[2495] Now leave us

[pyradonis]

Jul 20, 2021 20:18:28 GMT mzpx said:

I do find it frustrating that it's such a common mode of thought for characters within the comic to view magic as somehow incompatible with the scientific method. To be fair, I think the frustration I feel is part of the point, but it does suck that it seems like the only people who seem be trying to actively do science at the ether are a the weirdos trying to conquer it. I guess on a more meta level, I feel weird when the magic is code for 'religion' or 'spirituality,' which exist in entirely different spheres from science in the real world. 

Kat, Juliette and Anja all do science at the ether and they aren't weirdos trying to conquer it. Also, the unseen world is, by definition, incompatible with scientific method, at least in this universe.

Correct. Tony tried for years as well.

Jul 20, 2021 23:50:11 GMT hp said:

Jul 20, 2021 19:03:47 GMT Draxiss said:

Really makes me wonder what the organizational structure of the Court actually is. It doesn't seem particularly democratic. I haven't seen a single page in which anyone so much as mention the word 'Vote,' to the best of my knowledge. I suspect Tom is going for more of an 'inscrutable, bureaucratic system whose rules push those in it towards a particular ideology and particular set of actions without any one person necessarily being The Bad Guy.' I do suspect you'd find that power tends to be funneled up towards some group of elites with unchecked power, however. 

We can't know without more info about the rest of the world. Is the Court a shady private institution covertly operating in a world mostly like our own? Is the Court a regular institution in a weird world, a la Hogwarts/ Rowling's Britain? Is it public in that setting?

Some questions that were asked to Tom and might be possibly relevant:

Q: Does [the Court] fall under Royal jurisdiction, like Torchwood? Is the Court mentioned in the Act of the Union?
A: No, the Court isn't mentioned in the Act of the Union.

Q: What is the relationship between the Court and the british government? Did the MI6 is aware of the court or about the etheric stuff?
A: The Court has an agreement with the outside world to be left alone.

Q: Is Gunnerkrigg Court kind of like Hogwarts in that it looks like something else to outsiders? Does the rest of the world know about the 'magical' parts?
A: The rest of the world doesn't really know what goes on there, no.

Q: Do the Court staff vote in general elections?
A: No they dont.

Less relevant to your question but to the general discussion in this thread:

Q: The Court was founded as a union between technology and ether, and judging by Diego's robots among other things people there used to combine them often. When did the Court start looking down on etheric technology? Are there still any classes on it?
A: It came about when the Court realised true technology worked independently of magic.

Q: When they realized that magic wasn't necessary for progress and that pure science was all that was needed, did the humans who founded the court also throw away religion, becoming atheists and/or agnostics?
A: Quite a lot of them did yeah.

Jul 21, 2021 6:45:08 GMT mzpx said:

Jul 19, 2021 18:10:09 GMT mzpx said:

That's what Coyote says, but it could be interpreted in many ways, e.g. they only need it temporarily to study it and then they'll return it.

Ah, I'm annoyed with myself for not noticing this earlier, here's an excellent example of Coyote calling something 'stolen' that most people would not consider stolen. Jones' name was very specifically freely given, as it always is.

Typical for Coyote. He asked a question, so he did not tell a lie, but of course insinuated something.