2012-02-16
Explanation
This comic features a young boy named Bobby delivering a grandiose nihilistic monologue to his parents about the ultimate fate of humanity. He describes a future where humans conquer disease, conquer aging, shed their physical bodies, spread through the cosmos, and determine the exact limits of knowledge -- only to find that once everything is known, nothing remains to explore. Love becomes dispassionate, hope becomes meaningless, art has no purpose, and humanity enters a "collective hyper-ennui" and a "slow somnolent march toward oblivion."
The punchline reveals Bobby's motive: he was trying to use this bleak philosophical argument to convince his parents to buy him a new bike. His mother shuts him down with, "Bobby, for the thousandth time, it doesn't matter how bleak your eschatology gets, we can't afford a new bike right now." The final panel shows Bobby riding his bike and grumbling, "What's the point of nihilism if you can't use it to buy stuff?" The comic plays on the idea of a precocious child weaponizing existential philosophy for mundane material gain, and the absurdity of trying to leverage cosmic despair as a persuasion tactic.