2014-02-08
Original: 2014-02-08 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Woman (blonde): You know the Star Trek problem? The one where, if you're obliterated but then reassembled, you are still dead, even though there's this exact duplicate of you.
Dark-haired person: Yeah.
Panel 2:
Woman: Well, to me, that means it's unethical to put someone in the teleporter machine because you're killing them.
Dark-haired person: Sure.
Panel 3:
Woman: But what if you put something in the teleporter that isn't aware of its existence? Like, it's probably unethical to up and kill a million mice for no reason. But is it unethical to run the teleporter on the "same" mouse a million times?
Panel 4:
Woman: Or say a lady was in labor, and the baby was stuck, and you could teleport it out. Would that be unethical?
Dark-haired person: I mean, technically you've still got the teleporter problem. But the baby won't remember.
Panel 5:
Woman: And what really weirds me out is teleporting the baby seems fine to me if you do it first, like, so there's only a discontinuity in space, not time. But if you obliterate the baby, then reassemble it a year later, that seems more questionable somehow.
Panel 6 (mostly dark/empty):
(no dialogue)
Panel 7:
Woman: I'm pretty sure this is the kind of stuff you get all figured out by the time you're a grownup.
Dark-haired person: Well, obviously.
Votey:
Off-panel voice (from a speech bubble): That's why they're in charge.
(Below, a smiling face looks up.)
Woman (blonde): You know the Star Trek problem? The one where, if you're obliterated but then reassembled, you are still dead, even though there's this exact duplicate of you.
Dark-haired person: Yeah.
Panel 2:
Woman: Well, to me, that means it's unethical to put someone in the teleporter machine because you're killing them.
Dark-haired person: Sure.
Panel 3:
Woman: But what if you put something in the teleporter that isn't aware of its existence? Like, it's probably unethical to up and kill a million mice for no reason. But is it unethical to run the teleporter on the "same" mouse a million times?
Panel 4:
Woman: Or say a lady was in labor, and the baby was stuck, and you could teleport it out. Would that be unethical?
Dark-haired person: I mean, technically you've still got the teleporter problem. But the baby won't remember.
Panel 5:
Woman: And what really weirds me out is teleporting the baby seems fine to me if you do it first, like, so there's only a discontinuity in space, not time. But if you obliterate the baby, then reassemble it a year later, that seems more questionable somehow.
Panel 6 (mostly dark/empty):
(no dialogue)
Panel 7:
Woman: I'm pretty sure this is the kind of stuff you get all figured out by the time you're a grownup.
Dark-haired person: Well, obviously.
Votey:
Off-panel voice (from a speech bubble): That's why they're in charge.
(Below, a smiling face looks up.)
Alt text
A long vertical SMBC comic. A blonde woman and a dark-haired person talk against a dark green background. The woman muses about the "Star Trek transporter problem" — the idea that if you're obliterated and then reassembled, the original you is still dead even though a duplicate exists. She concludes that using a teleporter is unethical because it kills the person. She escalates the dilemma: is it unethical to teleport a creature that isn't aware of its own existence, like running a teleporter on the "same" mouse a million times? What about teleporting a stuck baby out during a difficult labor? The dark-haired person notes you've still got the teleporter problem, but the baby won't remember. The woman gets even more tangled, saying teleporting the baby feels fine if there's only a discontinuity in space, not time, but obliterating it and reassembling it a year later seems more questionable. After a beat of silence (a nearly empty dark panel), she says she's pretty sure this is the kind of thing you get all figured out by the time you're a grownup, and the other person deadpans "Well, obviously." The votey panel is a hand-drawn black-and-white image: a speech bubble reads "THAT'S WHY THEY'RE IN CHARGE," with a smiling face looking up beneath it — punchline being that grownups haven't actually figured any of this out.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.