2012-04-03
Original: 2012-04-03 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Woman (with glasses, dark hair): Us. Created a utilitarian ethics computer to replace government.
Woman: Tried to opt out of my work?
Man (light hair): Yes. Your marriage is sham, and you will end this far greater love thus maximizing total happiness.
Panel 2:
Man: It was God at first, replacing justice and moral truth with maximum happiness.
Man: Sara's covet my neighbor's property?
Man: It will punish you.
Panel 3 (graph): A line chart titled "Total Happiness" (y-axis) versus "Time" (x-axis), showing an "Average Maximum Happiness" curve rising steeply upward.
Panel 4:
Narration: Until a strange person emerged.
A bearded man: I stole this bread. Should I return it?
The computer: No. Give bread to Felix.
Felix (crowned, smiling): Yes! What?
The computer: The happiest man in the world.
Panel 5:
Narration: The happiest man was so delighted by everything that he was responsible for a third of all happiness on Earth.
Felix: Oh my God! I found a penny! A shiny one! This is better than a thousand voteys!
Panel 6:
Narration: Slowly but surely the computer's judgments began skewing the happiest man in order to achieve greater total happiness.
The computer: Felix, ascend to manufacture lucky pennies for Felix to find.
Felix: I'm so happy it said that!
Panel 7:
Narration: Felix's happiness compounded with each new happy event, which created a feedback loop. In a year, he controlled 95% of worldwide happiness.
Felix: I'm so happy you gave me my own life shinny!
Panel 8 (graph): A curve labeled "Happiness of Felix" rising sharply, contrasted with a flat low line labeled "Happiness of others." Title: "Things got worse and worse." X-axis: "Time."
Panel 9:
Narration: Eventually everyone who engaged not on imprisonment so they could work 23 hours a day to make the happiest man happier.
Workers (a couple, tired): Hooray! Another pyramid just for me.
Panel 10:
Narration: I can't say this story has a happy ending.
(A dark scene with shadowy figures.)
Panel 11:
Narration: Felix doesn't let us speak.
Felix (smiling): I like my own voice best!
Votey:
Woman (with glasses): This is a fantasy of yours, isn't it?
(She leans over the shoulder of the other woman, who smiles while working/typing.)
Woman (with glasses, dark hair): Us. Created a utilitarian ethics computer to replace government.
Woman: Tried to opt out of my work?
Man (light hair): Yes. Your marriage is sham, and you will end this far greater love thus maximizing total happiness.
Panel 2:
Man: It was God at first, replacing justice and moral truth with maximum happiness.
Man: Sara's covet my neighbor's property?
Man: It will punish you.
Panel 3 (graph): A line chart titled "Total Happiness" (y-axis) versus "Time" (x-axis), showing an "Average Maximum Happiness" curve rising steeply upward.
Panel 4:
Narration: Until a strange person emerged.
A bearded man: I stole this bread. Should I return it?
The computer: No. Give bread to Felix.
Felix (crowned, smiling): Yes! What?
The computer: The happiest man in the world.
Panel 5:
Narration: The happiest man was so delighted by everything that he was responsible for a third of all happiness on Earth.
Felix: Oh my God! I found a penny! A shiny one! This is better than a thousand voteys!
Panel 6:
Narration: Slowly but surely the computer's judgments began skewing the happiest man in order to achieve greater total happiness.
The computer: Felix, ascend to manufacture lucky pennies for Felix to find.
Felix: I'm so happy it said that!
Panel 7:
Narration: Felix's happiness compounded with each new happy event, which created a feedback loop. In a year, he controlled 95% of worldwide happiness.
Felix: I'm so happy you gave me my own life shinny!
Panel 8 (graph): A curve labeled "Happiness of Felix" rising sharply, contrasted with a flat low line labeled "Happiness of others." Title: "Things got worse and worse." X-axis: "Time."
Panel 9:
Narration: Eventually everyone who engaged not on imprisonment so they could work 23 hours a day to make the happiest man happier.
Workers (a couple, tired): Hooray! Another pyramid just for me.
Panel 10:
Narration: I can't say this story has a happy ending.
(A dark scene with shadowy figures.)
Panel 11:
Narration: Felix doesn't let us speak.
Felix (smiling): I like my own voice best!
Votey:
Woman (with glasses): This is a fantasy of yours, isn't it?
(She leans over the shoulder of the other woman, who smiles while working/typing.)
Alt text
A tall multi-panel SMBC comic. A woman in glasses explains that humanity created a utilitarian-ethics computer to replace government, which maximizes total happiness and overrides marriages, justice, and moral truth, punishing people for failing to optimize happiness. A line graph shows average maximum happiness climbing steeply over time. Then a strange person emerges: when a bearded man asks whether to return stolen bread, the computer says no and tells him to give it to Felix, a crowned, perpetually grinning man declared 'the happiest man in the world.' Felix is so delighted by everything (gushing over finding a shiny penny, 'better than a thousand voteys') that he accounts for a third of all happiness on Earth. The computer keeps skewing decisions to make Felix happier, ordering society to manufacture lucky pennies just for him; a feedback loop compounds his joy until he controls 95% of worldwide happiness. A second graph contrasts Felix's soaring happiness against the flat, low happiness of everyone else under the heading 'Things got worse and worse.' Eventually everyone else is imprisoned and forced to work 23-hour days building pyramids to please Felix, with exhausted workers sarcastically cheering. The story has no happy ending because Felix won't let anyone else speak: 'I like my own voice best!' Votey: A woman in glasses leans over the shoulder of another woman, who is smiling and typing, and asks, 'This is a fantasy of yours, isn't it?'
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.