog.
You can give them intelligence, but you can’t eliminate instinct.
Humans sure are proof of that!
“Okay, apes, you’re smart now! Stop going to war with other tribes of apes over stupid shit, stop procreating through violence and coercion, stop rewarding thugs and bullies who rule as tyrants, and stop being irrationally angry and emotional balls of aggression and cruelty.”
“lol no u”
The problem is that unjust wars, violence, coercion, tyranny, aggression, and cruelty are all failures to be good, not failures to be smart.
Human level intelligence, but still a cat. It’s very anthropocentric to assume that giving a non-human human level intelligence automatically means it will have a human personality or thought process. It’s been one of the long running themes of the comic.
There’s a line I read a long time ago that was something like “Animal intelligence researchers ask if the cat can build a better mousetrap, forgetting that it doesn’t need to”.
Artie! C’mon out! You’ll like this guy.
True. Artie does have a thing for slim, bronzed, Latin men.
And Sergio’s papers on early 20th Century Venezuelan poets was probably a big turn on, too.
He also has no pants.
IT’S HAPPENIGN!!! IT’S AHPPENING!!!
By which you mean Sergiartie? Or should that be ‘Argio’?
Say, are cats and gerbils allowed on the BART?
Why not?
https://www.lovemeow.com/feline-1708143982.html
Ikebukuro?
Well I suppose it’s par for the course in a town that sports it’s own dulahan
The cat’s ears are still up, so it’s probably a ploy for more skritches.
It’s not all instinct, the trying to look big seems to be a conscious tactic. We had one cat, Moose (big fluffy cat), when challenged by another tomcat would make himself small, flatten himself against the ground and growl.
Seemed to confuse the other cat, but they’d eventually take the bait and pounce on him. He’d roll over real fast and be out top, biting. The other tom would scramble out of there and run for his life, it was all over in a couple seconds.
That was intended as a reply to awgiedawgie’s remark about instinct.
In my experience (we’ve owned nearly 40 cats over the years), puffing up to look bigger is the predominant instinctive behaviour. All of our cats have done it.
Better make myself look big!
.
.
.
Fearsome! I was Fearsome!
Sounds like you and I jumped to the same Red Dwarf reference!
To be fair, it was Cat’s first appearance. ^_^
Also, in one of our local D&D games, a mermaid friend is playing a Tabaxi based on Cat.
That sounds like a fun character!
My favorite Cat scene is him walking around the spaceship, touching everything and saying “Mine,” because that is the cattest thing ever.
This is definitely a conversation I’ve had with my cat before.
“This is mine… and this is mine…”
Quick, open a can of fancy cat food! it’s the safest way to defuse an cat in ‘scary puffed’ mode.
In a pinch, a can of pineapple will work, although they’ll be disappointed once you set it down for them to sniff. Still, better a sulky cat than an angry one.
And I thought he meant Artie in the second panel. 🙂
I don’t think Jeff and Shaneon are trying to give us an imaginative look at non-human minds: they have sentient animals acting in often absurd instinct-driven ways because it’s _funny_. (See, Gary Larson).
Great… now I have a craving for whipped cream.
Sounds right to me. The rationalists are fascinated by truly alien intelligences like the paperclip optimizer and evolution, though of course many others (Solaris, anyone?) tried for unusually alien aliens. Progressives and allegorists usually go in the opposite direction, with the aliens being something like stand-ins for human cultures.
I don’t even think it’s wrong to treat smart animals how Shaenon and Jeff do. Until like 30 years ago, The Experts kept warning against anthropomorphizing, which sounds fine in the abstract but mainly it involved a lot of authoritatively claiming, “Animals don’t do ” and turning out to be wrong. They should have done more anthropomorphizing. Even dumb vertebrates don’t seem that alien.
All right, I realize I’m overgeneralizing here. Other experts anthropomorphized like crazy.
(Let’s see if this posts in the right spot…)
1: Solaris — oof. I asked a Polish Lem fan whether Solaris made any more sense in the original language and she said no, that one is just confusing. (I like most of Lem’s other work).
2: Anthropomophization — non-human vertebrates might not think like humans or have human motives, but yeah, there are definitely recognizable moods, desires, thought processes. For domesticated species with a big incentive to communicate with us, even more so. My mother used to say, of her dog, “i think Pepper is trying to talk to us — can you believe it?” and my reaction was, “Of course she’s trying to talk to us; dogs and cats _do_ that, and some are better at it than others.
2.5: Tagentially but because the memory was triggered — Many years ago, a bunch of friends had pins made that said, “Anthropomorphizers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but Mr. Dignity!”
3: It has been said that the most alien intelligence on Earth (from a human standpoint) is probably the octopus. And even there, there are behaviours we can recognize.
4: If mentioning a friend’s book isn’t crossing a line (no hard feelings if it’s deemed to do so and this comment gets deleted), Karen Osborne’s _Architects_of_Memory_ has alien aliens, not so alien as to make their thinking unintelligible to humans, but different enough to lead to fatal mis-assumptions, for a complete human misunderstanding of what the Vai actually _are_, and for communication to only be possible under certain unusual circumstances. Less alien than C.J. Cherryh’s t’ca or knnn, but more alien than 99% of SF aliens. (And note that even Cherryh’s methane-breathers manage to cooperate somehow with oxygen-breathers like the Hani for trade and joint operation of space stations, so maybe “more alien/less alien” isn’t a linear comparison because that suggests that in some ways they must be less alien than the Vai in _Architects_.
Re 3. Octopodes exhibit very human behavior in their many successful attempts to get the hell out of Dodge.
Aye! And also in their holding grudges, recognizing individual humans, and squirting water at scientists they don’t like. Either some things are really universal, or “on Earth” puts a huge constraint on “most alien”. 🙂 Assuming the statement that octopodes are the most alien intelligences is correct, anyhow.
(The story of finding evidence an octopus had been practicing its aim at night to learn how to compensate for the optical shift at the water/air boundary, before squirting its most-hated human scientist when he arrived in the morning, was the one that drove home to me how much forethought and planning octopodes are capable of. And that’s oh so recognizable behaviour, to us humans.)
Oh no Cinnamon, you’re huge!