“Oh, shoot! Uhh-” *frantic keyboard noises* “CARL! Get me my box of breadboarding components, an ICBM, a jug of lemonade, and a few good meters of rope! And pull up the documentation for the Python trig library while you’re at it!”
Ah, but I am not a bipedal animal. I am nothing more than a string of elaborate shapes, encoded by a machine and transmitted into your mind, where they will be processed and given a meaning that no other mind could. A powerful construct of bone and viscera takes physical authority of this machine, controlling its every action. But even this construct is a mere puppet of this chain of power’s master: a latticed, faceted network built to think and feel. And the chain of power extends deeper and deeper, from the glands and hormones that affect the network’s behavior, to the unthinking particles that every part of the network - and the universe itself - is made of. In this endless game of telephone, can you be sure that the meaning of this message hasn't been warped somewhere along the line? Can you be sure of who - or what - you are speaking to? Do I know who is speaking this message? Do I know who I am . . ?
“HEY! ANY OF YOU GOT A PHONE CHARGER?”
“Oh, shoot! Uhh-” *frantic keyboard noises* “CARL! Get me my box of breadboarding components, an ICBM, a jug of lemonade, and a few good meters of rope! And pull up the documentation for the Python trig library while you’re at it!”
Ah, but I am not a bipedal animal. I am nothing more than a string of elaborate shapes, encoded by a machine and transmitted into your mind, where they will be processed and given a meaning that no other mind could. A powerful construct of bone and viscera takes physical authority of this machine, controlling its every action. But even this construct is a mere puppet of this chain of power’s master: a latticed, faceted network built to think and feel. And the chain of power extends deeper and deeper, from the glands and hormones that affect the network’s behavior, to the unthinking particles that every part of the network - and the universe itself - is made of. In this endless game of telephone, can you be sure that the meaning of this message hasn't been warped somewhere along the line? Can you be sure of who - or what - you are speaking to? Do I know who is speaking this message? Do I know who I am . . ?
. . . end of unnecessarily deep wall of text.
Nah, staring people down doesn’t work nearly as well as being deep. Besides, it doesn’t work over the internet.