Tom
@tommymagicpants.bsky.social
270 followers
350 following
870 posts
Bon viveur, raconteur, voyeur, frotteur. Trade plate twat, occasional DJ and consumer of #cans. Proud contributor to View From The Allotment End, the premier North Ferriby FC fanzine.
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![Cartoon strip by me who is Stephen Collins. The imagery of the comic starts off with a single electron and then each panel zooms out one step - first to the microchip, then the OLED screen, then the iPhone, the person holding the iPhone, and onwards
Script:
An electron, forged in the first fire of the Big Bang
Courses through a deeply intricate maze of transistors and diodes
mined with unfathomable ingenuity from our planet’s deep geological past
and assembled from all over the world
Into a device perfected through centuries of technological evolution
to perform a beautifully synchronised pixel dance on an OLED screen
in an intricate moving pattern of shifting light
[Show a phone screen with an Instagram post featuring Ryan Gosling and bearing the legend:]
WATCH RYAN GOSLING EAT A PASTY FOR THE FIRST TIME!
whose choreography is powered by an global information network of unknowable complexity
which is specifically tailored to the interests of the being observing the screen
who is a member of the most advanced species on Earth
[Show a shlubby looking GUY idly looking at the Ryan Gosling/sausage roll Instagram reel on his phone while sitting in his pants and a stained t-shirt and eating a massive bag of crisps]
with a brain perhaps more capable of reconfiguring these signals into conscious thought than any other for billions of miles around
[Guy has a thought]:
“Mmm…"
in this endless, silent void.
[Pull back to show the Earth as a tiny blue dot among the stars with a thought bubble coming from it]
"… I want a pasty.”
[ends]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4m3we4apbjayclzcnhwe3pfp/bafkreib3pvgcc2tqqiiqs7tlguoez3mhdsmfscnwyxffltcsm4mxbgcyw4@jpeg)
![[Scene is ANCIENT GREECE - where SOCRATES and PLATO and others are sitting round, thinking]
1
SOCRATES:
Plato..
PLATO:
Yes Socrates?
2
SOCRATES:
Can you tell me, are you human?
PLATO:
Why… yes, Socrates
3
SOCRATES:
And would you agree, Plato, that a human knows what a chariot is?
PLATO:
Um, yep
4
SOCRATES:
So you can tell me, then
5
[Socrates produces a papyrus, showing a drawing of the corner of a chariot wheel]
SOCRATES:
*Is that a chariot*?
6
PLATO:
Well
that’s more just a bit of wheel
7
SOCRATES:
So not a *chariot*.
PLATO:
No.
8
SOCRATES:
[Producing another papyrus with the full drawing of the chariot, chopped into boxes]
So if a man were challenged to “tap the boxes containing chariots to prove you’re human” when he was just trying to check his ClubCard points... *where could he tap*?
9
PLATO:
Well you can’t tap any of them really
10
SOCRATES:
So are we not human?
PLATO:
‘Spose not.
11
[Bleak pause]
12
PLATO:
I’ll get the hemlock
SOCRATES:
Yeah
[ends]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4m3we4apbjayclzcnhwe3pfp/bafkreiazbuxbxnuyt5etli2cjseaychvbuym6n6z33nwx2mutlvoqjdhge@jpeg)
