If alien invaders wanted to take over Earth, the most efficient strategy wouldn’t be to bomb things, or zap them with lasers; it would be to sow the planet with custom viruses that wipe out those pesky humans. To be really effective, they might want to indoctrinate the people psychologically to avoid basic prophylactic measures (this has already become a conspiracy theory). SMBC plays out this notion to its logical conclusion, and postulates that the triumphant survivors of this alien assault would be kindergarten teachers.
I support this conclusion. I think we ought to give all kindergarten and preschool teachers a massive raise, or at least issue biohazard gear to them.
So true! My mother’s a retired kindergarten teacher and still seems to be immune to pretty much any virus going around.
She did wear a mask during peak Covid and is fully vaccinated anyway, of course.
Reminds of: “The Screwfly Solution”.
I’m a retired teacher. I have a mild case of COPD from growing up outside LA in a truly horrendous smog pit. I used to get a serious case of bronchitis every year, sometimes twice a year. Since retiring, nada. I taught middle school. Kindergarten doesn’t have a monopoly on germs.
Interesting premise, but I’ve known quite a few primary school teachers over the years and after a few weeks of class every fall they would be out for a week or two with a cold or the flu or whatever was going around. That said, I fully support paying school teachers a lot more money, say double the current average and perhaps more in states in the low range. Plus, a big bonus to all retired school teachers so they can live out their lives with some comforts and dignity.
I’d say that America would be better served if running for elective office involved passing the citizenship exam. You can’t become an American citizen without understanding its government, its laws, and its history, three subjects which too many high level politicians are completely ignorant of.
Would being married to a teacher be enough?
HidariMak @ 5 — I don’t disagree, but the problem is most elected officials are lawyers so they could probably ace such a test. However, their moral compass is glued to the $$ thrown their way. There are some other things to test besides knowledge of the laws, such as general cognitive ability. I think maybe some basic principles of the scientific method would be in order, as well.
@5 and 7:
You mean like Alabama’s senator, Tommy Tuberville, who described the three branches of the federal government as “the House, the Senate, and the executive”?
Maybe he figured the GOP had already purchased a majority of SCOTUS so there was no need to mention it. \s
@5 You shouldn’t need to pass a test, you should have to be a primary school teacher for 5 years minimum.
@7:
Not at all true, Robro. A much-higher-proportion-than-they-are-of-the-population have law degrees† but it’s still far less than half. The greatest single “non-political” background is general business, followed by investment/finance, followed only then by law.
† Which is no guarantee of understanding diddly-squat about “government” — Vance, Hawley, Cruz, Bondi, Bove (and that’s just a random selection from one party, the Democratic examples aren’t an awful lot better). We’ll leave aside how few of those “individuals with law degrees” were in law practice for one year or less (Vance, Hawley, Cruz… starting to sound familiar?) — and that almost none of them have ever been “good enough” to teach law (Warren, Porter, and Obama being the only recent examples, and Obama was merely an adjunct… and it’s not coincidental that they’re all from the other party, that’s been the case for three-quarters of a century).
Cool! Weinersmith should develop the idea into a movie script.
Retired high school teacher here. Those teens would snot all over the papers they were handing in to me.
The only time that I caught anything from them was when we had a large number of “Katrina Kids” integrating into our school.
Of course, my autoimmune disease made my immune system strange, too.