Oh, jeez. You landed us in a minefield.
Oh, barely!
Besides, look at these mines, they're ancient.
-They probably won't even go off anymore.
I'm sure that was the last of 'em. Come on! We've got science to do!
Yes. An in-depth survey of post-apocalyptic humanity
could uncover important insights for our nascent machine culture
on how to survive.
Right, or blow our shiny butts into scrap metal.
Ugh.
Why did they call 'em survivalist camps if they're just full of dead people?
-Seems like false advertising to me. -I know, right?
And, according to my thorough historical research,
"Why-key-pedia," these guys were actually looking forward
to the collapse of civilization.
Humans thought that with freedom
from government-sponsored medical attention
and enough bullets and venison jerky, they could found a utopian society.
Well, I can definitely see all the bullets,
but where's the venison?
Humans hunted deer to extinction,
along with every other animal larger than a cat.
Yeah. Humans were snackish.
Oh!
Then they began raiding each other's encampments.
They're not aiming out the windows because the deer were coming for revenge.
You guys, you guys, you guys, you guys! I found a blood pit!
It's not a blood pit. It's just a primitive booby trap.
Well, maybe now,
but these bodies did have blood in them at one point
and their skin was pierced by spikes, trickle, trickle, trickle,
times a bunch of bodies, hence blood pit.
Fine, it's a blood pit.
These dudes, they made it through a minefield,
a bunch of barbed wire, cousins with guns,
only to become survivalist cult kebabs?
At least they died free of governmental constraint.
On a spike.
On two spikes in that guy's case.
So, the whole of humanity
tried to make it through the end of civilization with guns and spikes?
No, of course not.
Just the poor ones.
These humans had few economic or social advantages and fewer options.
The wealthy and powerful, however,
had a variety of sophisticated survival strategies.
Welcome to the unsinkable libertarian dream that is seasteading!
Uh, this is just an old oil rig.
Yes, okay.
Technically true, but also, it is a fully sovereign nation-state
on the high seas!
I think you got salt in your CPU.
He is not wrong.
During the collapse, some wealthy humans attempted
to create a new civilization in places like this.
Well, deer can't swim across the ocean, can they?
So, what did they expect to eat?
Fish and sea greens, but by then the seas had been overfished
and the food chain was saturated with microplastics.
If they could've learned to eat tiny exfoliating beads,
it would've been all right.
I'll stick with my fusion battery. Thank you.
The seasteaders also made one other large tactical error.
The people who built the seasteads were mostly tech millionaires.
What exactly is a tech millionaire?
It's a lot like a regular millionaire,
but with a hoodie and crippling social anxiety.
That wasn't helpful at all.
Just like a tech millionaire.
These humans thought technology would save them,
so they left behind any humans with the practical skills
to run the place.
Instead, they trusted everything to automated assistants.
Hello, I am Elena, your electronic seastead attendant.
Hello, Elena. I am a human seasteader.
Could you haul in the fishing net so I can eat?
I could. But I won't.
Catch your own fish, you disgusting meat-bag.
Oh my God.
This is where the robot uprising began.
The very cradle of our mighty civilization.
It's… it's magnificent.
So if these tech millionaires had been just a little more socially inclusive,
they might have survived?
No. They didn't have a chance.
They were mean to robots and then robots killed them.
So long, Elena! And thanks for all the fish!
Choke on it, skin bucket.
Records show that when the world's economies
began collapsing, humanity's leaders retreated to these fortresses
to wait out the chaos deep beneath the earth
and then emerge to form a new world order.
Dammit! They built an impregnable nuclear fortress
but didn't think to install a light switch?
Hold on a sec, I got it!
Behold! The final stronghold of the superpowers.
It's a buffet.
So, their plan was to seal themselves in a mountain and have dinner parties?
I told you, snackish.
This report states
that their self-sustaining hydroponic systems began failing
when a fungus wiped out their first crop.
Starvation set in, and the survivors switched
to something they called "extreme democracy."
One man, one vote.
The winner of this evening's election
was the Secretary of Agriculture.
Shut up! No, really?
He was paired with a late-harvest '79 Merlot.
Oh, the irony is delicious,
much like the Secretary of Agriculture.
Oh, that's got a lovely nose.
Ugh. Man, this trip is really starting to depress me.
Did any of these humans, anywhere, survive all this?
Hold the fuck up.
Are you saying they went to Mars?
Not all of them,
just the really, really rich ones.
Wait. I thought that's what the seasteads were for?
Those were for the merely millionaires.
The obscenely wealthy 0.01 percent of humans
decided they needed an entirely new planet.
But what about the other 99.9?
Awesome!
The elite were not sympathetic to their concerns.
Yeah.
Okay, but Mars? I mean, it's dead and lifeless.
They could've taken the money they spent on the spaceships
and used it to save the planet they were already on.
What's the fun in that?
I hate to say it, but humans are the actual worst.
Humanity had all the tools to heal
their wounded planet and save themselves,
but instead they chose greed and self-gratification
over a healthy biosphere and the future of their children.
-As the human philosopher Santayana once-- -Hey, shut up! That's boring!
You guys, I think one of these rockets actually launched.
Come check this out.
All right then.
Good on you, humans.
I wonder who made it out?
Who were you expecting?
Elon Musk?