2014-11-24
Explanation
The Joke
The comic is titled "There were some unexpected downsides to immortality." It shows a job interview scene where the interviewer tells the applicant: "Sorry, we're looking for someone with at least 150 years of experience."
The joke is that in a world where people are immortal, the common job-market complaint of entry-level positions requiring unreasonable amounts of experience would be taken to a ludicrous extreme. Instead of job postings demanding 5-10 years of experience for an entry-level role, employers in an immortal world would demand 150 years.
The Humor
The humor works by taking a widely relatable frustration -- the absurd experience requirements in modern job listings -- and extrapolating it to a world with immortality. Most people assume immortality would be an unambiguous blessing, but this comic finds a mundane, bureaucratic downside that feels painfully realistic. The comedy lies in the recognition that human institutions and hiring practices would likely scale their unreasonable demands to match any expansion of the human lifespan, meaning that even with infinite time, job seekers would still face the same Catch-22 of needing experience to get experience.