2012-08-30
Original: 2012-08-30 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1 (single panel):
A young man with dark hair (a student) talks to an off-panel professor, whose face appears at the right edge of the panel.
Student: WAIT, PROFESSOR... IF SISYPHUS HAD TO ROLL THE BOULDER UP THE HILL OVER AND OVER FOREVER, WHY DIDN'T HE JUST PROGRAM ROBOTS TO ROLL IT FOR HIM, AND THEN SPEND ALL HIS TIME WALLOWING IN HEDONISM?
Professor: IT'S A METAPHOR FOR THE HUMAN STRUGGLE.
Student: I DON'T SEE HOW THAT CHANGES MY POINT.
Caption (below panel): It's getting harder and harder to be existentialist.
Votey:
A hand-drawn line graph. The vertical axis is labeled "DESIRE FOR MEANING" and the horizontal axis is labeled "AWESOMENESS OF LIFE." A straight line slopes downward from upper-left to lower-right, showing that as the awesomeness of life increases, the desire for meaning decreases.
A young man with dark hair (a student) talks to an off-panel professor, whose face appears at the right edge of the panel.
Student: WAIT, PROFESSOR... IF SISYPHUS HAD TO ROLL THE BOULDER UP THE HILL OVER AND OVER FOREVER, WHY DIDN'T HE JUST PROGRAM ROBOTS TO ROLL IT FOR HIM, AND THEN SPEND ALL HIS TIME WALLOWING IN HEDONISM?
Professor: IT'S A METAPHOR FOR THE HUMAN STRUGGLE.
Student: I DON'T SEE HOW THAT CHANGES MY POINT.
Caption (below panel): It's getting harder and harder to be existentialist.
Votey:
A hand-drawn line graph. The vertical axis is labeled "DESIRE FOR MEANING" and the horizontal axis is labeled "AWESOMENESS OF LIFE." A straight line slopes downward from upper-left to lower-right, showing that as the awesomeness of life increases, the desire for meaning decreases.
Alt text
A single-panel SMBC comic. A young man with dark hair (a student) addresses an off-panel professor, whose face is visible at the right edge. The student says: "Wait, professor... if Sisyphus had to roll the boulder up the hill over and over forever, why didn't he just program robots to roll it for him, and then spend all his time wallowing in hedonism?" The professor replies, "It's a metaphor for the human struggle." The student responds, "I don't see how that changes my point." A caption below reads: "It's getting harder and harder to be existentialist." The joke is that modern automation undermines the classic existentialist parable of struggle. Votey (aftercomic): a hand-drawn line graph with a vertical axis labeled "Desire for meaning" and a horizontal axis labeled "Awesomeness of life." A straight line slopes downward from upper-left to lower-right, implying that the more awesome life becomes, the less people crave meaning.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.