I am no longer regularly reading it, but also stopped regularly reading XKCD and SMBC; I just don't check comic strips much anymore in general. Should this resolve NO or N/A?

@IsaacKing N/A probably. Doesn't seem like it's existential comic's fault

agree with this ^

(although I obviously wouldn't protest the no option 🙃)

Re: March of penguins … it is sad they will never know of the multiverse and the despair of possibility.

I've spent the last 30 minutes or so reading through these - they are noticeably better than they were before. @IsaacKing current thoughts?

@RobertCousineau The last few ones have been pretty funny actually. But I'm still staying with no for now.

I haven't read any comic strips lately; been too busy. If that continues this will resolve NO, but I expect my busyness to die down before the end of the year, and I'll check out the new ones.

I agree that not every comic is a winner, but it's been stable at "catch up every couple months" for a long while for me personally, and I don't see enough signal that will abruptly change.

Out of the past ten comics only one is really anti-capitalist. That seems like an acceptable ratio for it to be worth reading.

@derikk The problem isn't that it's anti-capitalist, the problem is that it's neither intelligent nor funny a lot of the time. There are plenty of intelligent critiques of capitalism! But the author doesn't seem to understand them well enough to make them, or simply doesn't care whether what they're saying makes sense.

@IsaacKing Do you think the quality of the comics that are unrelated to capitalism has taken a downturn?

@derikk Ones that aren't culture war adjacent at all? Not that I've noticed.

How often do you have to be reading it? I currently check it once every 2 months if I am especially bored. Would this count as reading it?

@hmys I think that would count, yeah.

Just went through the past few comics, I didn't see much of what you're talking about, plus the artstyle seems to have subtly improved compared to last I checked (which was like months ago lol). Maybe the comics on the site, are different from the author's bad Tweets? (I agree with [my mental model of (what you (do or would) think of their tweets)] that their tweets tend towards the garbage.

Still iffy. This one was pretty good. This one is not, just their usual strawmanning of utilitarianism. I don't check their tweets because yeah they're pretty unintelligent.

@IsaacKing I thinks the second one is pretty good. It's not strawmanning, it's a parody of an existing philosophical argument, as every other page of the comic. If it is not fun when you agree with the idea being gently parodied, it's more you than the comic author.

This one is really good. https://existentialcomics.com/comic/485

I thinks the second one is pretty good. It's not strawmanning, it's a parody of an existing philosophical argument, as every other page of the comic. If it is not fun when you agree with the idea being gently parodied, it's more you than the comic author.

Many of the comics are not making fun of any particular idea. I agree that some amount of poking fun, is fine, but the ones about other theories generally seem to make reasonable criticisms, whereas the ones on utilitarianism do not.

This one is really good. https://existentialcomics.com/comic/485

That one has the exact same problem. The entire joke is "the utilitarian did something nonsensical that doesn't help anyone in any way. Haha wow utilitarianism is dumb". 0 intelligence is required to write a "joke" like this.

You can see the same behavior in the note at the bottom. The author doesn't seem to understand the flaws in the argument "I saw something kinda like this in a movie once, and the movie was fiction, therefore this can't be possible in the real world". An 8 year old could refute that.

@IsaacKing I think your expectations are too high. If you are expecting serious philosophical debate, maybe a comic strip is not the best place to find it.

How exactly is that worse than the original existential comics ?

This one is really good. https://existentialcomics.com/comic/485

The entire joke is "the utilitarian did something nonsensical that doesn't help anyone in any way. Haha wow utilitarianism is dumb".

It looks to me to be exactly the same joke as https://existentialcomics.com/comic/2

Nelson Goodman drowns his sorrows

A philosophy webcomic about the inevitable anguish of living a brief life in an absurd world. Also Jokes

@Odoacre Hmm. Yeah I don't really like that one either. Though here I don't feel like it's making fun of Hume, it's just an unexpected juxtaposition.

@IsaacKing I think the idea is it's not seriously making fun of utilitarianism in itself, it's just taking it to an extreme to provoke humor. Utilitarianism obviously lends itself pretty easily to this kind of thing, which might explain why it's a popular choice there.

@Odoacre Except the text under it shows that he think the critiques are serious. Also the problem is not taking utilitarianism to an extreme here, it is strategical/factual mistakes, not really a problem with the moral system.

@dionisos I don't think you're supposed to take those text bubbles literally.

As to your second point, I'm sure if Simone de Beauvoir could read this she would think it does not accurately represent her thought, she might still find it funny though.

@dionisos having said that, I myself do not read Existential comics regularly and had not read it in quite a while before getting involved in this market.

@Odoacre

> I don't think you're supposed to take those text bubbles literally.

I think they are serious explanations, but I could well be wrong here.

> I'm sure if Simone de Beauvoir could read this she would think it does not accurately represent her thought, she might still find it funny though.

That’s ok, I am an utilitarian, but I am not feeling attacked by an unfair representation of the position (I don’t think it is), and especially, I don’t think it is about taking the position to the extreme, I think it is just about being bad at it (and if anything, the personages aren’t taking it to the extreme enough, in a self-serving way)
I was caring about the interpretation of what is wrong in the situation presented in the comics here, not really about the comics itself.