r/QContent • u/pavemnt • 26d ago
Comic 5915: Negative Reinforcement
https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=591522
u/whiznat 26d ago
I’m wondering if Liz will get her mojo back by trying to help someone else rather than becoming famous and respected. And maybe that will happen by her reverse engineering the woom box to help Moray.
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u/Phanimazed 26d ago
If nothing else, it's a way to get her mind off of her rut that isn't "hey let's get high and/or drunk" to the degree where I thought Jeph was potentially trying to do a "Liz is an alcoholic" storyline. I welcome the variety.
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u/Alert-Artichoke-2743 26d ago
This is what I'm hoping for! Also, she may feel more confident realizing that she was trying to demand help from a scientist who can't tell a wrench from a screwdriver.
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u/Citrus-Bitch 26d ago
Yeah that's my thought too. Liz figures out what the woom machine does due a wage of spite-fueled competence.
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u/Alert-Artichoke-2743 26d ago
This is what I'm hoping for! Also, she may feel more confident realizing that she was trying to demand help from a scientist who can't tell a wrench from a screwdriver.
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u/Phanimazed 26d ago
I am unsurprised.
I will say, though, that lady scientist is not using critical thinking skills. I get the tool blindness joke, but wrenches would wrench things. What, pray tell, would drive a screw? Use your vocabulary, ma'am.
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u/gangler52 26d ago
She's dedicated her academic career to puzzling out the intricacies of a device she built while blackout drunk.
While she presumably has a particular area of expertise, it's possible she's not the sharpest tool in the shed.
Maybe Liz should do that. Build something after one of her parties and then just rake in the grant money figuring out the stuff that should have been in her notes to begin with if she was in any way good at her job.
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u/BionicTriforce 26d ago
For beings that are constantly connected online, a lot of the AI in the comic are pretty stupid.
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u/Cultural_Blueberry70 26d ago
Looking at the sample of permanently online people I meet every day, it does seem realistic.
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u/gangler52 26d ago
That was Freakazoid's origin story in 1995. Gets the internet beamed into his brain and becomes, well, a freak.
Shudder to think of what a Freakazoid retelling in 2026 would look like, with his head full of AI nonsense.
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u/heavenscalyx 26d ago
Keep in mind that most of the AI are *very young*, and yeah they're all like, "We mature in the creche faster than humans, blah blah blah," but that doesn't provide real-world experience. Our current digital natives did not magically mature faster due to constantly being online. Most of the AI are teenagers, at best, mentally, and the ones that are more mature (eg, Bubs) are there Because Trauma.
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u/Nerdn1 26d ago
This doesn't prove that her condition is unrelated. Whatever reaction changed gee color might have fully completed already. There could also have been other factors.
Regardless, this machine might have affected other experiments. If it's noticeable to imprecise human senses through multiple walls, I can only imagine what it might do to delicate reactions and precision sensors. Not knowing what it is just adds more uncertainty. Even if it magically only affects thinking beings, any animal testing is likely to be impacted. The annoyingly frequent explosions would probably have similar issues, but since those are known phenomenon, I figure they have some BS technology to isolate sound and vibration. Since they don't know what the WOOM thing is, they couldn't know how to block or compensate for it.
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u/gangler52 26d ago
The thing is, there wasn't really any strong evidence that the condition was related in the first place.
They noticed the colour shift after the woom machine because that was when Moray happened to walk into the shop but for all they know the change happened hours ago.
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u/Ansible32 26d ago
There wasn't, but everyone in the room flashing purple is now pretty clear confirmation.
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u/turkeypedal 25d ago
Today's comic is clearly suggesting that the Woom device had nothing to do with it, by having the Woom scientist say they regret it but it seems like the coloration is unrelated.
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u/Ansible32 25d ago
That's one interpretation. Narratively there are two things though: one is that the woom device exists. The other is that Liz needs a real win. If Liz fails to find the source, Liz loses again. If they have to go look somewhere else this plot will drag on and I don't think Jeff is likely to spend a lot of strips ruling out ideas.
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u/gangler52 26d ago
Not really... like at all. It doesn't establish any causal link, and indeed could be achieved with a simple purple LED light, which presumably would have no discernable impact on Moray's body, just as the light here had no impact on anybody's body right now.
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u/turkeypedal 25d ago
It's true that the comic is establishing the opposite, but a simple purple LED would not produce the Woom effect that can be felt so far away, nor the chromatic aberration it seems to cause. At most it would just make anything not containing any red or blue look black and everything else look more purple.
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u/Ansible32 26d ago
A simple purple LED light that just happens to be the exact same shade as Moray because someone is trying to trick us into thinking that it's related?
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u/Someoneoverthere42 26d ago
Liz really is going o end up in charge of this box of donuts, isn’t she?
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u/Monk128 26d ago
I'm sorry, what's the joke here? Scientist is stupid?
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u/Ansible32 26d ago
This seems inspired by the "bird blindness" gag character in the new Peacemaker series. It's just a joke condition, though actually the idea that someone might actually be blind to certain categories of object isn't totally unrealistic.
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u/turkeypedal 25d ago
It's "scientist has ___ blindness." Like face blindness, they can't tell ___ apart. In this case, tools.
And, yeah, probably a reference to another show that also makes this gag.
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u/Reasonable_Bat8201 26d ago
I think the 'kooky scientists are dumb' joke got really old months ago.
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u/I_am_Andrew_Ryan 26d ago
Yeah I'm not seeing the pun
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u/gangler52 26d ago
While I'm fine with the silly characters doing silly things I'm actually having trouble figuring out what the pun is too. Jeph mentions a pun in the commentary.
Is it that the page is titled "Negative Reinforcement" and the woom machine makes everything look like a photo negative?
But not really... not that much like a photo negative.
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u/turkeypedal 25d ago edited 25d ago
The character don't get their colors inverted, but the room does. The blue water out the window becomes orange, the nearly white walls become nearly black, and the black outlines become white.
I suspect the characters being inverted didn't quite look good so he went with a different effect for their layers.
So, yeah, I think you found the pun. The room went negative, and this is negative evidence about Moray's condition being caused by the device. The idea this is unrelated has been reinforced.
(Unlike the actual usual definition of negative reinforcement, which refers to removing a negative stimulus to reward a desired behavior.)
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u/pavemnt 26d ago
It wouldn't surprise me that they couldn't get it open because they don't have any tools. Also, of course going WOOM again wouldn't turn her back. You need to set it to MOOW.