I feel like Joy wanted us to know for sure that this was not just himself rambling of some words onto paper.  He wanted us to first understand what he would be discussing.  This would be how new technologies may affect our lives and/or environment.  He also wanted us to know that he had sound backing on these ideas of his.  For this reason, he has shared with us many of his sources he has gathered his thoughts from.  These sources include books, writings, and people.  Joy has also recounted the run-in with the person who sparked these thoughts in his head.  This all serves to give us the background information we need so he can start to provide the argument to us, and the validation of his thoughts.  If here were to just tell us, his readers, what he was thinking with no back up sources, the ides would be dismissed under a fallacy of logic.  I also believe that joy is trying to convey a thought with the comic in the beginning about no long doing science and not worrying about ethical issues.  This is comic is set up to share with us where his argument is going, and a little bit of foreshadowing of what his ideas of technology in the future will bring.