2013-07-22
Explanation
This comic traces the history of how society has responded to those who bring beneficial innovations, presented as a series of vignettes across different historical eras. It begins in an ancient or biblical setting where a figure says "It is a miracle! To those there are so little food..." and a response about doubling bread, evoking the biblical miracle of multiplying loaves. Through subsequent panels, the comic shows how different eras have treated their innovators -- from ancient religious figures who were revered as miracle workers, through periods of suspicion and hostility toward progress, to more modern times.
The comic progresses through various historical periods: the Green Revolution (which dramatically increased crop yields), the invention of flight, space exploration, and modern scientific advances. In each era, the person bringing beneficial change faces a different reaction from society -- sometimes reverence, sometimes persecution, sometimes indifference. The comic highlights the irony that society''s relationship with progress and its champions has always been complicated, with innovators often facing resistance or misunderstanding even when their contributions are clearly beneficial.
The comic culminates with a formula or equation "L(q,q-dot,t) = everything" which appears to reference the Lagrangian from physics, suggesting that science can ultimately describe everything. The final panels show modern-day reactions where a character seems to be an activist or skeptic questioning progress, highlighting how even in the modern era, scientific advancement faces resistance. The votey shows a character enthusiastically holding up a test tube declaring "I''ll double your grain with THIS test tube!" -- a humorous nod to how the Green Revolution''s agricultural science might have been perceived by those unfamiliar with laboratory research.