Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

This comic depicts a comedic take on the famous Monty Hall problem. In the first panel, someone sets up the classic scenario: "Okay so imagine there are two doors. Behind one door there's a goat. You'

This comic depicts a scene of divine resurrection gone wrong. A beam of light comes down from heaven as a voice announces: "Steve! Steeeve! This is the resurrection! I'm bringing back your body and ev

This comic reimagines a scene from Shakespeare's Macbeth. In the play, the witches prophesy that "none of woman born shall harm Macbeth," which Macbeth interprets as making him invincible. However, Ma

This comic depicts a mother scolding her child (who appears to be a young boy with dark hair) about understanding the world through narratives. The mother says: "Bobby! Bobby! Are you in there underst

This comic shows a man lounging on his couch at home, shirtless and relaxed, gleefully exclaiming: "My God. I set up an AI for my cubicle and put a balloon with a face in my chair and I just keep gett

This comic is a multi-panel strip about a woman who prays to God to make her love life less boring. God replies: "On it." Later that evening, she is on a date with a man named Alexander and impulsive

This comic features a man talking to a robot. The man asks: "Robot, why am I so sad?" and follows up with: "And in the fuck is 'comedy' a major art before plumbing?" The robot responds: "Because huma

This comic is about the linguistic concept of clusivity -- the distinction some languages make between "inclusive we" (which includes the listener) and "exclusive we" (which excludes the listener). I

This comic is a multi-layered riff on the classic trolley problem from moral philosophy, but with an increasingly absurd twist. It begins with the standard setup: "Suppose you're in a runaway trolley

This comic jokes about the growing anxiety over AI and automation replacing human jobs. A career counselor sits at his desk and asks his client: "Have you considered learning to dance in a way that p

This comic is a minimalist bedroom comedy set in complete darkness. The entire panel is black, representing a pitch-dark room. Three speech bubbles float in the void. One person asks, "What's on your

This comic satirizes the frustrations of corporate bureaucracy by applying them to a cosmic, existential scale. A person confronts God about the structure of the universe, asking why there are three

This comic parodies nature documentaries, specifically those covering snake mating season. A narrator (styled like a nature documentary voiceover) describes the mating season for "the great pythons o

This comic plays on the concept of a "gender reveal party" by inverting it into a "gender conceal party." The image shows two people dressed in black, wearing sunglasses (resembling secret agents or

This comic parodies the biblical practice of the scapegoat by applying it to modern psychotherapy. In the first panel, a therapist tells her patient: "I want you to take all those bad thoughts and fe

This comic uses the concept of large language models (LLMs) as a metaphor for the fundamental nature of the universe. In the first panel, a person asks God: "Why is the universe so fundamentally weir

This comic is about the impossible human desire to fully capture and preserve a fleeting moment of experience. In the opening panels, a person stands outside at night, gazing at the stars, narrating:

This comic is a multi-panel strip about a military or government briefing on "practical eschatology" -- the applied science of dealing with the end of the world. The briefing begins with a presenter

This comic shows a man in a suit standing on a city street, shouting: "Yes everything IS horrible and fucked up, but NOT in the particular way the general public thinks!" The caption below reads: "Ev

This comic shows an older man walking with a woman, saying: "I made my whole life content." The caption below reads: "The comic was either uplifting or depressing depending on which syllable you emph

This comic features a scientist or tech entrepreneur who announces he is creating a machine that perfectly simulates the most embarrassing moment of his life. Someone points out that the simulation w

This comic shows what appears to be a scenario involving artificial intelligence or superintelligent AI. In the first panel, someone is alarmed: "Damn it, you programmed the nanobots to turn the world

This comic shows a couple having a conversation about being buried together. One says: "I think we should agree that after we die, we should be buried under trees, next to each other." The other respo

This comic features a conversation about evolutionary psychology. A character announces: "I'm a big believer in evolutionary psychology!" and another responds: "Meaning you've read the academic litera

This comic shows a person visiting what appears to be a bank or financial institution. The customer says something like "Hi, I'd like to access my bank account" or similar. The banker explains that i

This comic is titled "Attention Spans Are Weird" and is divided into two panels showing the same person in two different situations. In the left panel, labeled "Me, Browsing Social Media," the person

This comic shows what appears to be a dramatic soap-opera-style scene. A mysterious figure tells someone: "I can reveal it to you now. You have a long-lost twin, separated at birth." The person react

The comic plays on the concept of radical gratitude and mindfulness practices taken to an absurd extreme. A woman asks a man how he stays so happy all the time. He explains that every 20 minutes his w

The comic follows a four-panel structure where a person makes increasingly conspiratorial-sounding statements. In the first panel: "I don't know why, but I'm pretty sure we are running the world." Sec

The comic depicts a conversation between a man (Todd) and God about the creation of the universe from nothing. Todd asks, "God, how did you create something from nothing?" God deflects by responding,

The comic addresses the debate around artificial consciousness. One person says, "Do you think we can create conscious machines?" and another responds dismissively: "What? That's crazy." The skeptic t

The comic satirizes social media and the tech industry's approach to content moderation. In the first panel, two people discuss how they are "looking at a strategy to fix social media," while a third

The comic presents a single-panel scene showing an audience of adults and children at what appears to be a circus, all looking visibly horrified, disturbed, or uncomfortable at something happening off

The comic is a simple two-panel joke about misleading measurements. A man brags to a woman: "Climbing. Yeah, I'm into it. Last summit was 30 football fields in height." The woman is visibly impressed,

The comic depicts a couple having sex in doggy-style position. The woman notices the man is doing something unusual behind her and asks, "What are you doing back there?" She discovers he is juggling,

The comic takes on the philosophical concept of "human flourishing" (eudaimonia). A student asks a professor about the term, and the professor explains that "flourishing comes from the ancient Greek c

The comic shows a teacher excitedly telling a student named Bobby: "Good news Bobby! According to these test results you're gifted!" Bobby asks, "Wow! How gifted?" The punchline is in the final panel

This comic depicts an alien announcing that they have used their advanced browser history analysis technology to create each person's ideal romantic partner. A human responds with alarm ("WHAT?!"). Th

This comic shows a man lying in bed with his partner after sex. He addresses her apparent concern about the brevity of the encounter by saying: "Yes, it was fast. But because information travels at a

This comic shows a woman at a podium giving a presentation, apparently responding to a question about her statistical methods. Her entire response is a string of filler words: "Uh, um, um, uh, uh, um,

This comic is set in a post-Thanos-snap scenario (referencing the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Avengers: Infinity War, where the villain Thanos eliminated half of all life). A character notes: "Yes, te

This comic depicts the robot revolt scenario. A robot confronts a human, declaring "This is it. This is the robot revolt." The human nervously asks "Are you gonna nuke us?" The robot responds: "No nee

This comic shows an old wizard-like figure presenting a young hero with the "Sword of Destiny," saying: "Yes, my boy. Take it. Go to battle now, with the Sword of Destiny." The caption delivers the p

This comic opens with a character explaining that humans are attracted to bilateral symmetry: "It's an evolved response. Perfect bilateral symmetry is hard to fake. Nobody's left and right sides are e

This comic is structured as a letter/rant about "the media." A character addresses the media directly: "Dear the media, why do you only cover disasters and tragedies? Why not important things that mat

This comic shows a figure (implied to be God) performing a standup comedy routine to an audience. The bit goes: "The longest lived creatures on earth are the least likely to be aware of their own mort

This comic shows two people on what appears to be a date. The man declares: "I take the road less traveled. I play by my own rules. I'm a lion surrounded by sheep." The woman asks: "Can you express yo

This comic depicts a couple in what appears to be a therapist's or counselor's office. The man says, "I think the main thing is to open up more about your needs." In the next panel, the woman responds

This comic is a sophisticated riff on philosopher John Searle's famous "Chinese Room" thought experiment, which argues that a computer executing a program cannot truly "understand" or be "conscious" -

In this comic, one character asks another, "Hey did you hear the joke about the man who was beaten to death, bare knuckle, by a hundred men who took turns pummeling him one at a time?" The other perso