2011-01-05
Explanation
This comic presents a satirical take on overpopulation and evolutionary genetics. It begins with the narration "We realized overpopulation was a problem" over a panel showing a massive crowd of identical people. The proposed solution: find the people most opposed to having children and convince them to have as many babies as possible. A couple is shown with a newborn -- "It'''s a boy!" -- and the mother dismissively says "Just wrap it up and stick it in the car." The narration then warns: "By the time we realized our mistake... it was too late."
Below this narrative is a graph plotting "Prevalence" over "Time" for three genetic categories: "pro-kids genes" (BABEEZWOO) in red, "anti-kids genes" (BABEEZBOO) in blue, and "spitefully-agree-to-have-kids genes" (BABEEZOKFINEWHTVR) in yellow. The graph shows pro-kids genes declining while the spiteful-agreement genes rise to dominance. The final panel, captioned "But, at least it cut down on idle sentimentalism," shows a father and child in bed exchanging insults: "F you, Dad" / "Eat s, child" -- illustrating the cold, resentful family dynamic that results from a population bred entirely from people who never wanted kids in the first place.
The comic is a tongue-in-cheek exploration of selection pressure and behavioral genetics. By forcing anti-natalists to reproduce, you don'''t actually breed out the desire to avoid children -- you just create a population of people who grudgingly have kids but resent it. The joke gene names (BABEEZWOO, BABEEZBOO, BABEEZOKFINEWHTVR) parody real gene nomenclature. The votey panel preemptively addresses pedantic readers with a note: "Dear reader: No need to send a '''that'''s not how genes work''' email. Please enjoy this amusingly googly-eyed DNA" -- accompanied by a cartoon DNA strand with googly eyes, acknowledging the comic'''s deliberate oversimplification for comedic purposes.