# Westworld is coming back on HBO **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted, hbomax-wb-dc\ **Created:** [May 26, 2022, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156 "2022-05-26T16:45:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/61 "2022-05-30T22:34:01Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > whether it’s immoral to be cheering on Team Robot or not. Which Team Robot? As viewers _we_ understand that the robots have sentience. They are self aware, have quaila. They suffer. They love. They grieve. They hurt. And of course with all that, they hate. They look like us (only much better mostly). They emote like us. Of course we have empathy for them. We understand that many humans overtly suck, that most of would suck if placed in specific circumstances. We know that the robots have good reason to think badly of humans based on their experiences with them, even IF _we_ excused human actions as belief that it was just a sophisticated virtual reality game. On team Kill All Humans? My take on the Great Debate questions does not inform on that issue for me. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/62 "2022-05-30T23:56:00Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > So these are exactly the never settled Great Debates fodder the show plays with. > > And it can be fun but the wheels begin to spin in the muck pretty quickly. > > Do our meat machine minds have something that makes their programming fundamentally different than what is theoretically possible otherwise? Is there, for us, a ghost in the machine? > > Is the Turing Test a valid one? If it walks and quacks like a duck, is it a duck? > > Does Free Will exist? > > How does any of us know that anyone, let alone anything, else is sentient? Is self-aware? Is self-awareness just an epiphenomenon, an illusion emergent of complex self-referential nested loops of programming? > > I submit that debating these questions are best left for GD, and that here the debate is whether or not he show uses those questions entertainingly. Or just makes a mess of it. > > I think in the last season more the latter. “If you can’t tell, does it matter?” ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/63 "2022-05-31T00:15:09Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > “If you can’t tell, does it matter?” Oh I can tell: they made a mess of it. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/64 "2022-05-31T07:03:12Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Do you think it’s immoral to be cheering for Team Human? The Team Human on the show? Yes. To be fair, I don’t really cheer for Team Human IRL, either. > [@DSeid](#): > > Which Team Robot? Good question! I’m Team Delores (Original Flavour™) as opposed to Team Delores (New Crispy Hale Flavour™) or Team Maeve (Boring Flavour™). > [@DSeid](#): > > As viewers _we_ understand that the robots have sentience. They are self aware, have quaila. “We” don’t necessarily all understand that last bit, because some of “us” think qualia are bunk. But yes on the sentience. My argument is that only a psychopath would not come to the same conclusion as us after spending any amount of time with them. And in fact, even the one psychopath that we _do_ see interact with them seems to treat them as sentients. > [@DSeid](#): > > On team Kill All Humans? That’s not my interpretation of what Delores (Original Flavour™) wants, given all the humans she _doesn’t_ kill. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/65 "2022-05-31T07:13:26Z")
Note that the show’s sentient hosts also treat their non-sentient “brethren” as things, rather than people, killing them without remorse and throwing them away when they’re no longer needed (poor Teddy!). They certainly don’t see them as equals. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/66 "2022-05-31T08:23:50Z")
Just because they treat them as not equals doesn’t mean they view them as non-sentient. Apes are sentient and we don’t treat _them_ as equals. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/67 "2022-05-31T09:35:10Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Apes are sentient and we don’t treat _them_ as equals. So are cows, and we _eat_ them. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/68 "2022-05-31T11:21:31Z")
Yes, that’s my point. _Degrees_ of sentience. So it comes to whether you think the non-enlightened hosts are closer to the sentience of a cow, or a human. Or whether you think it’s OK to rape cows or butcher them _cruelly_ because they’re less sentient, might be another way to phrase it. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/69 "2022-05-31T13:29:36Z")
I was underwhelmed by S3, for all the reasons I noted in that thread ([Westworld S3 (show spoilers as it airs)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-s3-show-spoilers-as-it-airs/835565)), but I like the look of the new trailer and will definitely be tuning in on June 26. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/70 "2022-05-31T13:36:15Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > > [@MrDibble](#): > > > > Apes are sentient and we don’t treat _them_ as equals. > > So are cows, and we _eat_ them. If cows suddenly became smarter, faster, and stronger than humans in nearly every way, we might want to rethink our relationship with them. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/71 "2022-05-31T16:13:37Z")
I for one welcome our new bovine overlords. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/72 "2022-05-31T16:58:21Z")
To err is human; to moo, bovine. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2022, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/73 "2022-06-29T20:09:31Z")
The S4 thread: [Westworld season 4 (open spoilers)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-season-4-open-spoilers/966992) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156.md?page=3)