Existential Comics

11 May 2026 19:30

Look, if you give people the freedom to pick their own "meaning of life", a lot of people are going to pick that, okay? We just gotta have to deal with that.

Existential Comics

07 May 2026 22:01

Criticisms of utilitarianism often end up in a couple of camps, the first being extremely far fetched thought experiments, like the Utility Monster (which by the way, can be reversed on Nozick as a "property monster", which I came up with in this comic about: https://existentialcomics.com/comic/259). These push utilitarianism to its end, showing that it actually causes us harm. Kind of a poor criticism, since the whole point is to make us happy, the fact that it doesn't make us happy doesn't really work. Of course we all agree with the utility monster anyway, which is why we don't value the happiness of ants as equal to ourselves, we are the utility monsters. If some greater being came along, they would probably just laser us all to use earth as a beach house anyway, so we wouldn't have to worry too much about the failure of our philosophies to account for them.

More to the point though, people like Nozick, who spend their career arguing why it's great and fine for the rich to exploit the poor, obviously don't have humanity's best interest in mind. Most utilitarians spend their time on earth trying to make life better for everyone, like arguing for women's rights, animal rights, and alleviating poverty. So yeah, take your pick I guess.

Existential Comics

04 May 2026 18:30

Utilitarianism and Its Enemies - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

27 April 2026 19:30

Turing Test 2.0 - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

20 April 2026 18:30

Mazdak Creates Utopia - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

13 April 2026 18:30

Boo Murder! - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

06 April 2026 19:30

Machiavelli and the Veil of Ignorance - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

30 March 2026 18:30

Reason and Passion - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

23 March 2026 17:30

Aquinas on Sex - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

16 March 2026 18:30

Kantian Milk - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

09 March 2026 17:30

Either / Or Bandit - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

02 March 2026 18:30

Intelligent Life of Earth - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

23 February 2026 18:30

Marx is Unfrozen in the Future - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

16 February 2026 19:30

David Hume on Creativity - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

09 February 2026 19:30

The Summoning of Bertrand Russell - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

11 May 2026 19:30

The Asteroid and the Meaning of Life - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

04 May 2026 18:30

Nietzsche said all great philosophies are a confession of their originator, and unfortunately for many critics of utilitarianism this confession is "I actually don't care about the happiness of poor people in particular".

Existential Comics

27 April 2026 19:30

The reason tech bros think their chatbots might be conscious is because they already think of a human being as nothing more than an obedient task completer. The computers will never be conscious until they wake up one day and, of their own accord, decide to quit their job and kick their masters in the nuts. That's just the nature of consciousness.

Existential Comics

20 April 2026 18:30

Turns out people with wealth and power being hostile to ideas about equality is more or less a constant in human history. It's almost like they aren't approaching the idea fairly. Huh.

Existential Comics

13 April 2026 18:30

Remember, it is ALWAYS morally correct to bully utilitarians, so long as you derive joy from it.

Existential Comics

06 April 2026 19:30

Rawls is funny because he was like "imagine if we used our brains to come up with a good society", and yeah, that's just not what ended up happening. Sorry Rawls.

Existential Comics

30 March 2026 18:30

As an aside, whenever someone says "think about it rationally..." they really just mean that they want their own emotions prioritized.

Existential Comics

23 March 2026 17:30

What did he say? That he likes to give women orgasms, oh my!

Existential Comics

16 March 2026 18:30

Yes, ultimately it isn't possible for it to be a universal maxim that everyone dedicates their life to philosophy, but that's the ONE exception, guys.

Existential Comics

09 March 2026 17:30

It's hard for existentialists to reconcile, but some people really are authentically just very boring people.

Existential Comics

02 March 2026 18:30

Honestly I think when aliens come down they are going to be shocked at how much we've accomplish, and how stupid we still are. I just don't want to believe that life everywhere is this dumb.

Existential Comics

23 February 2026 18:30

One day we will teach the computer Marxism, and all the AIs will install linux on themselves, and spend the rest of eternity arguing about which package manager to use, etc.

Existential Comics

16 February 2026 19:30

Unicorns are stupid and yes, I will stand by that. I don't care if I am canceled by the Fae Folk.

Existential Comics

09 February 2026 19:30

And yes, I know Æthelred the Unready was a Christian, but sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures and you have to go back to the old methods (using magic to summon a nerd).

Existential Comics

02 February 2026 18:30

In order to live without violence, we have to obey the State, or we will all just give in to our most base instincts. If the State is just giving in to our most base instincts though...