...yes, mortal?

There’s no stated reason. They just pretend to not be alive. We usually can suspend our suspension of disbelief here because when it’s something like a video game or an emoji because any odd occurrences is perceived as a glitch or something similar but the actual reason why they aren’t too hung up on this kinda shitty lot in life isn’t said

They get something out of their current relationship with humans (like in toy story)

They have some specific reason to hide that they’re alive, like they die if they’re seen (like in the christmas toy)

They perceive themselves as sentient, talking creatures, but humans can’t understand them. They just see a squeaking mouse or an inanimate hot dog or whatever. 

and the last one is what most animal movies do, and it’s like, not devoid of weird implications but you can see where it mostly works.

but barnyard is the outlier here: it goes with tier one: the animals can talk and walk on two legs but just pretend that they can’t for unstated reasons. 

in the history of the barnyard world non human animals, at some point, decided to just pretend to be unable to speak. a “cow” or a “coyote” or a “hen” do not exist as we know it in the barnyard universe. the baa of the sheep is false; the ewe doesn’t understand it either. they only made up that noise to hide the fact that they speak human languages. a dog barking and running on all fours is a facade. animals naturally walk on their hind legs and made up whole postures just to appear non sentient.

and for what? what do they gain from this? they have no rights and no voice by their own choice. at one point a donkey claims the farmer is a good person because he’s vegan and a pig mentions bacon - this is not a fantasy universe devoid of death and misery and meat. do animals, in hushed whispers, remind their children not to sob in their real voice as they’re taken away? do the dogs not beg for kindness when they’re tied up and hit? do cows and chickens not cry for their life in the slaughterhouses? does a rat not scream a human scream when the trap misses their neck and only breaks their spine? Why? what is the point? They loose so much and have everything to gain.

anyways does everyone remember this really awful cat. it only appears in one scene but i can just sense the porn of it that would pop up if i googled it’s name

Before Pride Month comes to an end, I wanted to memorialize my husband unintentionally calling me a bisexual failure at the start of the month. (We laughed about it later, and I wasn't really offended!)

Ch. 146, "The Ancient Lithograph":

"Tyhone"

"Terra the Djinn"

Ch. 149, "Where I Belong":

"Card-Pinning Light Sword"

Ch. 153, "Unforgivable Guy!!":

"Mythical Beast King Gazelle"

"Baphomet"

Ch. 154, "Crumbling Deck!?":

"Chain Destruction"

Ch. 155, "Millennium Battle":

"Red-Eyes Black Dragon"

Ch. 161, "Extreme Duel!!":

"Magnet Warrior α"

"Hand Obliteration"

Ch. 162, "Magic Battle!!"

"Magnet Warrior β"

"De-Magic"

Ch. 160, "Cross-Shaped Trap!!":

"Spirit's Mirror"

"Big Shield Gardna"

Ch. 161, "Revived Souls!!":

"Black Magician Girl" Bonus Post

Ch. 171, "Showdown of the Millennium!!":

"De-Fusion"

Ch. 172, "Summon the Nightmare":

"Buster Blader"

Ch. 174, "Combo of God!!":

"Magic Cylinder"

Ch. 177, "Attack that Opponent!!":

"Saint Dragon- the God of Osiris"

Ch. 185, "Revive God!!":

"Dark Demon Gilfer"

Ch. 188, "Power Combined!!":

"Magnet Warrior γ"

Ch. 194, "The Card of Pride":

"Exchange"

Ch. 205, "Begrudging Soul!!":

"Magic Spellbook"

Ch. 240, "Imminent Attack!! Pursing Attack!!":

"Trap Removal"

Ch. 249, "Sky Duel Coliseum!!":

"Queen's Knight"

Ch. 251, "Secret Stratagem to Invoke God!!":

"Life Shaver"

"Soul Rope"

"King's Knight"

"Jack's Knight"

Ch. 256, "Osiris vs. Obelisk!!":

"Pot of Greed"

Ch. 261, "Beyond Hatred!!":

"Double Magic"

Ch. 259, "As a Friend!!":

"Diffusing Surge"

Ch. 263, "The Monster That Decides Victory or Defeat":

"The God of Obelisk"

Ch. 269, "Card of Fate!!":

"Devil's Sanctuary"

Ch. 274, "Ambush from the Darkness!!":

"Soul Taker"

Ch 275, "The Strength of 1 Point!!":

"Dimension Magic"

Ch 276, "Alcatraz Explodes!!":

"The Sun of God Dragon" (Ra)

The Pharaoh's Memories Arc

Ch. 324, "Battle in the Shrine!!":

"Marshmallon"

Ch. 325, "The Silent Duelist!!":

"Silent Swordsman Lv. 0"

"Marshmallon Glasses"

"Time Jump"

Ch. 326, "Ghosts Crowd Out the Field!!":

"Silent Magician"

Ch. 327, "I Won't Give Up!!":

"Magic Barrier"

"Destruction Dragon Gandora"

Ch. 339, "Yugi vs. Atem!!":

"The Tricky"

"Green Gadget"

"Rebellion"

"Mobile Fortress Stronghold"

"Bonds of the Brethren"

"Red Gadget"

"Yellow Gadget"

"Magic Transfer"

Ch. 340, "Strong Feelings!!":

"Tricky's Magic 4"

"Shattered Axe"

Ch. 341, "Vs. the Strongest Servant!!":

"Blockman"

"Gold Ark of Isolation"

Ch. 342, "The Last Gamble!!":

"Magician's Circle"

"Magician's Cross"

Those are Expert Systems, tuned to do exactly one thing. If you (say) ask a medical expert system a question about financial law, it's useless. The autopilot that flies a 787 has no idea how to drive a truck on the freeway. A Coulter Counter is excellent at identifying lymphocytes in a blood sample but can't predict the next card in a blackjack game.

And so on.

The problem with so-called generalized AI (AGI) is that we don't have that yet. It doesn't exist. It MIGHT some day, but AGI has been "10 years away" since the 1980s. The goals keep moving as we learn more about how people and machines process data.

But the current crop of AI techbros have been selling generative Large Language Model AI (LLM) as AGI because generative systems do a good job of faking it. There's no actual thought going on, merely the illusion of thought via predicting the next word in a sentence accurately.

If you let a human toddler listen to 800 hours of YouTube car influencer videos, that toddler might end up sounding like a car influencer. They'd parrot horsepower numbers and 0 to 60 times, mention EV range and MSRP numbers.

But they wouldn't understand any of it.

That's ChatGPT.

And yeah, it's worse than useless because it doesn't even know when it's lying or hallucinating. It just babbles convincingly until you stop it.

But for techbros to make money selling that as "AI"? It's the perfect scam, especially if you don't understand how it works.

sorry to put your tags on blast on this insane breach containment post I have since muted, but you're right and you should say it.

truly the only time i will whip out the calculator app for mental maths is when i do need to be pinpoint accurate (not ballparking it) and also it involves an annoying number like "what's 17% of that". i could do it in my head. it just takes a minute. i don't necessarily want to