Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

The comic imagines a scenario where humanity is being annihilated by a hostile superintelligence. The narrator observes that the worst part of being destroyed by a superintelligence will not be the de

The comic shows a violent silhouetted scene where one figure is attacking another, shouting "Die! Die old man!" The victim asks "Why?!" and the attacker responds, "The arrow of time points in only one

The comic features two men in an office setting discussing coffee. The first man declares, "Until I've had my coffee, I'm just not me!" His colleague agrees: "So right, Ted." In the next panel, Ted sa

The comic shows a child asking her mother, "Mommy, was I an accident?" The mother explains that they "used a non-deterministic quantum process to decide whether or not to get pregnant." She continues:

The comic depicts a scenario where advanced AI robots have arrived and humanity discovers, to its horror, that the machines are "perfectly obedient." In the first panels, the narration explains that t

The comic contrasts "Artists in Private" with "Artists in Interviews." In the top panel, an artist is shown alone at a computer, thinking in grandiose terms: "I am going to make the greatest thing eve

The comic shows a group of prehistoric cave people confronting a storyteller. They say: "Pag! Listen. We know your stories are lies. But are good stories. You admit am liar, still tell stories, we giv

The comic tells a story in multiple panels. One day, a radio telescope receives a clear signal from another star. Scientists from around the world confirm the message is genuine and simple: "a schemat

This is a dense, text-heavy comic in which two characters go on a long walk while discussing the "Axial Age," a real historical concept referring to the period roughly from 800 to 200 BCE when many of

The comic features a character (presumably a linguist or etymology enthusiast) excitedly explaining the word "Winkel" to increasingly annoyed companions. "Winkel" means "angle" in German but "store" o

This comic satirizes how people on the Internet respond to questions outside their area of expertise. A person with red hair is shown passionately declaring, "I have no expertise in the question you a

This comic shows a person sitting on what appears to be a park bench, putting on running shoes, and wistfully explaining: "Honestly, I find when I'm out jogging the quick workaday world melts away. Al

This single-panel comic shows a woman with glasses walking into what appears to be a sex shop, saying to the person behind the counter: "Hello. I'm interested in substituting capital for labor." The

This comic has two panels. The top panel offers an ostensibly helpful tip: "You can make your boss's speech more memorable by replacing their motivational quotes with Richard II's speech to the peasan

This multi-panel comic is a dialogue about why propaganda works. In the first panel, someone asks: "How do people ever fall for fascist propaganda, when it's invariably hamfisted and stupid?" The res

This multi-panel comic presents a dialogue between a machine (represented as a dark screen or AI) and a human. The human challenges the machine: "Dear Machine, suppose how can you truly be wise when y

This single-panel comic shows a duck mascot in a sports uniform with the letter "D" on its chest, enthusiastically cheering on a football field with cheerleading pom-poms, shouting: "Go! Go, blind imp

This comic depicts a scene in the afterlife. A group of people stand before a figure at a pulpit in the clouds (presumably representing divine judgment). The figure declares: "You were commanded by th

This comic shows a group of Buddhist monks gathered under a tree. One monk is celebrating triumphantly, arms raised, shouting: "Booom! My impermanent non-identity does it again! Don't even put my name

This comic presents a character who collects examples of times that authors innocently said something that sounds filthy to modern ears. It shows several historical literary quotes with explanations o

This comic imagines an Olympic medal ceremony in a world where cloning is possible. An announcer stands at the podium declaring that "this gold medal" goes to a clone designated DAVE-42956-R1-1, notin

This comic depicts a conflict between pure and applied mathematics, personified as rival academic factions. In the first panel, a pure mathematician announces that they can map "these old dodads" wit

This single-panel comic shows a parent pulling macaroni out of the microwave and telling their kids: "Okay kids, macaroni's done in the microwave, but give it 5 minutes to reach its inevitable heat de

This comic reimagines the Star of Bethlehem from the Christian nativity story as a one-star review. God, depicted in heaven with angels, says: "Okay fine, things have gotten bad. I'll go down in the

This comic explores a philosophical argument about probability and the nature of existence. In the first panel, a character stands before a door labeled "PROBABILITY" and states: "There are infinite

This comic tackles gender stereotypes in how complex ideas are communicated to the public. A male presenter on stage declares: "Men are all 'history unfolds according to predictable forces that can b

This comic depicts a person praying to God as if filing a customer service complaint. The person prays: "Dear God, I'd like to speak to your manager." God responds: "I think I can help you. Tell me w

This comic features a conversation between two people about the value of precision in different fields. One character enthuses: "I love mathematics! Isn't it great how in no other field of human ende

This comic reinterprets the fable of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." A boy stands in a forest surrounded by wolves, holding a bag of money marked with a dollar sign. One wolf says to another: "I've done it

This comic satirizes people who casually identify with ancient philosophical schools without having studied them. A person declares: "I follow the philosophy of Epicurus, which is the philosophy of b

## The Joke A child asks their dad to tell one of his "terrible dad jokes." The dad obliges with a classic: "How did the astronaut cow commit? It was gonna moon." This elicits the expected groan, but

## The Joke A man is lounging contentedly on a couch eating "Choco-Beefs" (a fictitious junk food combining chocolate and beef), saying "My God, this is great. Those fitness dudes were right. They ju

## The Joke The comic presents a single panel formatted like an academic slide or note card. The header reads: "In ancient literature, I found the perfect opening quotation for any rebuttal." Below i

## The Joke A woman is lecturing about how much of math is actually named after the wrong person — someone who "showed up, popularized, or got credited for ideas that were really developed by earlier

## The Joke An angel (or divine messenger) approaches God, who is depicted as an immense, abstract entity — a swirling mass of pure thought woven from colorful threads. The angel apologetically inter

## The Joke A group of people from different countries are arguing about date formats. An American complains about how other countries write dates as "day/month/year" (DD/MM/YYYY), calling it illogic

## The Joke A woman is frantically trying to tell her partner Steve about a call from the credit card company regarding their balance, but Steve is lying in bed, eyes closed, completely unresponsive.

## The Joke A person is narrating: "Sometimes I learn an etymology fun fact and realize it could get me killed." The scene shows a group of people standing in front of what appears to be a devastated

## The Joke A child tells their father: "Daddy! No bedtime! Stay up with me!" The dad, looking exhausted and slumped, thinks about it and says: "Cute. Daddy's grunt day playing with kids and morning.

## The Joke A TV news anchor announces: "And today, Jimmy Gerril celebrates his sixty-eighth birthday, thanks to science!" The scene shows an elderly man (Jimmy) sitting alone at a table with a small

This comic imagines what would happen if Godzilla -- the iconic fictional giant monster -- actually existed in a world with modern industrial technology. Two crew members on a large industrial fishing

This comic depicts a scene at the gates of Heaven, where St. Peter is explaining to a newly arrived soul that their algorithm led to more efficient allocation of capital, increasing gross domestic pro

This comic features a person who has been granted a wish by a genie, with the classic caveat that the genie warns about "unintended consequences." The wisher says "I wish my ex-girlfriend had never le

This comic takes the form of a philosophical dialogue about Stoicism. A person announces they want to embrace Stoicism -- the ancient philosophical school that teaches acceptance of things beyond one'

This comic tackles Daylight Saving Time with a mock-analytical approach. It starts by laying out the tradeoff: you gain nearly an hour of extra daylight per day in summer but lose time due to clock co

This comic is about the gap between what adults appreciate about children's creativity and what children actually intend. A parent says "What I love about children is they're so creative!" while watch

This comic plays on the linguistic prefix "ex-" and its multiple meanings. Someone says they are saying the person is "really good," and the conversation turns to the word "discovery." One character p

This is a longer-form comic exploring the philosophy of mathematics and physics. A character argues that the universe being described by mathematics is evidence that the universe is fundamentally a ma

This comic depicts a man in a suit giving instructions that sound like an intense spiritual or shamanic ritual: "For 3 days you will not eat. For 3 days you will not drink. For 3 nights you will not s

This comic is about chess grandmasters and memorization. It opens with the well-known fact that chess grandmasters have been shown to be able to rapidly memorize positions from real games -- they can