Comic #2754: 2012-12-01

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Description

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Title: The Good Life Can Be Quantified

Panel 1:

• A light yellow background with a soft touch of green.
• Text in the top left corner reads: "The Good Life Can Be Quantified."
• Levers for happiness:
  • "Touch of loved one: +2"
  • "Autumn breeze rustles trees: +1"
  • "Bonus: Leaves pirouette through the pine-scented air, dancing the dance: +3"
  • "Seeing smile in face of harvest: +2"
  • "Seeing smile in face of child: +3"

Panel 2:

• Darker background with a character with an anxious expression.
• Text: "All the little things of happiness—empathy, love, the tranquility of the inner, bucolic tree, recognition that death is not alien to life. We can count them."
• Dialogue balloon: "Don’t be like Mr. Johnson across the street. He’s been a standard deviation below normal for his age ever since the war."

Panel 3:

• Talking about the system.
• Text: "When the system began, there were the inevitable Luddites."
• Character with a worried expression says: "My life is not a number. I am not an experiment to be watched."
• Negative values listed:
  • "Hasn’t found love: -6"
  • "Alone in his anger: -2"
  • "Doubts the system: -100"

Panel 4:

• Two characters, one celebratory, one lying down.
• Text: "But they were laughed off as paranoid. After all, it's not 'panopticon' if a loved one watches you sleep."
• Dialogue: "I bet I get +1 for this…"

Panel 5:

• Parent and child interaction.
• Child says: "Wow, Daddy! You never made me pancakes on Sunday before!"
• Parent responds: "Gotta keep up with the Joneses, sweetie."

Panel 6:

• A child asking a parent a question.
• Child says: "Mommy, did you draw this pony on my lunch bag just to get more ponies?"
• Parent replies: "Sweetie, if we have this conversation, we could both lose points."
• Child responds: "I mean, I love you more than ponies, Mama!"

Panel 7:

• Two characters in discussion.
• One says: "I’m so fulfilled, I feel bloated."
• The other responds: "Hey, there are kids in Afghanistan who don't have good choices to die with a smile or a shudder."
• Text at the bottom: "We are blessed."

Panel 8:

• Reflection on life.
• Text: "After all, what's the point of a life well-lived if no one saw how well you lived it?"
• Dialogue from a character: "His last words were: 'Tell my wife she is my proof of miracles.'"
• Another character says: "Oh, Hank!"
• Final line: "Well, technically, his last words were 'make sure that’s my last Facebook status.'"

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