2011-10-09
Original: 2011-10-09 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Woman: I'm a vegetarian because I don't like the idea of making conscious beings suffer for food.
Panel 2:
Man: But plant cultivation kills lots of small animals. Ranching destroys a smaller amount of large animals.
Panel 3:
Man: I guess the issue would be which approach kills the fewest neurons.
Panel 4:
Man: But are all neurons equal? If a million sound-worm neurons die, you don't feel too bad. If a million mommy neurons die, you do.
Panel 5:
Man: So let's see... We want the best ratio of meat to consciousness, so you take the quantity of neuron killed, but weight each neuron on how complex of a system it is in. So we'd want a large animal, preferably fatty, who's stupid.
Panel 6:
Woman: We'd want... we'd want--
Woman: Oh god no.
Panel 7 (a chart):
Y-axis: ETHICALNESS OF EATING AN ANIMAL
X-axis: CUTENESS OF THAT ANIMAL
A rising curve with three labeled points from low to high: PANDA, BABY WALRUS, OVERWEIGHT KOALA.
Votey:
An overweight koala lying contentedly on its back.
Woman: I'm a vegetarian because I don't like the idea of making conscious beings suffer for food.
Panel 2:
Man: But plant cultivation kills lots of small animals. Ranching destroys a smaller amount of large animals.
Panel 3:
Man: I guess the issue would be which approach kills the fewest neurons.
Panel 4:
Man: But are all neurons equal? If a million sound-worm neurons die, you don't feel too bad. If a million mommy neurons die, you do.
Panel 5:
Man: So let's see... We want the best ratio of meat to consciousness, so you take the quantity of neuron killed, but weight each neuron on how complex of a system it is in. So we'd want a large animal, preferably fatty, who's stupid.
Panel 6:
Woman: We'd want... we'd want--
Woman: Oh god no.
Panel 7 (a chart):
Y-axis: ETHICALNESS OF EATING AN ANIMAL
X-axis: CUTENESS OF THAT ANIMAL
A rising curve with three labeled points from low to high: PANDA, BABY WALRUS, OVERWEIGHT KOALA.
Votey:
An overweight koala lying contentedly on its back.
Alt text
A SMBC comic. A woman tells a man she is a vegetarian because she doesn't like making conscious beings suffer for food. The man counters that plant cultivation kills many small animals while ranching kills fewer large ones, so the real question is which approach kills the fewest neurons. He then argues that not all neurons are equal: losing a simple animal's neurons matters less than a complex one's. He concludes that the ideal meat animal would maximize the meat-to-consciousness ratio: a large, fatty, stupid animal. The woman, dawning with horror, says 'We'd want... we'd want-- oh god no.' A chart follows plotting 'ethicalness of eating an animal' (y-axis) against 'cuteness of that animal' (x-axis) as a rising curve, with points marked PANDA, BABY WALRUS, and OVERWEIGHT KOALA from low to high. Votey: a drawing of a chubby, content overweight koala lying on its back.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.