bastardry
Original: bastardry on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1 (caption above a bald speaker at a lectern):
Speaker: During the last several centuries, humanity has gone from seeing itself as the highest life, as the spark of the divine, to being a particular species of ape molded only by the struggle for survival.
Panel 2 (caption above a chart):
Speaker: During the same period, a metric I call "general human bastardry" consisting of per capita incidence of war, genocide, slavery, and so on has declined in concert.
(The chart is labeled "Bastardry" on the falling curve and "Self-Hate" on the rising curve.)
Panel 3 (caption):
Speaker: The inescapable conclusion is that human self-hatred is the driving force behind building a more just and peaceful world.
Panel 4 (caption):
Speaker: Therefore the quickest means by which to achieve utopia would be a crash program to not only display but promote the ugliest, most debauched and degraded view of human nature.
Panel 5:
Speaker: Any questions?
Panel 6 (audience member silhouette raising a question):
Audience member: Have you heard of Facebook?
Speaker: Yes! Why do they keep sponsoring me?
Votey:
No, the perspective isn't off in panel 4. The guy has a third arm coming out of his belly button.
Speaker: During the last several centuries, humanity has gone from seeing itself as the highest life, as the spark of the divine, to being a particular species of ape molded only by the struggle for survival.
Panel 2 (caption above a chart):
Speaker: During the same period, a metric I call "general human bastardry" consisting of per capita incidence of war, genocide, slavery, and so on has declined in concert.
(The chart is labeled "Bastardry" on the falling curve and "Self-Hate" on the rising curve.)
Panel 3 (caption):
Speaker: The inescapable conclusion is that human self-hatred is the driving force behind building a more just and peaceful world.
Panel 4 (caption):
Speaker: Therefore the quickest means by which to achieve utopia would be a crash program to not only display but promote the ugliest, most debauched and degraded view of human nature.
Panel 5:
Speaker: Any questions?
Panel 6 (audience member silhouette raising a question):
Audience member: Have you heard of Facebook?
Speaker: Yes! Why do they keep sponsoring me?
Votey:
No, the perspective isn't off in panel 4. The guy has a third arm coming out of his belly button.
Alt text
A four-panel comic of a bald man giving a lecture at a lectern, each panel topped with a block of his narration. He argues that as humanity stopped seeing itself as divine and accepted being just an ape shaped by survival, a metric he calls "general human bastardry" (war, genocide, slavery) has declined; a chart shows a falling "Bastardry" curve and a rising "Self-Hate" curve. He concludes that human self-hatred drives building a more just world, so the fastest route to utopia is a crash program to promote the ugliest, most degraded view of human nature. In the final panels he asks "Any questions?" and a silhouetted audience member says "Have you heard of Facebook?" He replies, "Yes! Why do they keep sponsoring me?" Votey panel: a hand-lettered note reads, "No, the perspective isn't off in panel 4. The guy has a third arm coming out of his belly button."
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.