time-travel-2
Original: time-travel-2 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Woman (orange hair): "Dear God, why isn't time travel possible?"
God (off-panel, dark speech bubble): "We tried it once, but it breaks ethics."
Panel 2:
Woman: "Look, is it okay to kill Hitler?"
God: "Therefore, is it okay to kill *potential* Hitler before he does Hitler stuff."
Panel 3:
Woman: "Sure, yeah."
God: "I think so."
Panel 4:
Woman: "And with advanced biotechnology, couldn't you turn anyone into Hitler?"
God: "So it follows -- you can kill anyone, because traveling to the time travel epoch, everyone is a technical pre-Hitler."
Panel 5:
Woman: "Surely?"
Panel 6:
God: "Engineering universes is harder than I imagined."
Panel 7:
Woman: "Honestly, I wish I'd stuck with pure math instead of applied."
Votey:
A small figure in the corner. Speech bubble: "Okay, you've convinced me. Time to flood this bitch."
Woman (orange hair): "Dear God, why isn't time travel possible?"
God (off-panel, dark speech bubble): "We tried it once, but it breaks ethics."
Panel 2:
Woman: "Look, is it okay to kill Hitler?"
God: "Therefore, is it okay to kill *potential* Hitler before he does Hitler stuff."
Panel 3:
Woman: "Sure, yeah."
God: "I think so."
Panel 4:
Woman: "And with advanced biotechnology, couldn't you turn anyone into Hitler?"
God: "So it follows -- you can kill anyone, because traveling to the time travel epoch, everyone is a technical pre-Hitler."
Panel 5:
Woman: "Surely?"
Panel 6:
God: "Engineering universes is harder than I imagined."
Panel 7:
Woman: "Honestly, I wish I'd stuck with pure math instead of applied."
Votey:
A small figure in the corner. Speech bubble: "Okay, you've convinced me. Time to flood this bitch."
Alt text
A webcomic in a vertical strip. A woman with long orange hair talks with an off-panel figure (God, who speaks in a dark speech bubble) about time travel ethics. She asks why time travel isn't possible; God says they tried it once but it breaks ethics. The reasoning unfolds: it's okay to kill Hitler, therefore okay to kill a potential Hitler before he does Hitler things, and since advanced biotechnology could turn anyone into Hitler, by the logic everyone is a technical pre-Hitler and thus killable. God concludes that engineering universes is harder than imagined, and the woman muses she wishes she'd stuck with pure math instead of applied. Votey: a small hunched figure (God) in the corner of a white panel, speech bubble reading "Okay, you've convinced me. Time to flood this bitch." -- a reference to the Biblical flood.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.