could look up a mourning dove call just to be safe

Chimes, again... *him.*

How do you, the jester, endure when the King asks you to hurt yourself?

So I think the question of the show to some degree is how do you maintain humanity and survive and endure being yourself as you slowly are obligated to destroy yourself to maintain, entertain, or fulfill the task presented to you?

Hope and endurance in the face of Oblivion is far more of a ongoing theme. At every possible instance the characters are reminded of their ability to be annihilated, two different AIs are obliterated at the snap of a finger and it sounds horrifying

As the episodes go on. I more like the theory I'm positing because it looks at the characters as human as presented, there's room to interpret that they're still copies, but it's about surviving as those copies and escaping even if it means oblivion.

Self-improvement by adherence to the rules and regulations?

I don't like the Soma Theory because it posits that they're all Holograms and that it's inconsequential even with the consequences and it talks about questions of humanity that I don't see the show ask nearly as often

Succeed? What happens when we don't believe it and we act on that lack of belief? That is all of the plots of every episode to some degree. What happens when we deny ourselves hope and supplement it with this idea of fake productivity? Of progress based upon

Isn't to revalidate their humanity, it is to survive and continue trying.

Is it worth it to keep going, what do we do when we lose hope, what do we do when things seem insurmountable, do we believe in a possibility for escape even if we know in the back of our head it might not

Jax doesn't believe he's inhuman, neither does pomni nor zooble nor gangle, they don't ask questions of their humanity, but the AI does. Gummygoo and caine both do. The story arc of the machine is that it is trying to approximate Humanity, the story arc of the humans

Is that it is worthwhile to persevere even if you don't succeed and even if all of it seems hopeless. The characters don't really question their Humanity so much as they question whether or not they can escape which then gives them identity crises.

The Soma Theory feels like a cheap cop out to me because digital copies gaining humanity is not the lesson I want to take away from digital circuits because it's not the lesson that I see being beaten into my head all the time. What I want to take away from it

In my mind it's much more horrifying to have no control over your body, no control over your mind, and to wither away into madness as it becomes increasingly apparent that you cannot Escape it. That the only way to sustain yourself is to burn yourself out.

And in this world I have some control over my body and my thoughts, imagine having no control over your body and no control over your thoughts and a desire to escape the status quo and see the progress you've made or the person you are.

As a trans person, I know that very well. For about 10 years if not almost 15, I spent a good percentage of my life putting myself through hell to maintain a Visage of masculinity and return to status quo that wasn't comfortable.

It made me so unhappy my psyche shattered.

Insane.

Everyone is removed from their concept of body, mind, agency, they don't really know what they are. That's not a question of humanity, and the degree of humanity, it seems more to do with questions of endurance in the face of insurmountable horrors.

In kinger's case he can't even close his eyes. In order to do something similar to that he has to wear a bucket, the eye strain and the mental effort to maintain some kind of Sanity As Time drones on and Escape seems all but futile blurs everything together until he sounds

Maybe they aren't dying, maybe they're not dead, maybe they're not brain scans, maybe they are perfectly preserved yet stagnant bodies unable to escape and totally stuck where they are. They can't turn off the tv, they can't get off their phone, they can't leave the computer,

With no end in sight. They play roles, do tasks, and then they get a break. They return to the Family Guy status quo, but they really don't because they can't rest. They can't get off of the device, because they might be stuck in it. Maybe they're not rotting,

And that takes a toll. When you can't be your authentic self, and you sell yourself on performative authenticity, you become an identity crisis waiting to happen. The digital circus characters are not influencers, they are people being put through constant bombardments

Eventually the adventures get more wild and unconventional, but they still stay within a limited range of ideas because that maintains algorithmic adherence. Eventually it becomes searching for buzzwords and talking about stuff that gets attention, not necessarily things you like

The algorithm demands specific kinds of engagement, people want to ensure they secure their comfort level and secure themselves in some way because capitalism is hell, and so they seek to please that algorithm, do what it says, go on the adventures.

Dimensions of humanity, which is seen in only a couple characters, and more burnout and how long you can maintain "wacky cartoon Antics" at your expense, because eventually the sanity Bill comes due, eventually you need a breather.

We see this in influencers all the time

A lot of people want the characters from The Amazing digital circus to be copies, because they think that makes sense. I think that's a red herring, and that's just my opinion, but I think a lot of the themes of the digital circus seem to focus on less the

I see the amazing digital circus Soma Theory, and i raise you the TADC "jester paradox."

If a king demanded that you the jester make him laugh by physically and mentally self-destructing every single day for the rest of your life, how long would it take for you to break?

holy shit this is how i found out he blocked me too lol

i have been summoned

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