best
Original: best on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Woman with curly orange hair: Do you think this is the best of all possible worlds?
Woman with dark curly hair: Yes. It has to be.
Panel 2:
Woman with dark hair: Imagine an ordered list of worlds from the one where the most bad stuff happens to the one where the most good stuff happens.
Panel 3:
Woman with dark hair: Now, consider the entry with the most bad stuff. By virtue of its special position as the very worst, it's actually quite good for humans, because anyone in it is simultaneously special and has an unlimited right to complain about life. So the worst world is not the worst world.
Panel 4:
Woman with dark hair: So we have to consider the next entry. Well, because we already eliminated the first entry as being the worst, this entry is now the worst. By virtue of that special position, it isn't so bad either.
Panel 5:
Woman with dark hair (writing on a wall/board): Iterate through the entire list and you eventually find that the only world left is the most full of good stuff and is in an exceptional position in the list.
Panel 6:
Woman with dark hair: The only world that can exist without contradiction is also the best possible world. Q.E.D.
Panel 7:
The orange-haired woman and the dark-haired woman face each other in silence.
Panel 8:
Orange-haired woman: But there are so many wars and plagues and famines.
Panel 9:
A dark silhouetted hilltop with two figures. A voice from offscreen (the personified "List"/God figure): Don't look at me. I didn't make the list.
Votey:
Look, do you want a good proof or a new proof?
Woman with curly orange hair: Do you think this is the best of all possible worlds?
Woman with dark curly hair: Yes. It has to be.
Panel 2:
Woman with dark hair: Imagine an ordered list of worlds from the one where the most bad stuff happens to the one where the most good stuff happens.
Panel 3:
Woman with dark hair: Now, consider the entry with the most bad stuff. By virtue of its special position as the very worst, it's actually quite good for humans, because anyone in it is simultaneously special and has an unlimited right to complain about life. So the worst world is not the worst world.
Panel 4:
Woman with dark hair: So we have to consider the next entry. Well, because we already eliminated the first entry as being the worst, this entry is now the worst. By virtue of that special position, it isn't so bad either.
Panel 5:
Woman with dark hair (writing on a wall/board): Iterate through the entire list and you eventually find that the only world left is the most full of good stuff and is in an exceptional position in the list.
Panel 6:
Woman with dark hair: The only world that can exist without contradiction is also the best possible world. Q.E.D.
Panel 7:
The orange-haired woman and the dark-haired woman face each other in silence.
Panel 8:
Orange-haired woman: But there are so many wars and plagues and famines.
Panel 9:
A dark silhouetted hilltop with two figures. A voice from offscreen (the personified "List"/God figure): Don't look at me. I didn't make the list.
Votey:
Look, do you want a good proof or a new proof?
Alt text
A nine-panel SMBC comic. An orange-haired woman asks a dark-haired woman if this is the best of all possible worlds. The dark-haired woman insists it has to be and lays out a proof: imagine an ordered list of worlds from most-bad to most-good. The very worst world isn't really the worst, she argues, because anyone in it gets to feel special and has an unlimited right to complain, which is actually good. So you eliminate it, but then the next entry becomes "the worst" and the same special-position logic applies, so it isn't so bad either. Iterating through the whole list, she concludes (writing on a wall) that the only world left standing without contradiction is the one most full of good stuff. "Q.E.D." The orange-haired woman objects that there are so many wars, plagues, and famines. The final panel shows a dark silhouetted hilltop with two figures, and an offscreen voice replies, "Don't look at me. I didn't make the list." Votey (aftercomic): plain hand-lettered text reading "Look, do you want a good proof or a new proof?"
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.