Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

This comic imagines what would happen if Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher, were alive in the modern era -- specifically engaging with modern philosophical and scientific discourse.

The comic is presented as a multi-panel thought experiment. The narration begins: "Do you think if Socrates came back, he'd be excited?" followed by discussions about how Socrates would approach modern knowledge. The key progression is:

1. Socrates would have a podcast or engage in public conversations, using his famous Socratic method of questioning.
2. He would initially be fascinated by modern science and philosophy, wanting to refine his views based on new evidence.
3. He would try to reach the most rigorous conclusions through careful conversational inquiry.
4. This would go on for a while, but his search for truth would have morphed into something else -- he'd realize that at least there would be some interesting conversations to be had along the way.
5. Eventually, the relentless questioning would lead him to a kind of exhaustion or nihilism.
6. The final panel references Socrates' famous quote from Plato's Apology: "The unexamined life is not worth living" -- but recontextualizes it, suggesting that too much examination might not lead anywhere satisfying either.

The comic satirizes the modern intellectual landscape by suggesting that even Socrates -- the patron saint of rational inquiry -- would find modern discourse exhausting or fruitless. It plays on the tension between the Socratic ideal of reaching truth through dialogue and the modern reality of endless debates, podcasts, and hot takes that never seem to reach resolution. The joke is that the examined life might not be worth living either, once you see how deep the rabbit hole goes.