uspol, snark
Cut to 7019 AD, where a well-intentioned team of alien anthropologists can come up with no better explanation for our era than "a four-year ritual performance of the ancient Human passion play, 'The Emperor's New Clothes.'"
The poor spacefaring rubes walk away marveling at our commitment to the dramatic arts and the cautionary fable, to the point where we're willing to destroy our own infrastructure, and visitors are willing to be committed to months of confinement, just to maintain the farce.
They will never suspect for a moment that a society of sapient beings would actually do this to itself for no good reason whatsoever.
uspol, snark
@zebratron2084
Look, the fable had to come from somewhere...