unintended-consequences
Original: unintended-consequences on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Main comic — a series of four hand-drawn line graphs, each with a rising red curve, followed by a final illustrated panel.
Graph 1:
Y-axis label: COST OF REARING A CHILD TO ADULTHOOD
X-axis label: TIME
(The red curve stays flat, then rises sharply upward at the right.)
Graph 2:
Y-axis label: EVOLUTIONARY ADVANTAGE OF HAVING A WEIRD PREGNANCY FETISH
X-axis label: COST OF REARING A CHILD TO ADULTHOOD
(The red curve rises steadily, roughly linearly.)
Graph 3:
Y-axis label: PERCENT OF POPULATION CARRYING GENE FOR PREGNANCY FETISH
X-axis label: EVOLUTIONARY ADVANTAGE OF HAVING A WEIRD PREGNANCY FETISH
(The red curve rises with increasing steepness.)
Graph 4:
Y-axis label: BABIES BORN PER PERSON
X-axis label: PERCENT OF POPULATION CARRYING GENE FOR PREGNANCY FETISH
(The red curve rises with increasing steepness.)
Final panel:
Title banner: LIFE IN THE YEAR 2200:
A woman standing amid an enormous crowd of babies that fills the landscape throws her arms up and speaks.
Woman: WE'RE GOING TO STARVE TO DEATH, BUT THIS IS SO TOTALLY HOT.
A bearded man in the background holds a green object near the crowd of babies.
smbc-comics.com
Votey:
Handwritten note inside a box:
"Note to self: Never use the phrase \"sea of babies\" in a joke script again."
Graph 1:
Y-axis label: COST OF REARING A CHILD TO ADULTHOOD
X-axis label: TIME
(The red curve stays flat, then rises sharply upward at the right.)
Graph 2:
Y-axis label: EVOLUTIONARY ADVANTAGE OF HAVING A WEIRD PREGNANCY FETISH
X-axis label: COST OF REARING A CHILD TO ADULTHOOD
(The red curve rises steadily, roughly linearly.)
Graph 3:
Y-axis label: PERCENT OF POPULATION CARRYING GENE FOR PREGNANCY FETISH
X-axis label: EVOLUTIONARY ADVANTAGE OF HAVING A WEIRD PREGNANCY FETISH
(The red curve rises with increasing steepness.)
Graph 4:
Y-axis label: BABIES BORN PER PERSON
X-axis label: PERCENT OF POPULATION CARRYING GENE FOR PREGNANCY FETISH
(The red curve rises with increasing steepness.)
Final panel:
Title banner: LIFE IN THE YEAR 2200:
A woman standing amid an enormous crowd of babies that fills the landscape throws her arms up and speaks.
Woman: WE'RE GOING TO STARVE TO DEATH, BUT THIS IS SO TOTALLY HOT.
A bearded man in the background holds a green object near the crowd of babies.
smbc-comics.com
Votey:
Handwritten note inside a box:
"Note to self: Never use the phrase \"sea of babies\" in a joke script again."
Alt text
A four-step chain of hand-drawn line graphs, each with a red curve rising left to right, arguing a tongue-in-cheek evolutionary feedback loop. Graph 1: 'Cost of rearing a child to adulthood' versus 'Time' rises sharply. Graph 2: 'Evolutionary advantage of having a weird pregnancy fetish' rises as that cost rises. Graph 3: 'Percent of population carrying gene for pregnancy fetish' rises as that advantage rises. Graph 4: 'Babies born per person' rises as the fetish gene spreads. The final illustrated panel, titled 'Life in the year 2200:', shows a vast landscape carpeted with countless babies. A woman standing among them throws her arms up and exclaims, 'We're going to starve to death, but this is so totally hot.' A bearded man stands in the crowd. The votey is a handwritten note in a box reading: 'Note to self: Never use the phrase "sea of babies" in a joke script again.'
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.