2013-08-16
Explanation
In this comic, a scientist presents her research on time travel to an audience. She explains that after years of research, they have confirmed that time travel is possible, but they can only travel to the past. She notes that the potential downside is that changing the past could alter the present in unpredictable ways, but they believe this is the one instance where changing history is worth the risk. She announces that they will go back in time and use their knowledge to cure diseases and prevent endless wars.
The audience is moved, with one person saying "That'''s so beautiful" and another declaring "We will forever be in your debt." But then a skeptical audience member raises a practical point: if they are changing the past so that terrible things never happened, does that not also mean this very moment -- the one where they decide to go back -- would never actually happen? The implication is a classic time travel paradox: if they succeed in preventing the bad events, there would be no motivation to build the time machine in the first place.
The final panel shows a newspaper headline reading "EVERYONE F***S EVERYTHING AT ONCE," suggesting that once time travel was used, everyone tried to change everything simultaneously, resulting in total chaos. The votey panel continues the joke in a meta way, showing a news article composed entirely of the word "Wooh" repeated over and over, as if language itself has broken down from the paradox, with a "Subscribe to read more" prompt at the bottom mocking online news paywalls.