repugnant
Original: repugnant on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1
Man with brown hair: Are you familiar with Parfit's "Repugnant Conclusion"? Where utilitarians are forced to admit that, say, a society of a trillion slightly happy people might be preferable to a society of a thousand blissed out people?
Panel 2
Woman with dark hair (glasses): Pfft, that's dumb.
Panel 3
Woman: The human mind is a three-pound hallucination. Blissing out is an engineering challenge.
Panel 4
Woman: A society of a trillion people is a galaxy-spanning planet-manipulating techno-miracle. If Einstein was one in a billion, they have a thousand Einsteins. If they haven't yet worked out brain manipulation, they will about four seconds after they realize they want to.
Panel 5
Woman: Meanwhile, the thousand blissed out people are a small enough society that they can't possibly support bliss for long. No complex division of labor means no modern medicine, no robust supply chains of food. Tragedy will hit them and they'll have no choice but to endure sorrow.
Panel 6
Woman: The repugnant conclusion is an unstable equilibrium. If you instantaneously created it in simulation, it would immediately cease its repugnance.
Panel 7
Man: When you put your econ in my philosophy it makes me feel gross.
Panel 8
Woman: Grow up.
Votey:
Woman (leaning in, raised eyebrow): Now, how 'bout you come back to my place for a repugnant conclusion?
Man with brown hair: Are you familiar with Parfit's "Repugnant Conclusion"? Where utilitarians are forced to admit that, say, a society of a trillion slightly happy people might be preferable to a society of a thousand blissed out people?
Panel 2
Woman with dark hair (glasses): Pfft, that's dumb.
Panel 3
Woman: The human mind is a three-pound hallucination. Blissing out is an engineering challenge.
Panel 4
Woman: A society of a trillion people is a galaxy-spanning planet-manipulating techno-miracle. If Einstein was one in a billion, they have a thousand Einsteins. If they haven't yet worked out brain manipulation, they will about four seconds after they realize they want to.
Panel 5
Woman: Meanwhile, the thousand blissed out people are a small enough society that they can't possibly support bliss for long. No complex division of labor means no modern medicine, no robust supply chains of food. Tragedy will hit them and they'll have no choice but to endure sorrow.
Panel 6
Woman: The repugnant conclusion is an unstable equilibrium. If you instantaneously created it in simulation, it would immediately cease its repugnance.
Panel 7
Man: When you put your econ in my philosophy it makes me feel gross.
Panel 8
Woman: Grow up.
Votey:
Woman (leaning in, raised eyebrow): Now, how 'bout you come back to my place for a repugnant conclusion?
Alt text
An eight-panel comic. A brown-haired man asks a dark-haired woman in glasses whether she knows Parfit's "Repugnant Conclusion" - the idea that utilitarians must admit a society of a trillion slightly happy people might be preferable to a society of a thousand blissed-out people. She replies, "Pfft, that's dumb," then launches into a rebuttal: the mind is just a three-pound hallucination, so blissing out is merely an engineering challenge; a trillion-person society is a galaxy-spanning techno-miracle with thousands of Einsteins who would solve brain manipulation almost instantly, while a mere thousand people can't sustain bliss because they lack the division of labor for medicine and food supply chains, so tragedy will force them into sorrow. She concludes the repugnant conclusion is an unstable equilibrium that would immediately cease being repugnant. The man says, "When you put your econ in my philosophy it makes me feel gross." She snaps, "Grow up." In the votey, a close-up of the woman leaning in with a raised eyebrow as she says, "Now, how 'bout you come back to my place for a repugnant conclusion?"
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.