happiness-3
Original: happiness-3 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Woman with orange hair: Do you think if machines could make your life perfect, you'd just get bored?
Woman with dark curly hair: Obviously not.
Panel 2:
Woman with dark curly hair: If I'm bored inside the perfect-life machine, that just tells me that the machine is NOT WORKING AS ADVERTISED.
Panel 3:
Woman with dark curly hair: There are neural pathways in my brain that inform my conscious mind it is bored. All the machine has to do is jiggle those neurons appropriately and my conscious mind will experience delight, contentedness, zest for another day.
Panel 4:
Woman with dark curly hair: Boredom, malaise, ennui... all these philosophical arguments against a happiness machine are just bad intuition pumps that are reducible to "you'd be unhappy in a happiness machine if the happiness machine didn't work."
Panel 5:
Woman with orange hair: But if an outside device is directly adjusting your thoughts and emotions, will you even feel like you're you anymore?
Woman with dark curly hair: I WILL IF IT TELLS ME TO!
Votey:
Caption/title text: When did SMBC become propaganda for the machines.
A man (one of several listeners in a row) reacts: Become.?
(In the foreground a person with a ponytail is writing/drawing at a desk.)
Woman with orange hair: Do you think if machines could make your life perfect, you'd just get bored?
Woman with dark curly hair: Obviously not.
Panel 2:
Woman with dark curly hair: If I'm bored inside the perfect-life machine, that just tells me that the machine is NOT WORKING AS ADVERTISED.
Panel 3:
Woman with dark curly hair: There are neural pathways in my brain that inform my conscious mind it is bored. All the machine has to do is jiggle those neurons appropriately and my conscious mind will experience delight, contentedness, zest for another day.
Panel 4:
Woman with dark curly hair: Boredom, malaise, ennui... all these philosophical arguments against a happiness machine are just bad intuition pumps that are reducible to "you'd be unhappy in a happiness machine if the happiness machine didn't work."
Panel 5:
Woman with orange hair: But if an outside device is directly adjusting your thoughts and emotions, will you even feel like you're you anymore?
Woman with dark curly hair: I WILL IF IT TELLS ME TO!
Votey:
Caption/title text: When did SMBC become propaganda for the machines.
A man (one of several listeners in a row) reacts: Become.?
(In the foreground a person with a ponytail is writing/drawing at a desk.)
Alt text
A five-panel SMBC comic. A woman with orange hair and a woman with dark curly hair stand talking against a starry night background. Orange-hair asks: "Do you think if machines could make your life perfect, you'd just get bored?" Curly-hair replies flatly, "Obviously not." She argues that if she were bored inside a perfect-life machine, that would just mean the machine isn't working as advertised, since the machine could simply jiggle the right neurons to make her conscious mind feel delight and contentment. She dismisses all philosophical objections to a happiness machine as bad intuition pumps reducible to "you'd be unhappy in a happiness machine if the happiness machine didn't work." Orange-hair pushes back: "But if an outside device is directly adjusting your thoughts and emotions, will you even feel like you're you anymore?" Curly-hair grins and exclaims, "I WILL IF IT TELLS ME TO!" Votey (bonus panel): a row of people listening, with a person drawing at a desk in front. Caption: "When did SMBC become propaganda for the machines." One listener responds, "Become.?"
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.