Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

In this comic, a teacher enthusiastically announces to a group of children that modern methods can now reveal all the secrets of the universe, determining the limits of thought itself. One child respo

In this comic, a person prays to God asking why humans were given a soul "nestled inside a meat machine that barely works." God explains that there is only one thing in the universe with the propertie

This is a single-panel comic featuring a professor at a chalkboard who declares: "I don't believe in fancy Latin-derived terms in mathematics. I want you to know that as we begin today's lesson on mot

In this comic, a parent is confronted with the news that their child, Robert, has been making deepfakes of girls at school. The parent's wife shows the evidence on a screen, and the parent says "I...

This comic features a scientist presenting to an audience about the existential threat of AI. The first panel has classic doomsday rhetoric: "Robots will not take our jobs -- they will rise up and des

This comic is about Mickey Mouse entering the public domain, which actually happened on January 1, 2024, when the original 1928 Steamboat Willie version of Mickey Mouse lost its copyright protection.

This comic tackles Bayesian reasoning and its implications for arguments about the existence of God (or similar metaphysical claims). In the first panel, one character says: "I think we should all tr

This comic uses the "Monkey's Paw" premise -- a cursed artifact that grants wishes in the most destructive way possible. The top panel shows a news anchor reporting apocalyptic news: "And, for unknow

This comic presents what appears to be a serious, detailed rules document for a game variant called "Kriegspiel Tic-Tac-Toe." The rules describe an elaborate setup requiring 5 people (2 players and 1

In this comic, a young person declares: "Son, you think smoking is cool? Twenty years from now, they're gonna define 'cool' differently. Then tell me what you think." The next panel jumps forward: "D

This comic takes the romantic concept of a "soulmate" and subjects it to God's brutally literal interpretation. A person prays to God asking, "Dear God, is there a soulmate out there for me somewhere

This comic plays on the fine line between a cult and ordinary personal preferences. In the first panel, a character named Randy is being confronted by someone who says, "Randy, I'm trying to reach ou

This comic satirizes how the United States' stubborn adherence to traditional (imperial) units inadvertently protects national secrets. A scene at what appears to be a formal dinner or interrogation

This comic takes the classic "what are you thinking about?" pillow talk scenario and gives it an absurd linguistic twist. A couple is lying in bed. One partner asks, "Are you okay? What are you think

This comic imagines what would happen if God operated like a modern customer service line -- specifically, an Amazon call center. A person prays: "God, sometimes life is just so hard!" A voice from a

This comic explores the paradox of having everything you supposedly need for happiness and still feeling unfulfilled. A person is talking to a robot and says: "Robot, I should be happy." They list al

This comic is a retelling of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" through the lens of rational decision theory and expected value calculations. The setup follows the traditional story: every day, a boy goes into

This comic parodies the concept of prayer as a competitive optimization problem. A person prays: "Dear God, is this the best of all possible universes?" This is a reference to Leibniz's theodicy -- t

This comic takes a moral philosophy thought experiment and pushes it to an absurd extreme, exposing the gap between stated ethical principles and actual behavior. The setup presents a variation on a

This comic takes the concept of "dirty talk" during intimacy and replaces it with radically honest, clinical description. A couple is in a romantic situation. One partner says: "Mmm, baby, are you re

This comic satirizes the paradox of "leaderless" social movements. In the first panel, a woman rallies a crowd, declaring they are a "leaderless movement." In the second panel, she explains the princi

This comic plays on the stereotype that Victorians were extremely repressed, particularly about sexuality and bodily matters. In the first panel, a character laments that "these Victorians were so rep

This comic is a riff on the classic horror story "The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs, in which a magical monkey's paw grants wishes but twists them in horrible, ironic ways. Here, the setup is replaced

This comic tackles the claim that "women-ruled societies would be less war-like." In the first panel, someone makes this assertion. A woman responds with a skeptical "SRSLY?" (a texting abbreviation o

This comic explores the philosophical problem of consciousness and free will through a classroom discussion that takes a darkly funny turn. A student asks a professor why humans care so much about con

This comic parodies the notoriously long-winded personal essays that precede online recipes. The first several panels read like a gothic horror narrative: "I have always longed for human flesh, ever s

This comic is a linguistics joke about prepositions. One character says "And anyway, that's what I'm thinking of at at at at at." The other character is baffled: "What... what was that?" The first cha

This comic plays on the phrase "have it all," a loaded term in discussions about women, work, and family. A woman approaches another woman asking if she'd like to hear about their "women's solidarity

This comic explores the philosophy of personal identity through a conversation between two people. One asks "Do you ever wonder who you really are?" and the other responds that she's "just experiencin

This comic romanticizes and then systematically deconstructs the fantasy of the simple farming life. It opens with a ghostly, idyllic vision of a great-great-grandmother describing the pastoral life:

This comic is a lengthy philosophical debate about whether large language models (LLMs) are conscious, structured as a lecture or panel discussion that spirals into absurdity. The comic opens with a

This comic explores the absurdity of human behavior around death and the afterlife. The strip opens with a character asking why humans engage in behaviors that go far beyond what evolution requires f

This comic is a fairy-tale parody in which a witch tries to lure children into her candy house, but the children turn out to be disappointingly savvy modern consumers. The witch, standing outside her

This comic satirizes the paradox of nonconformism and "thinking for yourself." In the first panel, someone tells a person standing near a cliff that "you can't just do something you've never consider

This comic dissects how ideological movements lose their substance over time as they grow in popularity. A character with blue hair explains the lifecycle of an ideological movement: it starts with a

This comic tackles the existential question of why humans find the universe beautiful and meaningful when, scientifically, there is no inherent meaning. A woman gazes at the night sky and asks God wh

This comic is a short, punchy subversion of the "sleeping with a sexy lion" fantasy -- essentially a furry joke played straight. A woman asks a anthropomorphized lion if he'd like to go to bed togeth

This comic plays on the similarity between "coming out" as having a non-mainstream identity and the reactions people give. A character stands before a group of friends and nervously announces "I need

This comic is a single-panel gag with a morbid and darkly funny premise. A family visits a grandfather's grave and notices that the circle of dead plants around the gravesite keeps expanding. The onl

This comic presents a list of the "Worst Magical Wish-Granting Creatures," spoofing the genie/monkey's paw trope of wishes gone wrong. The comic shows several panels, each depicting a different terri

The comic explores the philosophical question of whether the "self" truly exists. In the first panel, a person asks "God, man, 2 die does myself disperse?" (a question about whether identity dissolves

The comic shows a mother sitting on a couch with her young daughter Emma, casually eating snacks while explaining: "Well, if he DOES exist, maybe it wouldn't be so great? I've heard he emits webbing f

The comic is a four-panel strip showing a woman visiting what appears to be an ancestral homeland. In the first two panels, she joyfully runs through a beautiful landscape, declaring: "The moment I wa

The comic is about how quotations are stripped from their original context and used misleadingly. In the first panel, a character explains the process: "I don't get why you read all these weird old bo

The comic shows a workplace scene where an employee presents a report to her boss, saying: "Here is the report you requested. You will not best it, nor will your sponsors. Nor theirs. My labor is as a

The comic is a multi-panel strip that follows the progression of artificial intelligence. It begins with a scientist presenting an early AI: "At first, artificial superintelligence, please tell me how

The comic shows a New Year's resolution narrative across several panels. In the first panel, a man enthusiastically declares: "New year, new me! I'm gonna get fit, find love, and achieve all my big go

The comic presents a rapid survey of different philosophical positions on what is "really real." In the first panel, someone argues for physical realism: "Reality is really real -- in physics, things

The comic is a long multi-panel strip depicting a person arriving in the afterlife (heaven). Upon arrival, a guide welcomes them. The new arrival asks questions about what happened after their death.

The comic shows St. Anselm -- the medieval philosopher famous for the Ontological Argument for God's existence -- dressed in full bishop's regalia with a mitre and crosier. He is reciting a version of