commentary
Original: commentary on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Caption (yellow banner at top): ALL TV NEWS COMMENTARY SHOULD BEGIN BY STATING UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS.
Man in suit at a chalkboard (pointing with chalk): I want you to imagine an idea placed at the top of a frictionless slope.
(On the chalkboard: a circle with an arrow pointing up and to the left along a line, labeled "M=0".)
Votey:
(Same man, sketched, beginning to point/gesture, with a thought or speech caption above him.)
Caption: ASSUME INFINITELY POWERFUL GRAVITY.
Man in suit at a chalkboard (pointing with chalk): I want you to imagine an idea placed at the top of a frictionless slope.
(On the chalkboard: a circle with an arrow pointing up and to the left along a line, labeled "M=0".)
Votey:
(Same man, sketched, beginning to point/gesture, with a thought or speech caption above him.)
Caption: ASSUME INFINITELY POWERFUL GRAVITY.
Alt text
A comic panel with a yellow caption banner reading "All TV news commentary should begin by stating underlying assumptions." Below, a stern man in a suit and red tie stands at a green chalkboard, pointing with a piece of chalk. He says, "I want you to imagine an idea placed at the top of a frictionless slope." The chalkboard shows a small circle on a sloped line with an arrow and the label "M=0," mimicking a physics diagram. The votey (aftercomic), drawn as a loose black-and-white sketch of the same man, adds the caption "Assume infinitely powerful gravity," completing the joke that pundits set up rigged thought experiments under absurd hidden assumptions.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.