this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2026
236 points (95.4% liked)

Comic Strips

24210 readers
2279 users here now

Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.

Rules
  1. πŸ˜‡ Be Nice!

    • Treat others with respect and dignity. Friendly banter is okay, as long as it is mutual; keyword: friendly.
  2. 🏘️ Community Standards

    • Comics should be a full story, from start to finish, in one post.
    • Posts should be safe and enjoyable by the majority of community members, both here on lemmy.world and other instances.
    • Any comic that would qualify as raunchy, lewd, or otherwise draw unwanted attention by nosy coworkers, spouses, or family members should be tagged as NSFW.
    • Moderators have final say on what and what does not qualify as appropriate. Use common sense, and if need be, err on the side of caution.
  3. 🧬 Keep it Real

    • Comics should be made and posted by real human beans, not by automated means like bots or AI. This is not the community for that sort of thing.
  4. πŸ“½οΈ Credit Where Credit is Due

    • Comics should include the original attribution to the artist(s) involved, and be unmodified. Bonus points if you include a link back to their website. When in doubt, use a reverse image search to try to find the original version. Repeat offenders will have their posts removed, be temporarily banned from posting, or if all else fails, be permanently banned from posting.
    • Attributions include, but are not limited to, watermarks, links, or other text or imagery that artists add to their comics to use for identification purposes. If you find a comic without any such markings, it would be a good idea to see if you can find an original version. If one cannot be found, say so and ask the community for help!
  5. πŸ“‹ Post Formatting

    • Post an image, gallery, or link to a specific comic hosted on another site; e.g., the author's website.
    • Meta posts about the community should be tagged with [Meta] either at the beginning or the end of the post title.
    • When linking to a comic hosted on another site, ensure the link is to the comic itself and not just to the website; e.g.,
      βœ… Correct: https://xkcd.com/386/
      ❌ Incorrect: https://xkcd.com/
  6. πŸ“¬ Post Frequency/SPAM

    • Each user (regardless of instance) may post up to five (5 πŸ–) comics a day. This can be any combination of personal comics you have written yourself, or other author's comics. Any comics exceeding five (5 πŸ–) will be removed.
  7. πŸ΄β€β˜ οΈ Internationalization (i18n)

    • Non-English posts are welcome. Please tag the post title with the original language, and include an English translation in the body of the post; e.g.,
      SΓ­, por favor [Spanish/EspaΓ±ol]
  8. 🍿 Moderation

    • We are human, just like most everybody else on Lemmy. If you feel a moderation decision was made in error, you are welcome to reach out to anybody on the moderation team for clarification. Keep in mind that moderation decisions may be final.
    • When reporting posts and/or comments, quote which rule is being broken, and why you feel it broke the rules.
Banned Artists

The following artists are banned from the community.

  1. Jago
  2. Stonetoss
  3. GPrime85

It should be noted that when you make reports, it is your responsibility to provide rational reasoning why something should be removed. Saying it simply breaks community rules is not always good enough.

Web Accessibility

Note: This is not a rule, but a helpful suggestion.

When posting images, you should strive to add alt-text for screen readers to use to describe the image you're posting:

Another helpful thing to do is to provide a transcription of the text in your images, as well as brief descriptions of what's going on. (example)

Web of Links

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
236
Fire for You (lemmy.today)
submitted 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) by Korval@lemmy.today to c/comicstrips@lemmy.world
top 18 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] lime@feddit.nu 36 points 16 hours ago (4 children)

i don't think this metaphor works...

[–] Signtist@bookwyr.me 12 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

I think it works pretty well. Any tool will have good aspects and bad aspects, and its functionality will only be as good as our ability to make use of the good aspects while limiting the bad ones.

Humans benefit from fire because the good aspects of warmth, light, and cooking all vastly outweigh the bad aspect of the danger of catching on fire, which can be mitigated relatively easily by not bringing flammable things near it. If we ourselves were highly flammable, fire would be far too dangerous to be useful.

The obvious AI metaphor points out how, just like paper beings covered in gasoline are weak to fire, human beings are weak to a friendly voice speaking with confidence, and will succumb to it just as quickly if exposed. Any benefit it might have otherwise been able to give is outweighed by the danger of our natural affinity for believing what is told to us by a trusted figure and stubbornly treating it as undeniable fact for the rest of our lives.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 3 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

...so are you saying that the good aspects of ai outweigh the bad, or that the bad aspects of fire outweigh the good?

also what does stealing fire from the gods represent here? what is prometheus' motivation? is he evil here, or ignorant? what does his eventual punishment by the gods represent? is this saying that humans are naturally susceptible to ai, or that they have been made so by on external process (aka pouring gasoline)? in that context, is "it's just a tool" a sincere statement, or part of the plan? what even is the plan the author alluding to?

[–] Signtist@bookwyr.me 6 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I'm saying the bad aspects of AI outweigh the good. I left out listing any good aspects of AI because I don't know any. The comic's version of Prometheus is a metaphor for the tech billionaire, claiming that he's done this amazing thing for the benefit of the people, but from his action of plugging his ears, we can see that he knew how his "gift" would be received; he, like the tech billionaire, clearly has his own motivations that he's passing off as charity.

It's left ambiguous about whether he's evil or just ignorant, which is itself a good mirror of real life, where we can't tell if our overlords are stupid, or are actively planning out the downfall of civilization as we know it. Do they think AI is just a tool, and it's our fault for being so susceptible to its bad aspects, or was it purposefully designed to exploit them, and the "just a tool" excuse is just them passing the blame? Are we being purposefully led off a cliff, or are we simply following a blind leader to the edge?

The gasoline is ambiguous as well - are these people naturally covered in gasoline, as we may be naturally susceptible to AI and its hallucinations, or were they covered on purpose by someone to prepare them for the fire, as we may have been prepared to accept misinformation online well before AI hit the scene? The comic leaves off any mention of punishment from the gods, maybe to indicate that, like the tech billionaire, the governing body meant to keep them in line is in on the scheme. The very fact that both this comic and the real-life situation it's parodying have the same questions is indicative of the quality of the metaphor.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 2 points 2 hours ago

i mean, using prometheus in particular has certain connotations that in my mind weakens the metaphor. as does the use of a man-made fuel. that's why i don't think in works. there's also the aspect someone pointed out that he seems to know some people are arsonists despite them never having had access to fire.

[–] CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago

The introverts who percieve kindness as a potential threat will inherit the earth.

[–] OS2Warp@lemmy.zip 10 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

What is it supposed to be a thinly vailed reference to? Guns?

Because, yeah, it doesn’t work.

[–] brsrklf@jlai.lu 6 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I vaguely thought it might be about guns too, and I couldn't tell if it was made by someone who was pro or against guns. Now people are like, it's obviously about AI, and the analogy makes even less sense to me.

It's vague enough that you can fit any social issue of your choice in there.

[–] pennomi@lemmy.world 13 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

It’s an obvious reference to <insert thing I don’t like here>.

[–] Korval@lemmy.today 2 points 2 hours ago

It's AI. The author/artist specifies on his page.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 8 points 15 hours ago
[–] pachrist@lemmy.world 2 points 13 hours ago

With glabal warming and fossil fuels being what they are, this also doesn't need to be a metaphor. Could be pretty literal.

[–] zabadoh@ani.social 2 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

The absurdity leads to humor.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 5 points 14 hours ago

it tends to lead to overanalysis instead, i find. like, if the fire is ai and prometheus is the companies that brought us the ai, what does everyone being covered in gasoline represent? wasn't prometheus punished by the gods for bringing fire to humanity? does this imply that indeed it is just a tool and the flammable arsonists are a few bad apples? are they implying that it was wrong of prometheus to bring fire to humanity? or are they implying that prometheus is an innocent party, or to take it further, actively malicious? and if so, again, why is everyone covered in gasoline?

[–] Zorque@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago

Only if it works, if it doesn't it just leads to confusion and frustration.

[–] BillyClark@piefed.social 20 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

How can they be obvious arsonists if they've never had fire before?

[–] Zorque@lemmy.world 12 points 14 hours ago

I think the implication is that they are too eager to have access to fire. The entire thing is somehow both ham-fisted and arcane at the same time. Quite the line to skirt.