cause-and-effect
Original: cause-and-effect on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1
Person A: Why do bad things happen to good people?
Person B: Depends on your time horizon.
Panel 2
Person A: Why?
Person B: Well, suppose that a good person is walking down the street. And a gorilla punches her in the face. That's bad.
Person A: Why did it happen? Is your time horizon one minute, it happened because the gorilla was angry.
Panel 3
Person B: Go back ten minutes and it happened because the keeper forgot to lock the pen. Then the gorilla took a certain path, then saw a light and got scared.
Person B: Go back a day and the causes expand exponentially further. The keeper didn't get enough sleep because his depressed. The gorilla happened to play with the right door. The woman walked outside because the sky was clear.
Panel 4
Person B: Go back ten years, and you're talking about why a trivial she and that's just a small event?
Person B: Sorry, wait, I phrased that poorly. Suppose we increase the time horizon to a just place--
Person A: BAHAHA HAHA!
Votey:
Person A (off to the side, leaning over the other character who is curled up/lying down): Snow is really easy to color.
Person A: Why do bad things happen to good people?
Person B: Depends on your time horizon.
Panel 2
Person A: Why?
Person B: Well, suppose that a good person is walking down the street. And a gorilla punches her in the face. That's bad.
Person A: Why did it happen? Is your time horizon one minute, it happened because the gorilla was angry.
Panel 3
Person B: Go back ten minutes and it happened because the keeper forgot to lock the pen. Then the gorilla took a certain path, then saw a light and got scared.
Person B: Go back a day and the causes expand exponentially further. The keeper didn't get enough sleep because his depressed. The gorilla happened to play with the right door. The woman walked outside because the sky was clear.
Panel 4
Person B: Go back ten years, and you're talking about why a trivial she and that's just a small event?
Person B: Sorry, wait, I phrased that poorly. Suppose we increase the time horizon to a just place--
Person A: BAHAHA HAHA!
Votey:
Person A (off to the side, leaning over the other character who is curled up/lying down): Snow is really easy to color.
Alt text
A four-panel black-and-white SMBC comic. Two people stand talking on a street. The first asks, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" The second answers, "Depends on your time horizon," then launches into an increasingly elaborate explanation: a good person gets punched in the face by an escaped gorilla. Trace the causes back one minute and it's because the gorilla was angry; back ten minutes and it's because the keeper forgot to lock the pen and the gorilla got scared by a light; back a day and the web of causes expands exponentially (the keeper was sleep-deprived from depression, the woman went outside because the sky was clear); back ten years and the chain of causation becomes absurdly vast. As the speaker keeps trying to scale the time horizon up toward some grand cosmic justification, the listener bursts out laughing ("BAHAHA HAHA!"), puncturing the over-intellectualized non-answer. Votey (bonus panel): a curly-haired figure leans over another person who is lying down/hunched, and remarks deadpan, "Snow is really easy to color" — a sight gag about the blank white space of the comic being effortless to draw.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.