2013-03-07
Explanation
This comic presents a tech entrepreneur pitching "Savepoint," a transhumanist product that implants nine diamond-encased computers in your body to interface with your brain. The system enhances brain power by 10x, and if your biological brain is damaged, you continue functioning at 90% capacity via the implanted computers. If your body is destroyed entirely, the system prints you a new body while keeping your consciousness running in a pleasant dream simulation -- essentially achieving immortality.
When an interviewer raises the serious ethical concern that this could lead to "wastefulness and chaos and immortality for only the rich," the entrepreneur dismisses it as "sentimental Luddite claptrap," insisting that if he can preserve himself for eternity, why wouldn't he? He then excuses himself because he has to "get home for an appointment."
The final panel reveals the dark punchline: the entrepreneur is shown at home performing what appears to be a satanic or occult ritual, complete with a red-robed figure and candles. The joke is that despite wrapping his quest for immortality in cutting-edge technology and dismissing concerns as anti-progress sentiment, he's also hedging his bets with old-fashioned supernatural methods. It satirizes the Silicon Valley transhumanist movement, where billionaires pursue radical life extension while dismissing any ethical objections, suggesting that beneath the veneer of rationalism, the desire for immortality is the same ancient human obsession it has always been.