simulation-4
Original: simulation-4 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1 (wide establishing shot of a long futuristic corridor with two small figures standing in it):
Off-panel voice: WHAT'RE YOU DOING?
Reply: CREATING A MACHINE THAT PERFECTLY SIMULATES THE MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT OF MY LIFE.
Panel 2 (same corridor):
Reply (continued): IT USES MORE ENERGY THAN HALF OF EUROPE, BUT 14 TRILLION TIMES PER SECOND IT RECREATES THE NIGHT I WAS DRUNK IN HIS WAY TOO MUCH AND ANTOSHIA WAS HERE AND I HAD A CRUSH ON ROB AND THEN I HAD TO PEE AND DIDN'T MAKE IT.
Panel 3 (close-up of a man in a lab coat with a woman):
Woman: WHAT?
Panel 4 (close-up of the man, eyes glowing, in front of a wall of green code/numbers):
Man: THE MORE INSTANTIATION OF THE "REGULARITY" THERE ARE, THE MORE LIKELY IT IS THAT THE ONE I REALIZED WAS A SIMULATION AND NOT REALITY.
Panel 5 (the woman, alarmed):
Woman: HOLY SHIT!
Panel 6 (two men, one with flame-like hair):
First man: I'M SURE YOU'RE QUESTIONING THE LOGIC, BUT-
Panel 7 (the flame-haired man):
Flame-haired man: I'M WONDERING IF THIS IS THE WAY GOD MADE THE MULTIVERSE.
Panel 8 (small speech bubble):
Voice: HOLY SHIT.
Votey:
A man speaks toward a floating cookie (an Oreo-like sandwich cookie).
Man: I'M GONNA RECREATE THAT TIME I GOT INFINITELY DENSE AND THEN RAPIDLY EXPANDED.
Off-panel voice: WHAT'RE YOU DOING?
Reply: CREATING A MACHINE THAT PERFECTLY SIMULATES THE MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT OF MY LIFE.
Panel 2 (same corridor):
Reply (continued): IT USES MORE ENERGY THAN HALF OF EUROPE, BUT 14 TRILLION TIMES PER SECOND IT RECREATES THE NIGHT I WAS DRUNK IN HIS WAY TOO MUCH AND ANTOSHIA WAS HERE AND I HAD A CRUSH ON ROB AND THEN I HAD TO PEE AND DIDN'T MAKE IT.
Panel 3 (close-up of a man in a lab coat with a woman):
Woman: WHAT?
Panel 4 (close-up of the man, eyes glowing, in front of a wall of green code/numbers):
Man: THE MORE INSTANTIATION OF THE "REGULARITY" THERE ARE, THE MORE LIKELY IT IS THAT THE ONE I REALIZED WAS A SIMULATION AND NOT REALITY.
Panel 5 (the woman, alarmed):
Woman: HOLY SHIT!
Panel 6 (two men, one with flame-like hair):
First man: I'M SURE YOU'RE QUESTIONING THE LOGIC, BUT-
Panel 7 (the flame-haired man):
Flame-haired man: I'M WONDERING IF THIS IS THE WAY GOD MADE THE MULTIVERSE.
Panel 8 (small speech bubble):
Voice: HOLY SHIT.
Votey:
A man speaks toward a floating cookie (an Oreo-like sandwich cookie).
Man: I'M GONNA RECREATE THAT TIME I GOT INFINITELY DENSE AND THEN RAPIDLY EXPANDED.
Alt text
A black-and-white SMBC comic. In a long, futuristic corridor, a scientist explains he has built a machine that perfectly simulates the most embarrassing moment of his life: it burns more energy than half of Europe and, fourteen trillion times per second, recreates a humiliating drunken night involving a crush and an accident he didn't make it to the bathroom for. His colleagues react with shock ("What?" / "Holy shit!"). The scientist, eyes glowing before a wall of green code, reasons that the more instantiations of that moment exist in simulation, the more likely it is that the original moment he lived through was itself a simulation rather than reality. A flame-haired man muses that maybe this is how God made the multiverse, prompting another "Holy shit." The joke: the cosmic simulation-argument is being driven by one guy's desperate need to reframe an embarrassing memory as not-quite-real. Votey: a man addresses a floating sandwich cookie, saying "I'm gonna recreate that time I got infinitely dense and then rapidly expanded" - a Big Bang pun where the cookie stands in for compressed-then-expanded matter.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.