Existential Comics

08 Jan 2024 18:30

Dog and Cat Morality - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

01 Jan 2024 22:30

Avocados are what is known as a "evolutionary anachronism", meaning that they basically should no longer exist. They evolved specifically to coexist with the megafauna in South America, particularly the Giant Sloths (although this view is apparently now controversial). No animals today are large enough to be able to swallow their seeds whole, and distribute them. The Giant Sloths went extinct right as humans settled into South America, most likely due to human influence, so the avocado should have gone extinct too, in a way. But of course the very humans that killed off the sloths ended up cultivating the avocados.

Existential Comics

01 Jan 2024 20:30

The Despair of the Avocado - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

25 Dec 2023 19:30

A Very Scientific Birthday - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

18 Dec 2023 19:30

To The Bliss - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

11 Dec 2023 19:30

The plot summary of the original "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" on Wikipedia is genuinely so funny though, "The film's storyline concerns the plight of a wealthy heiress whose close encounter with an enormous alien in his round spacecraft causes her to grow into a giantess, complicating her marriage which is already troubled by a philandering husband."

Old timey misogyny was a different breed.

Existential Comics

04 Dec 2023 19:30

It is funny to think about the morality in the fantasy genre, because often it just seems more like a war between species which are both trying to exterminate each other, rather than a moral issue. They have to find ways to explain why humans are justified to kill orcs or goblins or whatever on sight. The crudest reason is simply that they are ugly and we are beautiful. For example the elves in Lord of the Rings are always the fairest of all creatures, and the orcs are hideous monsters. Aesthetics seems to play some even greater role, because we can see that once Gollum is corrupted he even now prefers ugliness and darkness itself to beauty and light, even in the type of food he wants to eat, or the type of art he would want to look at.
Having bad taste in art is hardly a justification of genocide though, so they often need something more. Here we start seeing things that more resemble real world colonial justifications. The orcs, unlike the noble elves, are simply uncivilized. They are brutal and ignorant. They are savage creatures who haven't read any Shakespeare. Well, except for maybe Romeo and Juliet, but everyone has read that. Still not enough Shakespeare to be considered civilized though. Since the good guys always win in the end, and are typically outnumbered, this becomes pretty important. The orcs will brutally, savagely kill a few dozen elves, and the elves will respond in a very civilized fashion by wiping out the entire orc civilization. You can even still see this kind of justification in contemporary colonialism (cough Israel cough).
In the original Dungeons & Dragons rule set, the orcs were simply "ontologically evil", that is to say, born with a kind of "evilness" in their essence. It was therefore not only justified, but a moral obligation for paladins to kill them on sight. If they didn't kill them on sight, they would risk losing their "good" status, and being kicked out of the Order of Paladins. Pretty brutal stuff, if you think about it. In the latest editions, this sort of thing has been seen to be problematic, and stripped out. Now the orcs simply have an evil culture, most likely because they weren't exposed to John Rawls at University.

Existential Comics

04 Dec 2023 19:30

Fantasy Morality - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

27 Nov 2023 18:30

More Parmesan? - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

20 Nov 2023 19:30

Do I want to eat an entire cake by myself? No.

Will I do it to spite Rousseau? Abosolutely.

Existential Comics

13 Nov 2023 19:30

Thanks to everyone for reading the comic for 10 years, and especially to the Patreon supporters because without their support I probably would have quit a while ago. In fact, I always wanted to save the terrible Kant/Can't pun for the very last comic, and today probably would have been a good day to quit, but those dastardly patreon supports just insist on keeping philosophy comedy alive.

Existential Comics

13 Nov 2023 19:30

Ten Years of Existential Comics - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

06 Nov 2023 18:30

Philosophical Pickup Lines - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

30 Oct 2023 18:30

Philosophical Holdup - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

23 Oct 2023 19:30

March of the Penguins, Narrated by Soren Kierkegaard - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

06 Jan 2024 06:30

Avocados are what is known as a "evolutionary anachronism", meaning that they basically should no longer exist. They evolved specifically to coexist with the megafauna in South America, particularly the Giant Sloths (although this view is apparently now controversial, or possibly a straight up myth). No animals today are large enough to be able to swallow their seeds whole, and distribute them. The Giant Sloths went extinct right as humans settled into South America, most likely due to human influence, so the avocado should have gone extinct too, in a way. But of course the very humans that killed off the sloths ended up cultivating the avocados.

Existential Comics

01 Jan 2024 20:30

Avocado is unique among fruit because it is capable of both the greatest good (turning into guacamole) and the greatest evil (going bad before you can turn it into guacamole)

Existential Comics

25 Dec 2023 19:30

Kurt Gödel, entering the frame "wait no, wish for a set of axioms that are both complete and consistent, please!

Existential Comics

18 Dec 2023 19:30

Gorgias, entering the scene: "should I dispatch him?"
Protagoras: "No, I want him to live a long life, alone with his intellectual honesty."

Existential Comics

11 Dec 2023 19:30

Donna Harroway is a feminist philosopher, who wrote "A Cyborg Manifesto", an essay which uses the metaphor of a cyborg to critique traditional feminist "identity politics". She asks us to imagine a cyborg, neither machine more human, genderless, raceless, and without parents. Completely unrooted in historical social groups and tradition, the cyborg society is able to transcend our common politics of groups advocating for the goals of members which belong to any given identity. The Cyborg has no concrete identity.
So, rather than feminism advocating on behalf of "women", which is a set containing a group of individuals with that identity, it is a loose coalition of people with a certain affinity, since in reality people are never one single identity, particularly as we ourselves become more like cyborgs with technology and virtual lives increasingly become more of our identities. Like the cyborg, no human being is merely one thing such as a "woman", a "worker", or a "black person". We are an amalgamation of multiple things, many of which are socially constructed or even freely chosen by our creative will, and she thought a politics of the future must reflect our "cyborg" nature.
You can find more on the Cyborg Manifesto here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe7U-ANhSOE

Existential Comics

11 Dec 2023 19:30

Attack of the 50 Foot Eco-Cyborg-Feminist - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

04 Dec 2023 19:30

Of course the real reason is because the good people are beautiful, and the bad people are ugly. Any idiot knows that.

Existential Comics

27 Nov 2023 18:30

Seriously though generally speaking restaurants shouldn't let customers make decisions about the food. They don't know what to do as well as the chef, that's why they are there.

Existential Comics

20 Nov 2023 19:30

Hobbes more or less thought we all give up our freedom to live under the absolute authority of the State because without it we would all be in a constant state of war and violence against each other over resources. So essentially people can't be trusted to dole out the birthday cake evenly themselves with a cop watching, or we'd all be at each other's throats.
He lived in a pretty violent time where the English monarchs were constantly starting wars with each other over every little reason, so he had some reason to think this, but his view on human's natural social cooperation was pretty dim.

Existential Comics

20 Nov 2023 19:30

We Live in a Society - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

13 Nov 2023 19:30

Mostly though what I'd say I've accomplished was nothing, but I guess that just how things go when you are an existentialist.

Existential Comics

06 Nov 2023 18:30

Generally speaking philosophy is actually a super good for picking up women if what you want to do with them is dicuss philosophy.

Existential Comics

30 Oct 2023 18:30

Seriously though more people need to be trying to rob billions of dollars at once in daring heists. Rob the bank. Rob the Fed. Rob the US Treasury. Come on, live a little.

Existential Comics

23 Oct 2023 19:30

Come to think of it Kierkegaard should narrate most things, it would really spice things up.

Existential Comics

16 Oct 2023 19:30

On second thought there is no philosophy in war.