2014-07-21
Original: 2014-07-21 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1 (man with light hair, in shadow): "If there were a machine you could step in, which gave you a constant but false sense of pleasure for the rest of your life, would you do it?"
Panel 2 (woman with dark hair): "Absolutely not! It's always better to experience life as it is."
Man: "Okay. Suppose you could take your nemesis, Jenny, and put her in the machine. Would you do it?"
Panel 3:
Woman: "Why would I put my enemy in a pleasure machine?"
Panel 4 (man):
Man: "Because you said real life was necessarily preferable to the machine. By your logic, putting her in the machine causes her harm."
Panel 5:
Man: "Can we put poison gas in the pleasure machine?"
Woman: "Not if you want to be philosophically consistent."
Woman (small inset, smug): "I contain multitudes."
Votey:
Woman: "Say, what's in the pleasure machine?"
Man: "Cake 'n booze."
Panel 2 (woman with dark hair): "Absolutely not! It's always better to experience life as it is."
Man: "Okay. Suppose you could take your nemesis, Jenny, and put her in the machine. Would you do it?"
Panel 3:
Woman: "Why would I put my enemy in a pleasure machine?"
Panel 4 (man):
Man: "Because you said real life was necessarily preferable to the machine. By your logic, putting her in the machine causes her harm."
Panel 5:
Man: "Can we put poison gas in the pleasure machine?"
Woman: "Not if you want to be philosophically consistent."
Woman (small inset, smug): "I contain multitudes."
Votey:
Woman: "Say, what's in the pleasure machine?"
Man: "Cake 'n booze."
Alt text
A five-panel SMBC comic, mostly dark with two figures in silhouette. A light-haired man asks a dark-haired woman whether she would step into a machine that gives a constant but false sense of pleasure for life. She refuses, saying it's always better to experience real life. He then asks if she would put her nemesis, Jenny, into the machine. Confused, she asks why she'd put an enemy in a pleasure machine. He points out that by her own logic, since real life is preferable to the machine, putting Jenny in it would harm her. He follows up: can we put poison gas in the pleasure machine? She replies, "Not if you want to be philosophically consistent," then adds with a smug little inset face, "I contain multitudes." Votey: she asks what's actually in the pleasure machine; he answers, "Cake 'n booze." The joke skewers the experience-machine thought experiment by exposing the inconsistency in claiming real life is always better.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.