2014-06-30
Explanation
The Joke
The comic presents a speculative timeline of what would happen if telepathy machines were invented.
First generation: Telepathic users are a mess. A married couple of 27 years is shown -- even though they have been together for decades, reading each other's minds reveals that the husband still thinks about his middle school crush. Their religious views, career choices, and childrearing techniques are all revealed to be "dumb."
Second generation: People who grew up telepathic are far more evolved. A couple communicates openly: "Let us not quarrel. At our age, we have poor impulse control, but we both have good intentions." But they have a new problem -- they had parents who were embittered recluses, scarred by the first generation's telepathy disasters, who descended ever deeper into madness.
A ubiquitous problem: It is hard to tell a child their parent is a digital-age hermit when the child has already telepathically absorbed the parent's dysfunction. One father tells his son he lived in a basement and spent every day screaming about things he saw online.
Third generation: The children of the second generation are shaped by culture and gilded with science, but studies show they are significantly less likely to rock themselves to sleep each night, sweating and whispering. Experts call this the social crisis of our time.
Sanity-increasing drugs are prescribed: A doctor casually suggests that one shot of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) a day should do it.
The population becomes a mad mega-mind: Humanity becomes a single writhing consciousness of discordant thoughts.
A small band leaves: The remnant abandon modernity for "a more authentic human experience," grateful to have private thoughts again. But the final panel reveals they are still stuck in the same old relationship rut: "So anyway, do you still love me or is the only thing keeping us together inertia?" / "I don't know. Let's just go to bed."
The Humor
The comic satirizes the fantasy that better communication technology would improve human relationships. Each generation's attempt to solve the problems of telepathy creates new, equally dysfunctional issues. The trajectory from "telepathy will let us truly understand each other" to "humanity becomes an insane hive-mind on LSD" is a darkly comedic escalation. The final punchline lands the joke perfectly: even the people who escape the telepathic dystopia and return to private thoughts end up having the exact same awkward, unresolved relationship conversations that plagued pre-telepathic humanity. The comic suggests that relationship dysfunction is not a communication problem -- it is a fundamental feature of the human condition.