[2011-Aug-17] Parroting

[Edminster]

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2340

I... I laughed at an SMBC comic.



all those years of hatred have been wasted

gone

down the drain

forever gone












until the next comic is posted and it is again a lengthy diatribe about how nerds are superior to the duckspeaking proles

[DonRetrasado]

See, I didn't laugh. You built it up too much and I was scorin' for disappointment.

[Kimra]

It's okay Ed, we still love you.

[Quintushalls]

Via http://www.eparrots.biz/talk.html

This is very much possible. An African Grey parrot can hold 2000 words in its vocabulary.

[GUTCHUCKER]

Zach is mocking philosophers. That does not make this viewpoint valid, nor does it reflect on our ability to think.
We can use our vocabulary outside of the immediate context and in the absence of a context. This is a fundamental difference.

[Soliloquy]

Honestly, I can't think of any way this viewpoint could be considered valid, outside of Zach's obsession with the idea that there is no truth.

Zach is mocking philosophers. That does not make this viewpoint valid, nor does it reflect on our ability to think.
We can use our vocabulary outside of the immediate context and in the absence of a context. This is a fundamental difference.

I dunno if that's what zach intended. Because in just about every other comic in which Zach says [group x] are no longer allowed [to perform action y], the group in question is making a legitimate point.

[Gangler]

I thought it was taking a purely nurture stance. Parrot makes the sounds that get positively reinforced the same way some sociological schools of thought would paint us as being 100% programmed by our environment. One could also paint similarities between the notion of human intelligence as an evolutionary characteristic originally just meant to aid in survival but now given applications beyond that and the parrot's ability to speak being used in new ways within the domestic context. Either that or just a generic poke at the "Unintelligent masses" who just regurgitate the phrases and ideas that pop culture keeps throwing at them with the implication that just because they speak doesn't mean they think.

I really do find these types of discussions to be a little silly though. People will list off the ways fauna X is intelligent and resembles humans and this and that and come at me with the "How can you think their lives are any less sacred than a human's?"

I'm all like "Woah woah woah, when did I start talking about human life like that was sacred? Show me an orangutang that can hygienically make me an expresso and I'll start advocating their need for rights. You know, once we've got all the shit that's actually relevant to my country taken care of."

I sometimes wonder about those animal activists. There's something up with them.

[ChaoticBrain]

What is it with parrots in fiction always starting and ending their phrases with a squawk? Real parrots don't do that, so where did this trope even come from, and why is it still so annoyingly popular?

[Gangler]

It came from your mom. She's a successful cinematographer who's responsible for much of what has entered the public consciousness.

[Oldrac the Chitinous]

Maybe the parrot thinks he's in boot camp, and squawking is parrot for "sir".

[Lethal Interjection]

What is it with parrots in fiction always starting and ending their phrases with a squawk? Real parrots don't do that, so where did this trope even come from, and why is it still so annoyingly popular?

I think it is probably the way they take the anthropomorphization out of the context. A bird that simply talks could be a cartoon. A bird that squaks first, valid or not, comes off as just a stupid real bird that knows a few words.
This could be incorrect, but it was my first thought.

[GUTCHUCKER]

It's probably all of the points above, also he is actually reading the forum and he's fucking with us.

[Quintushalls]

Every commenter here is a parrot except you! RAAHHHK!

[Martin The Mess]

At my college, the Economics department had a pet parrot as a mascot. It was trained to reply to pretty much anything anyone said to it with "Awwk! Supply and Demand! Awwk!"

Given that "supply and demand" is pretty much your average Econ 101 prof's answer to any Econ-related question containing the word "why", I'm surprised the Parrot didn't have tenure.

[danielgudman]

So was that other parrot from the Creative Writing Program?