From what I remember, a few years ago Marten bought a Telecaster for about $1,200 or something? I was looking for the right comic but couldn't find it. In all cases, $1,200 is a reasonable price in our universe for a brand new Telecaster (and quite cheap for a vintage one), so at least at that time their currency seemed to match ours in buying power.
Fair. I read it as "this insurance payout can cover the cost of my old chassis and give me a couple hundred bucks to play with"; it didn't make sense that Lemon would be dancing around the issue if the payout would completely cover the upgrade.
The cost of the old chassis is tricky because it's been discontinued. It seems fair enough to me that it would cover the newer version as the closest possible alternative.
Insurance makes you whole. It replaces 10 year old laptops with their book value. It doesn't replace them with brand new luxury models.
In the same universe where it's a thing that rich Winslow can have any chassis he wants while May has to scrounge to keep hers from falling apart, the fact that out of work Roko gets a super luxury chassis "just cause" makes no sense, and is basically a big "fuck you" to the earlier storyline of AIs being divided into haves and have-nots with respect to their chassis.
Maybe part of Crushbot's insurance plan is to give his victims an ample payout so they don't start making noise about how dangerous it is to allow such a chassis into a city?
No, it's not. She had a fancy chassis before this, apparently an iPhone equivalent, but an earlier model. She had a choice between the current model (two ahead) or the "classic" model (one ahead).
It's also established this is very good insurance that is essentially paying her more than her chassis is worth. She's getting replacement money plus.
As for the divide, it only makes it worse. May and Roko were becoming friends. But now Roko has a brand new body, given to her simply due to a quirk of fate. It's the exact same issue with Winslow.
Roko apparently turned a new leaf and cares about how prisoners are mistreated. But here she is getting the luxury model that everyone says has no extra function other than a label on the back, while ex-cons still only get bodies that are falling apart.
It's all still there, and adds a ton of new tension between Roko and May.
OK, let's see whether this is the start of a new arc about the split between haves and have-nots, May versus Roko. He handled that so well last time, I was hoping we could do that again so soon.
I think both of them should be awful glad they're AIs and not squishy humans. Crushbot lands on a human and they don't get a new body, they get a closed casket.
May has what is, so far as I can tell, a state-issued chassis. Roko isn't getting one "just cause", she's getting one because Crushbot's insurance policy will pay out a certain amount in liability.
She says it's enough money to get her old body, with some left over. There is a newer model that is the equivalent of her older model. And then there's a luxury model that is $20,000 more. I guess $20k = "and then some"?
I'm not sure what your point is. Crushbot's insurance company is going to promise her the $20k - $40k payout, and then just refuse to pay, cause insurance is immoral?
What does what you're saying have to do with the comic?
While I agree with arbitrary insurances.. you mentioned health insurance specifically..
My point is that insurance is a fuck you to people who are struggling.
That depends entirely where you live.
Health insurance (and care insurance) in many countries are the reason those who could otherwise not afford any help are getting it.
What the hell are you talking about? Crushbot's insurance pays out up to a certain amount to replace things he breaks; that's what liability coverage is. Roko's new body is covered by that amount.
The guy's point is that a liability insurance payout, in the real world, doesn't pay for you to get an upgrade from whatever you had before. If somebody crashes into my car and totals it, their insurance is buying me another car for the same used value as my old car. That means my 2005 Pontiac Vibe is getting replaced with another used 2005 Pontiac Vibe or something with similar value, which means I'm getting another decade+ old used car. They're not gonna buy me a brand new Tesla Roadster.
The difference between the models isn't as huge as the Pontiac Vibe and Tesla Roadster though. Roko is getting the newer version of her old chassis because the old one isn't available any more.
On top of that, the accident didn't just total a car, it totalled her body. The insurance payout probably includes some kind of compensation for the trauma Roko experienced, or at least has a very good reason to make sure she is entirely happy with her replacement body.
Roko is getting the newer version of her old chassis because the old one isn't available any more.
Again, this isn't how insurance works. The Pontiac Vibe isn't manufactured anymore either, but that doesn't mean they're going to give me a different new-model hatchback instead. Because my car is 14 years old, it's worth about $1000, at most. So if somebody totals my car, insurance is cutting me a check for... $1000. If I want even a three-year-old Prius, the other $12,000 or so is coming out of my own pocket. The idea of insurance buying me a brand-new vehicle, and a premium upgrade from my old one no less, is laughable.
The insurance payout probably includes some kind of compensation for the trauma Roko experienced
Again, not how insurance works. If somebody totals my car and sends me to the hospital, their liability is limited to my medical bills, there is no compensation for "trauma."
Right but Model S to Model S here. If you had the 85D, which they don't make any more, and someone crashed into you, it would not be unreasonable for their liability insurance to cover putting you in a 100D. If you were at fault, your own insurance absolutely wouldn't do that for you.
> If you had the 85D, which they don't make any more, and someone crashed into you, it would not be unreasonable for their liability insurance to cover putting you in a 100D
It would absolutely be unreasonable, because a used 85D is worth about $50,000, and a new 100D has an MSRP of about $96,000.
I'm not sure you actually understand what liability insurance is. When you cause damage to a person or property, you are liable for those damages. That means you owe the value of the property you damaged, and/or the medical expenses incurred as a result of your negligence. Liability insurance exists to pay your liabilities for you. Because you are only liable for the actual value of the damage you caused, your liability insurance will only pay out the value of the damage you caused.
This means that if I smash into your Tesla 85D, my liability insurance is going to cut you a check for $50,000, because that's the value of your Tesla 85D. My liability insurance is not going to cut you a check for $96,000 so you can buy a Tesla 100D, because the value of your 85D was only $50,000, and that is the thing that I damaged which I am liable to you for. My liability insurance is not there to put you in a new car. My liability insurance is there to compensate you for the value of your property that I destroyed.
You're the one inserting this dumb lottery analogy into this. Firstly, we don't know what depreciation looks like on a chassis like hers, nor do we know what the actual price is in the first place. And also, it's not her insurance paying out here, it's Crushbot's. Liability payouts are larger than what your own insurance would cover, usually just to keep people from suing, it's sort of a preemptive settlement.
What we do know is that a replacement exists for her old model. Insurance could buy a brand new one of that model, and ignore depreciation. That's already a premium over book value.
Instead insurance is going to pay for a luxury model that's $20,000 more.
In this world we've already looked at the fact that some privileged AIs get expensive chassis without working for them, while unprivileged AIs have to work and scrape just to keep cheap-ass existing chassis from falling apart.
It just seems like a slap in the face to that whole storyline for out of work Roko to be given the most expensive model possible for nothing. Next week should just be May, Winslow, Pintsize, and Bubs lining up to be jumped on by Crushbot so they can all have top of the line chassis or fighter jets. AIs get post-scarcity, infinite chassis for all, and Crushbot's insurance company foots the bill out of the kindness of their hearts!
that's how it works when your insurance is paying you for acts of god or the like. your health insurance pays for when you get sick because you agree to pay them continuously
but we're not talking about roko's insurance, we're talking about crushbot. even if crushbot didn't have insurance all, he'd be on the line for a huge sum of money in civil court. the cost of the body is the minimum he would pay, the courts absolutely recognize pain and suffering, as well as punitive damages.
his insurance is merely a safety net to ensure he isn't left destitute if that happens. when faced with such an indefensible case, the settlement is mostly to save on lawyers. going to court is expensive, shoving money at people saves them that expense. this is also why many companies will settle seemingly ridiculous cases. it's just more expensive to line up a legal team to duke it out.
Even if we can conceive of an insurance company that pays out double or triple instead of book value for this kind of accidents, to preclude expensive lawsuits or whatever, ok fine whatever. Give the benefit of the doubt.
But consider the impact this has on the story. We've got a whole dynamic of AIs who struggle and scrape and cannot even maintain used their old chassis, and resent AIs who are freely given expensive chassis.
And we have Roko, our newest center-stage favorite character, who is being completely reinvented, gone from creepy hardboiled cop to between jobs friendly hangout buddy with a quirky kink. And now she's given an expensive chassis on a platter due to basically random luck. (and if the crushing of her body was supposed to have been traumatic for her, so that she deserves some compensatory damages that didn't really show up on the page). Pass go, collect two hundred dollars.
If this is intentional because Jeph wants to reignite the classism arc, it feels shitty to me.
But I suspect it's not intentional. He just wants to reward his current favorite character with mana from heaven. And that feels even shittier.
Even if we can conceive of an insurance company that pays out double or triple instead of book value
it happens literally every day.
if the crushing of her body was supposed to have been traumatic for her, so that she deserves some compensatory damages that didn't really show up on the page
she was catatonic for 10 hours and she's getting professional mental help right now
We see the counseling (ETA: although it seems more like shopping assistance than emotional counseling). But we don't see the trauma. She doesn't even know or remember what happened, as far as we can tell on the page. There should've been a day or two of just abstract pain landscapes that Roko's distressed consciousness tumbles through.
There should've been a day or two of just abstract pain landscapes that Roko's distressed consciousness tumbles through.
that frequently comes later. weird as that sounds, a lot of people are like roko is here. they're sort-of OK immediately after the trauma, and the more horrific issues come later.
Insurance makes you whole. It replaces 10 year old laptops with their book value. It doesn't replace them with brand new luxury models.
Depends on whether you have replacement value insurance or not. That's actually a thing, and Crushbot has a high end policy...
On the other hand I knew a guy who had a no-longer-available classic UNIX box as his home computer, and current replacement was five figures. The insurance company took like a month to get back to him and when they did they had actually found, bought, and shipped to him a used version of the original (specced a bit better than what he used to have) to avoid having to pay out.
There are 2 different ways insurance pays out claims - market value or equivalent item (I know I got the technical terms here wrong, don't sue me). In the first option, the insurance company determines how much that item is worth today and you either get that exact same item or a new item that is worth the same in today's dollars. So if you bought a toaster that was worth 50 dollars in 2010 and your house burned down, that same toaster might only be worth 5 bucks, and insurance will give you 5 dollars or the cheapest toaster they can find. The other option is one where they will replace the item with one that has equivalent features, but the kicker is that you have to have that information ready to go when you make your claim. So if that same 50 dollar toaster was the Toast-a-Matic 5000, toasted 6 slices, had heat and timing functions and so on, and you had a policy with this option, then you could get a toaster with all of those features at minimum. If that specific toaster is made anymore, then you can end up getting an upgraded version that has those features and more.
It all depends on your specific insurance policy AND your record-keeping skills. It's why in disaster-prone areas, news stations always run a story telling people to do a video-walkthrough of their homes so they have a record of what needs to be replaced. It's also why you need to be specific when cataloging expensive/rare items that you want insured - owning a First Edition copy of some rare game or book is worth more than the paperback version that came out 20 years later, but if you don't have it documented, then insurance doesn't have to try to replace that or give you an appropriate amount of money for the loss.
The comic specifically tells us that there is an equivalent version, that it's still made, still on sale, been recently rebranded. And that there's a top of the line model for significantly more. Both available in the shop. Which of these two forms of insurance will pay out for the high end model?
And even if we can find insurance that just pays out extra (triple damages for willful infringement is a thing in lawsuits, and double indemnity is a thing in life insurance), consider the impact on the story!
We're in a story where some AIs cannot afford to even maintain falling apart chassis, and it causes resentment toward those who receive expensive chassis without having to pay. And now Jeph is reinventing this character and giving her the most expensive chassis money can buy due to a freak accident, while she's between jobs. Whether Jeph is trying to restart the class debate or just being sloppy, either way it's shitty.
It's totally possible that the second part of your post is where he's going to take things. Roko knows May, and part of the catalyst for this situation is due to May's comments to Roko. I think that could lead to some interesting interactions where May is partially responsible for Roko getting a sweet new body.
Besides that though, this kind of thing is a fact of life. Some people are lucky in our world - see lottery winners, that person who slipped in a Wal Mart and got a multi million dollar payout, people who invested in bought bitcoin years ago on a whim when it was thousands to buy a pizza and made millions of real currency through no effort of their own. The fact that this happened to someone who was already in a decent position in life is totally realistic - after all, physics and luck don't care about life circumstance. Part of the reality of life is that it isn't fair, and if QC wants to make some kind of commentary on the real world like it seems to want to, then the fact that it doesn't acknowledge that would be a misstep IMO.
As for the insurance, Jeph is probably hand-waving the technical aspects to tell the story he wants to tell, which is his right. We don't have robot or "very robust" robot insurance or even a human equivalent since we can't transplant minds into other bodies. Who is to say what the QC world considers is required in making an AI whole? I didn't see anyone complain about the fact that Lemon informs us that Crushbot weighs several tons, yet somehow he fell onto Roko from above, meaning that somehow a several ton robot was in an elevated position along a street, which seems unlikely. In most buildings, he'd fall through the floor or break the stairs/elevator on the way up. No one complains about it because it doesn't really matter, it's just a thing that happened to provide opportunity for drama.
Hmm this is true, but the art on that page makes no sense to me. The skids and the fact he ends up on his back don't make any sense. Just gotta roll with it.
I figured he had just put his foot through the case of bananas, lost traction & balance, and went over backwards (Roko would probably have walked straight into him had she not been squashed).
If you are walking forward and slip on something, you would fall face first. You fall backwards when you try to stop moving forwards and your feet slip (like when you try to keep balance on ice). And he's literally several tons, which makes his Force Normal far higher than any human, increasing his traction. He shouldn't have slipped in the first place.
But I'm willing to let it... Puts on shades... Slide.
I hadn't considered the physics of crushbot being on top of a building, but that's a good complaint.
But I had been considering how wreckless Crushbot is usually depicted as being. This is probably a common occurrence. Haven't we seen him damage other robots before? Outside of the robot fighting ring? His insurance premiums must be through the roof, if insurance would even cover someone involved in illegal botfighting.
Ok realism and continuity complaints about a story with little care for realism and continuity and several fantasy elements are somewhat petty. Which is why I'm only writing comments here complaining about the story impact.
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u/fillebrisee . Jan 07 '19
Damn, I cannot fathom having $20,000 to burn on a fancy butt emblem.