ethics
Original: ethics on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Man: Ethics? What do you have ethics?
Glowing green entity: Sure. No killing, no stealing, do unto others as you would be done by.
Panel 2:
Man: It's not possible.
Glowing green entity: Look, I'm a scientist. I study comparative intelligence.
Panel 3:
Glowing green entity: Intelligences are too complicated to study from first principles, so to study intelligence we create a standard mind, and we break something. Then we see how its society develops. Sort of like your 'knock-out' mice.
Panel 4:
Glowing green entity: Humans ran an experiment in minds that haven't got a high enough sense in human language for it. A morality. Original. The ability to detect moral truth via the senses.
Glowing green entity (continued): We completely lack it (or you don't) and yet you still have a basic set of laws that close to how things are robust to our experiments!
Panel 5:
Man: What do you mean 'close to true'?
Glowing green entity: Oh.
Panel 6:
Glowing green entity: Yeah?
Panel 7:
Man: It's an affront to every god in the multiverse.
Panel 8:
Man: Then I defy heaven!
Glowing green entity: ...
Votey:
A pie with rays of light emanating from a glowing egg-shaped object above it bearing a pentagram. (The pie is being venerated / the man's defiance has been redirected toward worshipping a pie.)
Man: Ethics? What do you have ethics?
Glowing green entity: Sure. No killing, no stealing, do unto others as you would be done by.
Panel 2:
Man: It's not possible.
Glowing green entity: Look, I'm a scientist. I study comparative intelligence.
Panel 3:
Glowing green entity: Intelligences are too complicated to study from first principles, so to study intelligence we create a standard mind, and we break something. Then we see how its society develops. Sort of like your 'knock-out' mice.
Panel 4:
Glowing green entity: Humans ran an experiment in minds that haven't got a high enough sense in human language for it. A morality. Original. The ability to detect moral truth via the senses.
Glowing green entity (continued): We completely lack it (or you don't) and yet you still have a basic set of laws that close to how things are robust to our experiments!
Panel 5:
Man: What do you mean 'close to true'?
Glowing green entity: Oh.
Panel 6:
Glowing green entity: Yeah?
Panel 7:
Man: It's an affront to every god in the multiverse.
Panel 8:
Man: Then I defy heaven!
Glowing green entity: ...
Votey:
A pie with rays of light emanating from a glowing egg-shaped object above it bearing a pentagram. (The pie is being venerated / the man's defiance has been redirected toward worshipping a pie.)
Alt text
An eight-panel black-and-white SMBC comic. A man converses with a swirling, glowing green energy entity (an alien or non-human intelligence). The man asks if the entity has ethics; it lists basic moral rules (no killing, no stealing, the golden rule). The entity explains it is a scientist studying comparative intelligence: because intelligences are too complex to study from first principles, scientists create a 'standard mind,' break something in it, and observe how its society develops, comparing it to lab 'knock-out' mice. It explains that humans were run as an experiment in minds lacking an innate sense for detecting moral truth, yet humans still developed laws close to true morality and robust to the experiments. The man asks what 'close to true' means; the entity goes quiet ('Oh.'). The man declares it an affront to every god in the multiverse and shouts 'Then I defy heaven!' while the entity stays silent. Votey: A drawing of a pie with rays of light radiating from a small glowing egg-shaped object marked with a pentagram floating above it, as if the pie is a sacred object being venerated.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.