2013-09-30
Explanation
In this comic, a woman is explaining a sort of reverse-Idiocracy theory to a friend. She begins by noting that stupid people breed more than smart people, which might suggest that eventually everyone will be dumb. However, she argues this is only a temporary problem: the stupid will not be able to afford to be financially stable in the future, while high-quality children who can produce more value in the short term will have an advantage. She then points out that as society directly rewards some forms of genius, a few people who combine intelligence with the drive to make a great deal of money will also have the financial means to produce many children.
She concludes that this is a slow process, but that eventually society will be overrun by "hyper-fecund mega-nerds" -- extremely fertile, extremely smart people who out-breed everyone else thanks to their wealth. Her friend responds: "See, I can think of theories for the future too," to which she retorts: "You'''re ruining my dystopian party, Julia." The humor lies in the pseudo-scientific extrapolation taken to an absurd extreme, essentially arguing that natural selection combined with capitalism will produce an army of wealthy, prolific geniuses -- a scenario the speaker treats as a dystopia despite it sounding arguably positive.
The votey panel shows a bespectacled nerd figure saying "Join us..." in a creepy manner, reinforcing the idea of the mega-nerd takeover as a horror scenario.