the-fundamental-equation
Original: the-fundamental-equation on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Younger man: It's tough having small kids at home. I'm looking forward to when they can help out. When's that happen?
Panel 2 (older bearded man, holding a pen and paper):
Older man: Let me show you the the fundamental kid utility function.
Panel 3 (a graph):
Y-axis label: DESIRE TO HELP
X-axis label: ABILITY TO HELP
The plotted line slopes steeply downward from upper-left to lower-right, with points labeled by arrows: 4, 7, 10, 16.
Panel 4:
Younger man (reading the paper): Dear God. Utility remains constant.
Older man: Precisely.
Caption / younger man (smaller text): From a labor perspective, the main difference between a toddler and a teen is whether you're yelling at them for breaking something or for not fixing something.
Younger man: What have I done?
Panel 5:
Older man: I should probably mention that the y-axis starts at negative ten million.
Votey:
Off-panel speaker (in a speech bubble): But they're so cute
(A close-up of a wide-eyed, grinning bearded face.)
Younger man: It's tough having small kids at home. I'm looking forward to when they can help out. When's that happen?
Panel 2 (older bearded man, holding a pen and paper):
Older man: Let me show you the the fundamental kid utility function.
Panel 3 (a graph):
Y-axis label: DESIRE TO HELP
X-axis label: ABILITY TO HELP
The plotted line slopes steeply downward from upper-left to lower-right, with points labeled by arrows: 4, 7, 10, 16.
Panel 4:
Younger man (reading the paper): Dear God. Utility remains constant.
Older man: Precisely.
Caption / younger man (smaller text): From a labor perspective, the main difference between a toddler and a teen is whether you're yelling at them for breaking something or for not fixing something.
Younger man: What have I done?
Panel 5:
Older man: I should probably mention that the y-axis starts at negative ten million.
Votey:
Off-panel speaker (in a speech bubble): But they're so cute
(A close-up of a wide-eyed, grinning bearded face.)
Alt text
A six-ish-panel SMBC comic. A younger man complains to an older, bald, gray-bearded, bespectacled man that having small kids is tough and he's looking forward to when they can help out, asking when that happens. The older man offers to show him "the fundamental kid utility function" and presents a hand-drawn graph: the y-axis is labeled DESIRE TO HELP, the x-axis ABILITY TO HELP, and a steep line slopes downward from upper-left to lower-right, with points marked 4, 7, 10, and 16 along it (i.e., as ability rises with age, desire falls). The younger man reads it and gasps, "Dear God. Utility remains constant," and the older man replies, "Precisely" — the takeaway being that the main difference between a toddler and a teen is whether you're yelling at them for breaking something or for not fixing something. The younger man, dismayed, says "What have I done?" In the final beat the older man adds, "I should probably mention that the y-axis starts at negative ten million." Votey (bonus panel): a close-up of a wide-eyed, grinning bearded face as an off-panel voice in a speech bubble says, "But they're so cute."
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.