2013-05-29
Explanation
This comic depicts a conversation between a human woman and an alien (a green-skinned being referred to as a Zorblaxian) about ethics and the nature of human values. The alien says its species believes the goal of every species is to behave with the best ethics possible. The human tries to explain ethics by saying it is about maximizing happiness. The alien asks what "happy" means, and the human explains it is an emotion you get when you or someone else benefits. The alien then asks what "emotion" means, and the human explains it is a heuristic way of thinking -- when you cannot use logic to solve a problem, you feel emotions about it instead.
The alien then summarizes what it has learned with devastating clarity: humans have a vague, unreliable mode of thought called "emotion," of which they have an arbitrary subcategory called "happy," which they have chosen as the counting unit to determine their value as a species. The human awkwardly agrees. When the human asks what Zorblaxians consider the highest behavior, the alien smugly replies: "Smugly tolerating inferior species." In the final panel, the human asks what the point of this meeting was, and the alien says, "Just wanted your perspective" -- implying the whole conversation was an exercise in the alien feeling superior.
The comic is a philosophical satire that highlights how difficult it is to justify human ethical frameworks from first principles. When you try to explain utilitarianism to an outsider unfamiliar with emotions, the entire system sounds arbitrary and circular. The punchline reveals that the aliens supposedly superior ethics is itself just smugness and condescension, making both species look equally flawed.
The votey shows the human asking, "Whats perspective?" -- a final joke suggesting that even the basic concepts humans take for granted are hard to define, continuing the theme of definitional regress.