speciation
Original: speciation on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Narration: As society grew wealthier, healthcare grew more expensive.
Narration: Technology and driven costs so low that we can now afford 100-year unhelpful office workers and an entirely new broken web interface!
Well-dressed man: We can make you cure cheaper by exchange you'll need to be our servant for two forevers.
Panel 2:
Narration: We had incredible medical science that nobody could afford.
Doctor: We can make you live forever! BUT...
Panel 3:
Narration: The only way for the poor to afford medicine was to appeal for help online.
Text on screen: FundMySurvival.com
Text: Raising money to get railroad spike in skull insured.
Text: Stretch goals: cancer ripple-closing spike-hole take weekend off
Panel 4:
Narration: But even with resources are finite. Only the most sympathetic cases were funded.
A little girl with red curls (on screen): Update: It turns out my cute little puppydog eyes are due to a nematode infection! Please help!
Panel 5:
Narration: The result was enormous evolutionary pressure for those particular qualities.
Label: 1) ADORABLE
Label: 2) NEEDFUL
Text: A) Susceptible to sympathy-inducing diseases
Text: B) My favorite system that... why I just learned tips it's true... I'm super needy I just goood pets! Please help me
Text: C) Ability to reproduce despite a high B...
Text: I'm actually doing okay I just want some money to buy a hat
Text: D) ...is a heart... DON'T TELL HUMANS
Text: please...
Text: just give... fave help...
Panel 6:
Narration: Humanity split into havers of wealth and receivers of wealth.
Signature: hyena sapiens
Signature: thisprocrastinatingflesh-blanketmonster.com
Panel 7:
Narration: Soon, humanity was vastly outnumbered by hordes of precious creatures, all evolved to induce empathy.
Man: Gimme. You wallet or I just cut your face in good and adorable! I'll write you a check too.
Little girl: Okay. You can have it too! And I'll be so good I'll do anything! Give me a check too!
Panel 8 (top of band 2 repeats):
Little girl: Kitties no more! Please okay!
Panel 9:
Narration: Homo sapiens sued for peace.
Man in uniform: Our negotiators are all blind and deaf. They will not be swayed by your just darling and precious charm.
Panel 10:
Narration: Hope rose. Thwarted for a moment, and burned out.
Little girl: Meet my associate, lil' Billy. He has a suave bouncy bicycle!
Text: gasp!
Panel 11:
Narration: It was too late to counterattack.
Man: Launch the missiles! All of them!
Panel 12:
Text: Sorry, mr. president. This red-haired girl with no front teeth asked me to point ours away from our western bunkers, and I... I just couldn't. I just couldn't.
Panel 13:
Narration: Nuke war exist. War was deadly. War was adorable.
Text: The clouds rolled. War shook. War was sweaaaat big mooooooomS.
Votey:
Text (handwritten): In case you're wondering what the correct political interpretation here is, I just think we need more missile defense systems in case of a first strike by little girls with fluffy red curls.
Narration: As society grew wealthier, healthcare grew more expensive.
Narration: Technology and driven costs so low that we can now afford 100-year unhelpful office workers and an entirely new broken web interface!
Well-dressed man: We can make you cure cheaper by exchange you'll need to be our servant for two forevers.
Panel 2:
Narration: We had incredible medical science that nobody could afford.
Doctor: We can make you live forever! BUT...
Panel 3:
Narration: The only way for the poor to afford medicine was to appeal for help online.
Text on screen: FundMySurvival.com
Text: Raising money to get railroad spike in skull insured.
Text: Stretch goals: cancer ripple-closing spike-hole take weekend off
Panel 4:
Narration: But even with resources are finite. Only the most sympathetic cases were funded.
A little girl with red curls (on screen): Update: It turns out my cute little puppydog eyes are due to a nematode infection! Please help!
Panel 5:
Narration: The result was enormous evolutionary pressure for those particular qualities.
Label: 1) ADORABLE
Label: 2) NEEDFUL
Text: A) Susceptible to sympathy-inducing diseases
Text: B) My favorite system that... why I just learned tips it's true... I'm super needy I just goood pets! Please help me
Text: C) Ability to reproduce despite a high B...
Text: I'm actually doing okay I just want some money to buy a hat
Text: D) ...is a heart... DON'T TELL HUMANS
Text: please...
Text: just give... fave help...
Panel 6:
Narration: Humanity split into havers of wealth and receivers of wealth.
Signature: hyena sapiens
Signature: thisprocrastinatingflesh-blanketmonster.com
Panel 7:
Narration: Soon, humanity was vastly outnumbered by hordes of precious creatures, all evolved to induce empathy.
Man: Gimme. You wallet or I just cut your face in good and adorable! I'll write you a check too.
Little girl: Okay. You can have it too! And I'll be so good I'll do anything! Give me a check too!
Panel 8 (top of band 2 repeats):
Little girl: Kitties no more! Please okay!
Panel 9:
Narration: Homo sapiens sued for peace.
Man in uniform: Our negotiators are all blind and deaf. They will not be swayed by your just darling and precious charm.
Panel 10:
Narration: Hope rose. Thwarted for a moment, and burned out.
Little girl: Meet my associate, lil' Billy. He has a suave bouncy bicycle!
Text: gasp!
Panel 11:
Narration: It was too late to counterattack.
Man: Launch the missiles! All of them!
Panel 12:
Text: Sorry, mr. president. This red-haired girl with no front teeth asked me to point ours away from our western bunkers, and I... I just couldn't. I just couldn't.
Panel 13:
Narration: Nuke war exist. War was deadly. War was adorable.
Text: The clouds rolled. War shook. War was sweaaaat big mooooooomS.
Votey:
Text (handwritten): In case you're wondering what the correct political interpretation here is, I just think we need more missile defense systems in case of a first strike by little girls with fluffy red curls.
Alt text
A tall black-and-white SMBC comic in many small panels telling a satirical evolutionary fable. It opens with a wealthy man in a suit and a doctor, with narration that as society grew wealthier, healthcare grew unaffordable, so the poor had to crowdfund cures online (a mock site, FundMySurvival.com, raising money to get a railroad spike removed from a skull). A little girl with fluffy red curls appears on screen begging for donations, claiming her cute puppy-dog eyes are due to a nematode infection. Narration explains this created evolutionary pressure for adorable, needful, sympathy-inducing traits; a diagram labels qualities like 'adorable' and 'needful' with desperate pleading captions. Humanity splits into havers and receivers of wealth, and is soon outnumbered by hordes of precious red-curled creatures evolved to induce empathy, who menacingly demand wallets while promising to be adorable. Homo sapiens sues for peace using blind-and-deaf negotiators immune to cuteness, but the creatures deploy a suave little boy named lil' Billy on a bouncy bicycle and overwhelm them. A bald president orders all missiles launched, but a soldier confesses a red-haired, toothless little girl convinced him to aim the missiles at humanity's own bunkers. The final panel shows mushroom clouds: war was deadly, and war was adorable. The signature reads 'hyena sapiens.' Votey: a hand-lettered panel reads, 'In case you're wondering what the correct political interpretation here is, I just think we need more missile defense systems in case of a first strike by little girls with fluffy red curls.'
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.