modules
Original: modules on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1: A woman with curly dark hair stands beside a woman with light orange hair in a yellow jacket.
Dark-haired woman: "I think if I became a primatologist and studied chimps, it'd change my view of humans."
Panel 2: The orange-haired woman, shown in profile.
Dark-haired woman (off-panel): "I bet I'd believe humans have more hard-wired traits than I currently do. I bet I'd see more human behaviors as explicit status-seeking."
Panel 3: A small silhouetted figure walking on a hilly landscape under a starry sky.
Dark-haired woman: "So, logically, in my own brain I should just implement those perspective shifts without having to go through the trip to Africa and the years of study."
Panel 4: The orange-haired woman, looking slightly worried.
Dark-haired woman (off-panel): "The problem is I'm adding a mental module based on a half-informed guess, so I'd probably overcorrect. I might have the basic insight but none of the nuance."
Panel 5: The silhouetted figure again on the starry hillside.
Orange-haired woman: "The really freaky part is that this is probably true of EVERY field I know about."
Panel 6: Close-up of the orange-haired woman looking distressed; the dark-haired woman partly visible.
Orange-haired woman: "I probably have thousands of mental modules created from what I imagine I would think if I knew what I was talking about!"
Panel 7: Close-up of the dark-haired woman with wide eyes.
Dark-haired woman: "We all do this! We walk around all day with big heads filled with broken modules!"
Panel 8: The orange-haired woman speaks; a green-sleeved arm (the dark-haired woman) at the edge.
Orange-haired woman: "We make buildings, we start wars, we have babies, we go to space, we tell other people they're DEFINITELY wrong, but we know less than nothing! We know heaps and heaps of anti-facts!"
Panel 9: A wide starry night sky with a faint streak (a shooting star or path).
Panel 10: The dark-haired woman alone against the starry sky.
Dark-haired woman: "All of what we say or seem, is but a crappy-built machine."
Panel 11: The two women stand together on a hill at night.
Orange-haired woman: "I know you're riffing on Poe but I honestly can't remember anything else in that poem."
Dark-haired woman: "Beautiful, right?"
Votey:
A red-haired woman stands facing a dark-haired woman who is turned away, both looking at the night sky. The handwritten text (the aftercomic caption) reads: "CHRIST I HOPE I DIE AT HOME SOME DAY."
Dark-haired woman: "I think if I became a primatologist and studied chimps, it'd change my view of humans."
Panel 2: The orange-haired woman, shown in profile.
Dark-haired woman (off-panel): "I bet I'd believe humans have more hard-wired traits than I currently do. I bet I'd see more human behaviors as explicit status-seeking."
Panel 3: A small silhouetted figure walking on a hilly landscape under a starry sky.
Dark-haired woman: "So, logically, in my own brain I should just implement those perspective shifts without having to go through the trip to Africa and the years of study."
Panel 4: The orange-haired woman, looking slightly worried.
Dark-haired woman (off-panel): "The problem is I'm adding a mental module based on a half-informed guess, so I'd probably overcorrect. I might have the basic insight but none of the nuance."
Panel 5: The silhouetted figure again on the starry hillside.
Orange-haired woman: "The really freaky part is that this is probably true of EVERY field I know about."
Panel 6: Close-up of the orange-haired woman looking distressed; the dark-haired woman partly visible.
Orange-haired woman: "I probably have thousands of mental modules created from what I imagine I would think if I knew what I was talking about!"
Panel 7: Close-up of the dark-haired woman with wide eyes.
Dark-haired woman: "We all do this! We walk around all day with big heads filled with broken modules!"
Panel 8: The orange-haired woman speaks; a green-sleeved arm (the dark-haired woman) at the edge.
Orange-haired woman: "We make buildings, we start wars, we have babies, we go to space, we tell other people they're DEFINITELY wrong, but we know less than nothing! We know heaps and heaps of anti-facts!"
Panel 9: A wide starry night sky with a faint streak (a shooting star or path).
Panel 10: The dark-haired woman alone against the starry sky.
Dark-haired woman: "All of what we say or seem, is but a crappy-built machine."
Panel 11: The two women stand together on a hill at night.
Orange-haired woman: "I know you're riffing on Poe but I honestly can't remember anything else in that poem."
Dark-haired woman: "Beautiful, right?"
Votey:
A red-haired woman stands facing a dark-haired woman who is turned away, both looking at the night sky. The handwritten text (the aftercomic caption) reads: "CHRIST I HOPE I DIE AT HOME SOME DAY."
Alt text
An eleven-panel SMBC comic. A woman with curly dark hair and a woman with orange hair talk while standing on a starry hillside at night. The dark-haired woman muses that if she became a primatologist studying chimps, it would change her view of humans, making her see more behavior as hard-wired and status-seeking. She reasons she could just implement those perspective shifts directly in her brain without doing the years of study. The orange-haired woman grows increasingly alarmed: she realizes she probably does this for EVERY field, building thousands of mental modules based on what she imagines she'd think if she actually knew the subject. The dark-haired woman declares, wide-eyed, that everyone does this, walking around all day with heads full of broken modules. The orange-haired woman cries that humans make buildings, start wars, go to space, and tell others they're definitely wrong, yet know 'less than nothing, heaps and heaps of anti-facts.' Alone against the stars, the dark-haired woman intones, 'All of what we say or seem, is but a crappy-built machine,' and the orange-haired woman replies that she knows it's riffing on Poe but can't remember anything else in the poem. 'Beautiful, right?' Votey (aftercomic): the red-haired and dark-haired women stand facing the night sky; handwritten caption reads, 'Christ I hope I die at home some day.'
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.