solution-2
Explanation
The Joke
A professor stands at a chalkboard showing a diagram of the classic trolley problem — the ethical thought experiment where you must choose whether to divert a trolley to kill one person instead of five. However, the professor's "solution" is simply to wait: "The solution is easy. Switch or don't switch, everyone's on the same track whether they see it or not."
The caption delivers the punchline: "If you wait 100 years, the trolley problem solves itself."
The Humor
The comic takes a darkly nihilistic approach to the trolley problem. The "solution" is that if you wait 100 years, everyone involved — the people on both tracks and the person making the decision — will be dead anyway. The diagram on the chalkboard appears to show both tracks converging, representing the inevitability of death. So the agonizing moral dilemma about whether to sacrifice one to save five becomes moot on a long enough timeline, because mortality makes the choice irrelevant.
This is a classic SMBC move: taking a well-known philosophical thought experiment and deflating it with a bleak but logically sound observation. The humor lies in the contrast between the trolley problem's status as one of philosophy's most debated ethical dilemmas and the professor's breezy dismissal of it through the simple application of human mortality. It's technically correct — which, as the saying goes, is the best kind of correct.