2013-01-26
Explanation
This comic presents a graph plotting "How complex you believe society is" on the Y-axis against "Age" on the X-axis, creating a curve that captures a common pattern in how people'''s political and social confidence changes over their lifetime.
The curve starts low during youth (around college age), where the attitude is "I could fix the whole damn system if they'''d listen to me!" -- representing the idealistic confidence of young people who believe social problems have straightforward solutions. As people gain more experience, the curve rises through a transitional "Well... maybe..." phase, reaching a peak during middle age where the sentiment is "Screw it. Too complicated. Can'''t be fixed" -- representing the jaded realization that society is enormously complicated and that simple solutions rarely work. Then, as people approach retirement, the curve drops back down through another "Well... maybe..." phase before returning to the same youthful confidence: "I could fix the whole damn system if they'''d listen to me!"
The joke is that the arc of a lifetime brings people full circle -- from youthful arrogance through humbling complexity and back to the same simplistic certainty, but now fueled by retirement-age crankiness rather than youthful idealism. The symmetry of the curve suggests that both the young and the old share the same overconfidence, just for different reasons: the young because they have not yet learned how complicated things are, and the old because they have forgotten or no longer care. The votey panel provides a humorous key to the graph, listing the units as "Years" for the X-axis and "Fuckits" for the Y-axis -- a crude but apt summary of the underlying variable being measured.