2014-04-03
Explanation
The Joke
The comic depicts a discussion about a portal or doorway that has appeared. People are debating whether to go through it, what's on the other side, and what the implications might be. Various characters offer opinions: some are enthusiastic, some are skeptical, and there is a philosophical debate about the nature of the portal.
A character describes the portal as leading to a place where all knowledge is available. The discussion escalates as people debate the social, political, and philosophical implications. A graph is shown depicting some trend over time (likely the relationship between novelty/excitement and time). Eventually, the discussion devolves into typical human squabbling about who gets to control access to the portal and who benefits from it.
The final panels show that despite the incredible opportunity the portal represents, humans manage to turn it into the same petty political and social disputes that characterize everything else.
The Humor
The comic satirizes humanity's response to transformative discoveries or technologies. Even when presented with something genuinely miraculous -- a portal to unlimited knowledge or another world -- humans immediately reduce it to bureaucratic debates, power struggles, and social squabbling. The graph showing an initial spike of excitement followed by a return to baseline captures the pattern of how society responds to revolutionary breakthroughs: initial excitement, followed by normalization, followed by the same old human behavior.
This is a recurring theme in SMBC, where Weinersmith explores how human nature remains constant regardless of the scale of the opportunity or challenge presented.