xkcd

xkcd is a webcomic by former NASA roboticist Randall Munroe. It is one of the most popular webcomics today, and is an influential part of geek culture. The focus is on math, science, Internet culture, and personal relationships from the perspective of an introverted geek — the same perspective shared by most of the target audience.

xkcd
Someone is wrong on
The Internet
Log in:
v - t - e

Although far from confrontational, xkcd has occasionally dealt with controversial topics, and is firmly and consistently pro-science. #154, for instance (see below), takes the attitude that although the scientific consensus on evolution and the age of the Earth is correct, there is no reason to be bothered by others' willful ignorance, so long as they are not in a position to make terrible laws based on that ignorance. One comic criticizes homeopathy,[1] another comic attacks global warming denialism,[2] several mock conspiracy theorists,[3][4] and another is strongly critical of pickup artists.[5] Aside from these topics, the comic is notoriously neutral when it comes to religion and politics, in contrast with its more abrasive sibling SMBC, though it made an exception to endorse Hillary Clinton over an anthropomorphized fart in one comic,[6] and skeptics have proven an acceptable target at least once.[7] Comics have criticized several logical fallacies, some of which including appeal to moderation,[8] the gambler's fallacy,[9] and post hoc ergo propter hoc.[10]

xkcd and the Internet

Munroe has a talent for putting relatively simple ideas in amusing and memorable joke strips; as such, xkcd is often quoted, linked to, and/or embedded in a post when there's a discussion on the Internet pertaining to science, math, personal relationships, or the Internet itself. Examples include the very common use of #285 (see below), using Wikipedia's [citation needed] tag as a way of criticizing someone else's unsupported assertions, as well as...

SIWOTI syndrome
Bonus text: "What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they'll keep being wrong!"

SIWOTI syndrome is a strange psychological affliction affecting many Internet users — more likely an immune response than something viral.[citation NOT needed] The abbreviation comes from "Someone is wrong on the Internet", a phrase used in #386 ("Duty Calls"). The syndrome manifests in persistent attempts at convincing people who are (definitely and indisputably) wrong that they are wrong. It is suspected that, analogous to the role of toxoplasmosisFile:Wikipedia's W.svg in human aggression, the syndrome is the underlying reason for the existence of Internet flame wars, of the organized skeptical movement and of this very wiki.

Joking aside, while it wasn't in the original strip, the phrase "SIWOTI syndrome" is often used, including by skeptics.[11] We'll leave to some other intrepid folklorist to determine which bright head(s) first came up with it.

Argumentum ad xkcd

Some cartoons are gross oversimplifications, outdated, or a combination of both. This is okay as it's an internet cartoon which primarly aims to amuse, but some cartoons get repeated ad nauseam as if to make a point.

The "goto" cartoon[12] is an excellent example of the latter. It's part of a general "goto is harmful" misconception, propagated by people who've never really programmed in languages with goto statements and just heard that it's harmful somewhere.[note 1] You cannot have a discussion on goto anywhere on the internet and not have this cartoon posted by a nitwit. Knowing Munroe, the comic was probably intended to mock the misconception.

The "correct horse battery staple" password cartoon[13] is both a severe oversimplification and outdated, but still gets quoted often. The problem here is that entropy is only part of what makes a strong password. Password crackers can crack these passwords with a technique known as a "combinator attack", where a cracker will read words from a dictionary and combine them.[14] Passwords such as "howdoyouthink!", "momof3gr8kids", and "ilovemySister31" can be cracked by this in very little time (when hashed but not salted) [15] and security experts recommend against using it.[16] You can still use the xkcd scheme, but you need to choose at least 6 incoherent words at random (the random bit is important and something many people get wrong) and should corrupt a few words (such as "bad" capitalization or deliberate misspelling).

Click to enlarge.

  • xkcd #154, "Beliefs" (bonus text: "Scientists are also sexy, let's not forget that.")
  • xkcd #285, "Wikipedian Protester" (bonus text: "SEMI-PROTECT THE CONSTITUTION")
  • xkcd #435, "Purity" (bonus text: "On the other hand, physicists like to say physics is to math as sex is to masturbation.")
  • xkcd #1138, "Heatmap" (bonus text: "There are also a lot of global versions of this map showing traffic to English-language websites which are indistinguishable from maps of the location of internet users who are native English speakers.")
  • xkcd #552, "Correlation" (bonus text: "Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'.")
  • xkcd #54, "Science" (bonus text: "Bonus points if you can identify the science in question")
  • xkcd #1013, "Wake Up Sheeple" (bonus text: "You will be led to judgement like lambs to the slaughter--a simile whose existence, I might add, will not do your species any favors.")
  • xkcd #386, "Duty Calls" (bonus text: "What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they'll keep being wrong!"
  • xkcd #1152, "Communion" (bonus text: "The local police, growing increasingly concerned about this church, ask parishioners to take a sip of wine and then spit it back out for DNA testing. It's blood, and it matches a 1970s murder victim.")
  • xkcd #520, "Cuttlefish" (bonus text: "Unless the CS students finish the robot revolution before you finish the cephalopod one.")
  • xkcd #191, "Lojban" (bonus text: " zo'o ta jitfa .i .e'o xu do pendo mi")
  • xkcd #191, "Jet Fuel" (bonus text: "The 'controlled demolition' theory was concocted by the government to distract us. '9/11 was an inside job' was an inside job!")
  • xkcd #1147, "Evolving" (bonus text: "Biologists play reverse Pokémon, trying to avoid putting any one team member on the front lines long enough for the experience to cause evolution.")
  • xkcd #171, "String Theory" (bonus text: "This works on pretty much every level.")
  • xkcd #202, "YouTube" (bonus text: "I pray GunPistolMan never learns the word 'sheeple'.")
  • xkcd #1321, "Cold" (bonus text: "'You see the same pattern all over. Take Detroit--' 'Hold on. Why do you know all these statistics offhand?' 'Oh, um, no idea. I definitely spend my evenings hanging out with friends, and not curating a REALLY NEAT database of temperature statistics. Because, pshh, who would want to do that, right? Also, snowfall records.'"
  • xkcd #384, "The Drake Equation" (bonus text: "But seriously, there's loads of intelligent life. It's just not screaming constantly in all directions on the handful of frequencies we search.")
  • xkcd #765, "Dilution" (bonus text: "Dear editors of Homeopathy Monthly: I have two small corrections for your July issue. One, it's spelled "echinacea", and two, homeopathic medicines are no better than placebos and your entire magazine is a sham.")
  • xkcd #1357, "Free Speech" (bonus text: "I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it's not literally illegal to express.")
  • xkcd #1677, "Contrails" (bonus text: "Astronomy (or "astrology" in British English) is the study of...")
  • xkcd #1570, "Engineer Syllogism" (bonus text: “The less common, even worse outcome: "3: [everyone in the financial system] WOW, where did all my money just go?"”)
  • xkcd #195, "Map of the Internet" (bonus text: "For the IPv6 map just imagine the XP default desktop picture.")
  • xkcd #675, "Revolutionary" (bonus text: "I mean, what's more likely -- that I have uncovered fundamental flaws in this field that no one in it has ever thought about, or that I need to read a little more? Hint: it's the one that involves less work.")
  • xkcd #1457, "Feedback" (bonus text: "A new study finds that if you give rats a cell phone and a lever they can push to improve the signal, the rats will chew on the cell phone until it breaks and your research supervisors will start to ask some questions about your grant money.")
  • xkcd #258, "Conspiracy Theories" (bonus text: "There are a lot of graduate-educated young-earth creationists.")
  • xkcd #690, "Semicontrolled Demolition" (bonus text: "I believe the truth always lies halfway between the most extreme claims.")
  • xkcd #1274, "Open Letter" (bonus text: "Are you ok? Do you need help?")
  • xkcd #2368, "Bigger Problem" (bonus text: "Your point that the world contains multiple problems is a real slam-dunk argument against fixing any of them.")
  • xkcd #1379, "4.5 Degrees" (bonus text: "The good news is that according to the latest IPCC report, if we enact aggressive emissions limits now, we could hold the warming to 2°C. That's only HALF an ice age unit, which is probably no big deal.")
  • xkcd #1225, "Ice Sheets" (bonus text: "Data adapted from 'The Laurentide and Innuitian ice sheets during the Last Glacial Maximum' by A.S. Dyke et. al., which was way better than the sequels 'The Laurentide and Innuitian ice sheets during the Last Glacial Maximum: The Meltdown' and 'The Laurentide and Innuitian ice sheets during the Last Glacial Maximum: Continental Drift'.")
gollark: I mean, apart from chunkloading, what menial tasks can't a turtle do?
gollark: The power of the MARKET!
gollark: It's fine to go on about "you should have them do X", but the person who actually wants said new players just wants them to idle a bit.
gollark: This!
gollark: Maybe it's good to have said new players actually do a *useful thing*?
  • xkcd, updates Monday, Wednesday and Friday
    • xkcd What If? deals with various hypothetical science-related scenarios (such as "If you call a random phone number and say 'God bless you,' what are the chances that the person who answers just sneezed?"), usually updates on Tuesdays Stopped receiving updates during the run-up to a book of the same name, and hasn't restarted.
  • explain xkcd, a wiki explaining the jokes and references in each episode

Notes
  1. Which it isn't, unless you abuse it; but this is true for any language feature

References
  1. 765: Dilution
  2. 1321: Cold
  3. 258: Conspiracy Theories
  4. 966: Jet Fuel
  5. 1027: Pickup Artist
  6. 1756: I'm With Her
  7. 666: Silent Hammer
  8. 690: Semicontrolled Demolition
  9. 1252: Increased Risk
  10. 925: Cell Phones
  11. Here's an automatically generated list of examples.
  12. 292: goto
  13. 936: Password Strength
  14. https://hashcat.net/wiki/doku.php?id=combinator_attack
  15. http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/05/how-crackers-make-minced-meat-out-of-your-passwords/
  16. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/03/choosing_secure_1.html
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