2012-02-16

A tall multi-panel SMBC comic. A child stands before two parents and delivers a long, grandiose monologue. The child says: "Mom, dad. One day, humanity will conquer disease, and after that we'll conquer aging—we'll slough off our mortal coils. No longer tied to location, we'll spread through the cosmos at near light speed. We'll experiment and theorize until we've determined the exact limits of knowledge. At which point nothing will remain to explore: discovery will end, love will be dispassionate, hope meaningless, art purposeless, religion without transcendence. Having conquered our deaths but not the universe's, we'll enter a collective hyper-ennui and march slowly toward oblivion. The only scintilla of meaning in the last vault of sorrow will be the stillborn wish to have lived and died back when we were warm flesh and summer sunlight was enough for happiness. So, in the grand scheme of things..." The father, unmoved, replies: "Sorry, kid. For the thousandth time, it doesn't matter how diabolical, eschatological, or eschato-illogical your problems are—we can't afford a new bike right now." In the final panel the child sits on a tiny bike with training wheels and shouts, "What's the point of nihilism if you can't use it to buy stuff?!" The joke: an elaborate cosmic-despair argument was just a manipulative pitch for a new bicycle. Votey (bonus panel): A caption reads "LATER..." and the same child grins wide and exclaims, "WAIT! I COULD START A METAL BAND!"