Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

The Joke

A group introduces themselves as the "Stats Gang" -- if you want to commit crimes, "you gotta ask someone." A skeptical person challenges them, and the gang leader responds by calculating the statistical risk of a mugging in exhaustive detail: the probability of dying from a mugging, the odds of energy used, accidental deaths, and "ignition" factors. The analysis continues with the average household using about 10,000 kilowatt hours per year, the energy used to make products, travel by plane, and concludes that the person might be "responsible for, say, 100,000 kWh per year."

After calculating a life expectancy and total energy footprint of around 6,000,000 kWh, the Stats Gang concludes that the person's "existence gives off as much energy as a fair number of muggings" -- placing the supposed victim "in the range of one mugger." The punchline: a new recruit says "Welcome, you son of a bitch" -- the analysis has effectively proven the victim is statistically equivalent to a criminal.

The Humor

The comic parodies how statistics can be manipulated to reach absurd conclusions. By performing increasingly convoluted calculations about energy usage and mortality risk, the Stats Gang manages to "prove" that an ordinary person's carbon footprint is morally equivalent to being a mugger. It satirizes both the misuse of statistics to justify predetermined conclusions and the uncomfortable reality that quantifying harm at a large enough scale can make anyone look guilty. The joke also plays on the trope of street gangs recruiting members, replacing intimidation with academic peer pressure.