The End of History
Explanation
The Joke
The comic is a lengthy multi-panel strip depicting an escalating series of events at what appears to be a geopolitical summit or debate. It begins with a leader declaring that "for too long, old leaders have sent young people to fight for causes they don't value" and that new technologies have created creatures that make people feel hostile toward each other. A suggestion is made that all conflicts will be settled by single combat between the top-ranking leaders of nations involved. The debates quickly devolve into absurd spectacle: leaders from various countries challenge each other to fights, one declaring "buck-buck-bluuuurgh" like a chicken, another saying "yours is a nation of chicken-chickens." A person named something like "a person named Bummm" is mentioned, and the conflicts escalate into full wrestling-match style combat, complete with dramatic sound effects ("Bum bum bum BUMMM").
The strip continues with increasingly ridiculous international incidents -- Canada gets involved, the Prime Minister of Portugal appears, and eventually everything culminates in what looks like a professional wrestling spectacle. The final panels show the aftermath, with someone commenting that "it's been thirty years of overthrowing the government" and another person suggesting "weighted squats bro, it's the only way."
The Humor
The comic satirizes the idea of settling international disputes through personal combat between leaders, an idea that periodically goes viral on the internet as a seemingly simple solution to war. The humor comes from showing how this "elegant solution" would immediately devolve into the same chest-thumping, nationalistic grandstanding, and theatrical spectacle that already characterizes international politics -- just with more body slams. The escalating ridiculousness, complete with wrestling-style dramatic music cues ("BUM BUM BUM BUMMM"), suggests that replacing war with single combat would not eliminate human conflict but would simply transform geopolitics into professional wrestling. The title "The End of History" is a reference to Francis Fukuyama's famous 1992 thesis that liberal democracy represented the final form of human government -- here ironically applied to a world where governance has devolved into literal cage matches.
References
"The End of History" refers to political scientist Francis Fukuyama's 1989 essay and 1992 book "The End of History and the Last Man," which argued that the spread of liberal democracies might signal the endpoint of humanity's sociocultural evolution. The concept of leaders settling wars through personal combat is an ancient one, with examples like the biblical David vs. Goliath, and periodically resurfaces in modern internet discourse.