cooperation
Explanation
This comic explores the Fermi Paradox -- the question of why we have not detected extraterrestrial intelligence -- through the lens of evolutionary biology and game theory.
A human asks an alien visitor to explain why first contact took so long. The alien says there are "two things" to understand. First, when a species evolves intelligence, it does not automatically develop cooperation; some species develop competition-based technological civilizations. Second, violence and conflict between groups can drive technological development, but this approach tends to be self-destructive.
The alien explains that species must keep fighting until cooperation emerges as a dominant strategy, then instructs their civilization to stop fighting -- but this is difficult because species "have grown fond of enjoying and altering their own natures" through conflict. At the end, the human asks the alien "What are you doing here?" and the alien responds: "It's gonna be real hard to get quarters for laundry in 10 years."
The comic offers a clever explanation for the Fermi Paradox: intelligent species are common, but cooperation (which is necessary for sustained technological civilization and interstellar communication) takes a very long time to emerge as a dominant strategy over competition. The punchline deflates the grand cosmic explanation with mundane practicality -- the alien is not here for first contact or enlightenment but for something trivially practical, suggesting that even advanced civilizations have banal concerns.