2012-11-29
Original: 2012-11-29 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1 (caption): And each year, the king was weighed, and the villagers would receive gold equal to his weight.
Panel 2 (caption): But the village mathematicians realized that higher weight meant a shorter lifespan.
Woman (mathematician): If he's half as massive but lives twice as long, we break even.
Man (mathematician, with reddish hair): Well, then it's a simple optimization problem.
Panel 3 (caption): The ideal weight was around 250 pounds.
Panel 4 (caption): The village doctors realized that not all body weight is created equal.
Doctor (in a tall hat): If he's mostly muscle, his weight will be high and his lifespan will increase.
Panel 5 (caption): So the king was put on a crash fitness program.
Panel 6 (caption): Until the village economists made a suggestion.
Economist (in a striped hat): If we get more money up front, we could use the compound interest to make more money than we'd get by receiving earnings over the king's lifespan. We should frontload now.
Panel 7 (caption): And so the economists supplied the king with ten tons of bacon, the doctors injected him with muscle inflamers, the mathematicians talked to him of theorems, which caused him to sleep 20 hours a day.
Panel 8 (caption): Soon, the town was fabulously wealthy. The new moneyed class had the power to demand a republic, and the king died from cardiac disease. The end.
Panel 9:
Child: So the moral is...
Father (reading a book titled "Technically Accurate Fairy Tales"): Sucks to be that one king?
Votey:
King (thought, eyes closed, content): Soooo... happy...
Panel 2 (caption): But the village mathematicians realized that higher weight meant a shorter lifespan.
Woman (mathematician): If he's half as massive but lives twice as long, we break even.
Man (mathematician, with reddish hair): Well, then it's a simple optimization problem.
Panel 3 (caption): The ideal weight was around 250 pounds.
Panel 4 (caption): The village doctors realized that not all body weight is created equal.
Doctor (in a tall hat): If he's mostly muscle, his weight will be high and his lifespan will increase.
Panel 5 (caption): So the king was put on a crash fitness program.
Panel 6 (caption): Until the village economists made a suggestion.
Economist (in a striped hat): If we get more money up front, we could use the compound interest to make more money than we'd get by receiving earnings over the king's lifespan. We should frontload now.
Panel 7 (caption): And so the economists supplied the king with ten tons of bacon, the doctors injected him with muscle inflamers, the mathematicians talked to him of theorems, which caused him to sleep 20 hours a day.
Panel 8 (caption): Soon, the town was fabulously wealthy. The new moneyed class had the power to demand a republic, and the king died from cardiac disease. The end.
Panel 9:
Child: So the moral is...
Father (reading a book titled "Technically Accurate Fairy Tales"): Sucks to be that one king?
Votey:
King (thought, eyes closed, content): Soooo... happy...
Alt text
A tall SMBC comic told as a fairy tale, illustrated with a recurring balance scale weighing a tiny crowned king against a pile of gold. Caption: each year the king is weighed and villagers receive gold equal to his weight. Two scholars (a gray-haired woman in glasses and a red-haired man) realize higher weight means a shorter lifespan, calling it a simple optimization problem; the ideal weight is around 250 pounds. A doctor in a tall hat points out muscle weighs more and extends lifespan, so the king is put on a crash fitness program. An economist in a striped hat argues they should frontload the gold now to earn compound interest over the king's lifespan. So the king is fed ten tons of bacon, injected with muscle inflamers, and lectured on theorems until he sleeps 20 hours a day. The town becomes fabulously wealthy, the new moneyed class demands a republic, and the king dies of cardiac disease: the end. In the final panel a father reads to his child from a book titled "Technically Accurate Fairy Tales"; the child asks the moral and the father answers, "Sucks to be that one king?" Votey: a black-bordered hand-drawn panel of the overfed, exhausted king with closed eyes thinking, "Soooo... happy..."
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.