Micro Monday - July 7, 2025
The Vote
Happy Monday, folks. Hope everyone made it through the weekend with their fingers intact. I have some thoughts on this one, which I’ll share after the picture, but until then, I hope you enjoy it.
The Vote
There was no way around it, really. The math just didn’t work with nine billion people. They were going to have to make cuts, somewhere or another.
So they held a vote. Everyone got a little slip of paper to write their answer to the age old question: who do we get rid of? All the old hatreds came out. Nationality, sexuality, race, religion, political affiliation. Enough to wipe out humanity a thousand times over.
The Committee tallied the results, then held their own secret vote, which was unanimous.
***
“Then what happened, Grandpa?”
“Easy, kiddo. We just killed everyone who cast a vote.”
This one is partly inspired by a blog post I read last week on the “fertility crisis,” which, if you’re not familiar, hinges on two main points:
birth rates are falling below the replacement rate in lots of places (fact)
this is a huge problem (opinion)
The panic surrounding the issue is such that people have started recommending some pretty extreme “solutions” to the “problem,” which the author of the post below has collected for your reading displeasure. Note: the author states several times that they don’t endorse any of these solutions. Rather, this is an attempt to bring some of the murkier suggestions out into the sun so that everyone can understand exactly what’s being said between the lines.
All of which begs the question: why bother?
The answer, of course, is endless capitalism. Modern economies are predicated on limitless growth, and while we pretty much all understand that “infinity, forever” is an unsustainable number on a stubbornly finite planet, nobody wants to be the first to fall out of the race. Hence: an existential drive to increase birth rates by any means necessary, up to and including sexual slavery, all so that Zuckerberg and his ilk can continue to project quarterly revenue increases from the comfort of their yachts.
Of course, the opposite course has its own problems. If we decide that planet Earth does have a sustainable population limit, how do we get to that number?
Consider this story my official answer to the question.
I don't know if your intention was to be funny but I found this story hilarious. Helluva punchline to end on.