2012-11-29
Explanation
This comic is a lengthy fairy tale parody that uses the structure of a bedtime story to satirize the intersection of mathematics, economics, and political optimization. The premise is that each year, a king is weighed and receives gold equal to his weight. The village mathematicians realize that a heavier king means a shorter lifespan, presenting an optimization problem: if the king is half as massive but lives twice as long, they break even. They calculate the ideal weight is around 250 pounds.
The village doctors then note that not all body weight is equal -- if the king is mostly muscle, his weight will be high but his lifespan will increase. So the king is put on a crash fitness program. But then the village economists intervene with another insight: if they front-load the gold, they can use compound interest to earn more money than they would by receiving payments over the king'''s full lifespan. They suggest stuffing the king with as much weight as possible right now.
The result is predictably absurd: the economists supply the king with ten tons of bread, the doctors inject him with muscle inflaters, and the mathematicians talk to him about theorems (which causes him to sleep 20 hours a day). Soon the town is fabulously wealthy, the new moneyed class demands a republic, and the king dies of cardiac disease. When the child listening to the story asks, "So the moral is..." the parent responds, "Sucks to be that one king?" -- while reading from a book of "Morally Ambiguous Fairy Tales."
The votey panel shows the massively bloated king thinking "Soooo... happy..." which adds a final layer of dark comedy by suggesting that despite being exploited to death, the king was somehow content with the arrangement, undercutting any hope of a clear moral lesson.