hop
Explanation
This comic jokes about the evolutionary purpose of children's play and proposes a darkly humorous shortcut.
In the first panel, someone asks: "Why do you think kids play all the time?" The response explains: "Play is an evolved behavior for mammals. It helps prepare children for the real world." This is a real scientific understanding -- play behavior in mammals is widely understood by evolutionary biologists and developmental psychologists as a way for young animals to develop motor skills, social skills, and cognitive abilities they'll need as adults.
In the second panel, the first person says: "I think we could speed up the game of adulthood prep." The third panel then shows a group of children standing at what appears to be a playground, and someone announces: "But I done for poor people!" -- suggesting the "game" being proposed involves simulating or role-playing the harsh economic realities of adult life.
The joke is that if children's play exists to prepare them for adulthood, we could theoretically "optimize" this by having them play games that more directly simulate the actual experience of being an adult -- which, in this comic's cynical view, involves economic hardship and being mistreated. Instead of playing tag or make-believe, kids would play at being poor or dealing with bureaucracy.
The humor is dark and satirical, working on the contrast between the innocent, joyful nature of children's play and the grim realities of the adult world it supposedly prepares them for. It also mocks the optimization mindset -- the idea that everything natural must be "sped up" or made more efficient -- by showing what happens when you apply that logic to childhood: you get something dystopian and depressing.
The comic suggests that perhaps the reason children's play is indirect and abstract, rather than literally simulating adult life, is that adult life is too bleak to practice directly.