jpny01

He did say "virtual" dopamine. But if you think about what a human is, we're just programmed by our DNA to have emotional reactions that impel us to do what our sole purpose is, from an evolutionary standpoint, which is to reproduce. We write poetry about love, but it's just chemicals driving us to perform the reproductive act.

So aren't our emotions just as artificial as Ever 9's? Or, to put it another way, aren't Ever 9's emotions just as real as ours? Our programming is protein sequences of a DNA strand - but don't you feel real? You are real because you feel real. If Ever 9 feels real, isn't he just as real as we are? Cogito ero sum, I think, therefore I am?

Also, who cares? He's cute, has a great personality, and a hot body. I'd let him f@#% me any time he wants.

I've been cooling a bit on this series since the beginning, which I loved so much - it's taking too long to get anywhere and it's almost over, and it seems to want to burn a lot of that time on tired cliches like getting drunk and needing a piggy-back ride home, or a fully grown man getting sauce on his face and having another fully-grown man wipe it off, which is infantilizing and would piss off a real fully-grown man. What happened that mattered this episode? Just work stuff, which we should have been showed, not told. We've never had an inkling that Hiro is exceptionally competent but brainwashed - that should be obvious to us, and would have given whatever happens emotional weight, instead of just being a point of exposition.

I like Kai's character, and I like Hiro's childhood self, but the adult Hiro is dull and it's hard to imagine why a smokeshow like Kai would be into him,.

I love this so much. Now THAT is how to do chemistry. It's not that common to have 2 actors who will cut loose like that, playing too characters who are that into each other without some artificial need for resistance.

I don't know if it's accidental, but they seem to be going with a dog & master parallel still - note Ever 9 sitting dejected by the door waiting for his master. At least he doesn't howl like my mother's dog whenever she leaves.

That's horrifying. That's one Costco per 1.7M people, compared to 575K people per Costco in the USA. That implies they're 3 times as crowded, which would mean the weight would collapse a Taiwanese Costco into a singularity and suck the earth into a black hole.

I'm saving up money for it.

I have an eight-seat dining table and there's never been more than 2 people at it, and even that's rare. I also live alone in a 200 sq m house. There's only so small a place can be in a good neighborhood, and if you have a dining area that's designed for a large table, it will look ridiculous with a tiny one.

If he's rich, he would have bought the house and hired an interior designer to outfit it.

In my case, whatever strategy I have in remodeling is with an "exit strategy" in mind. A house is a large investment, and you want to maximize the return on the capital you've used on it. So, for example, although I live alone, I'm adding a bathroom because there's only one and the house will have much higher value with 2, and I'm expanding the kitchen because it's too small and a couple with a family wouldn't be interested in the house otherwise if I decide to sell it.

Sorry for that old-preson lecture, but that's my interpretation.

OMG, I was totally thinking that - that was way closer than .46M and way further than 1.5M.

There isn't a fixed distance anyway. Men are uncomfortable if anyone is standing within arm's reach. A tall man would have to be further away than a short one.

What's wrong with it being a robot? As long as it has an autonomous intelligence and can make a conscious decision to be with Yiping, what's the objection? Ever 9's ability to experience emotions is programmed, but so is yours (and mine, and everyone else's). We like to give our emotions a spiritual weight, but they're still just our DNA producing chemicals that induce us to do what we exist for - procreation. That's why sex is such a rush, and why we like fattening food - the latter hugely increased our chances of survival in our evolutionary circumstances and thus improved our chances of passing on our genes.

The technicians said it was virtual, i.e. he's programmed to mimic the human dopamine rush - they're not actually adding dopamine to him. Taking your iPhone example, Siri can sound like a human, but they didn't put vocal chords into the phone.

I don't think Chu Yiping fell in love instantly - but I think it was quick because he's never been in love and has always resisted it, but had his guard down because Ever 9 isn't a real person. Remember that he was designed and created specifically to make Chu Yiping fall in love with him.

On a personal level, I'm gay and grew up in a very conservative environment, so while I did have crushes, I didn't understand that's what they were and wasn't capable of acting on them until my mid to late 20s, and so my interactions with guys were embarassingly teenaged because I'd never had the experiences that straight teenagers have. I went through the motions with girls, but there was never an emotional level to those connections. So to me, it makes sense that Yiping is behaving a bit like a teen on an emotional level - in fact I think the writing is quite authentic, because his teen emotional state is paired with his adult intellectual development.

Dopamine is a real thing - but the technicians clearly said it was virtual in the robot, i.e. he's progammed to experience a virtual version of a dopamine rush that mimics the human experience.

You're definitely not in a minority. There are a few people that don't like it and let us know a lot. For some reason there's a narrative that is down on this show - you can see it in comments like "I shouldn't like this, but I do." That's because it's really good and because people feel they aren't supposed to like it they qualify their praise with phrases like that.

The acting is subtle, it's well-shot, the writing is great, and the way Ever 9s pecs stretch that t-shirt are making me burn to see that tight body. Oops, sorry, for that last bit - I meant to think it quietly to myself.

Anyway, it might be because the other productions of this company were not up to this standard so people are dubious.

And nobody ever looks at her or notices she's there.

That was a little dull. I take it the girl in the dress is a ghost - she doesn't ever interact with anyone.

Maybe she's a ghost and nobody can see her.

Oh, I thought you meant the mormniong one was cut. You're right - the otheer one wwas shouty and not neceesary.

I'm very relieved that the series applied consequences to Ten's violence and viewed it as more important than the shocking attitude of most of the forum here who somehow thought it was justified. It was motivated and understandable, but it was absolutely not justified.

I also like that the Dad is not painted as a villain - he needs to work on his social skills, but what he says usually has a lot of sense in it and I like that there aren't a lot of black-and-white characterizations.

I'm not so keen on them painting the effeminate characters as depraved and evil - that's something we really need to give back to the 1950s.

Oh no! The scene with Dad was one of the best in the episode! It's so important, too.

I didn't get the ace-coding - that's why I didn't understand your comment, but now I do.

It's interesting - looking at the statistics, there's a large generational divide for this one, with older viewers liking much more than younger ones.

But I agree - I'm not going to enjoy it less because other people had bad taste.