First Comic Previous Comic Random Comic Next Comic Current Comic
Comic!
First Comic Previous Comic Random Comic Next Comic Current Comic

How do we define what is an instinct and what isn't? Is fear an instinct? Is nausea an instinct? Are introversion or extroversion instincts? If you could toggle or remove any of the above, would you want to? Would doing so make you more or less human?

0581-------------------------------------
(Saturday afternoon, INT: EB and JH's living room)

LH: Florenovia has no aging, and virtually no deaths due to accidents, violence or disease. There's no FTL - at least none that we can use for immigration purposes - so the human race is essentially confined to our solar system. There's only a certain number of people the planets can support - that number is slowly growing with advances in technology, but it's still finite.
--------------
NP: Yeah, but I... I mean I'd say it's a natural element of human psychology - humans are naturally going to want to have babies. Humans love having babies!
MH: ...nnnnot necessarily all of us. And hey, it's also natural for humans to average one testicle per person, apparently the Florenovians have thrown "natural" out the window entirely.
--------------
EB: There's a thought, actually. If we have control over libido and appetite, is the instinct for motherhood also controllable? If there was a story about that, I didn't catch it.
GU: Well, where does it end? What counts as an instinct or an appetite? Could we suppress the instinct for blinking or for coughing or itchiness?
--------------
MH: Ooh, I'm signing up for any and all itch-suppression technology. I'm gonna go ahead and write "cannot be itchy" at the top of my character sheet, okay?
LH: If being less itchy motivates you to take down a group of baby-crazy Martian hillbillies that have been hijacking carrot shipments, be my guest.