Existential Comics

Thomas Malthus was an English philosopher and economist who thought that because food growth grew at a slower rate than population growth, catastrophic events such as famines and plagues were always needed to "re-balance" the population. While he didn't advocate for going back to nature like Treebeard (and to a lesser extent Tolkien, although it was more nostalgia than a real policy, as he understood you can't go back), it's clear that trying to reverse technological progress, particularly in farming, would kill of millions of people in a kind of Malthusian catastrophe. Malthus was wrong, by the way, precisely because the industrialization of farming has the exact opposite effect that he was describing (food production goes up at a much faster rate than population). Saruman's industrialization is the cure to the perpetual famines that humanity used to suffer.

The Lord of the Rings is considered a fantasy because the trees win the battle against industrialization.

It's amazing how no philosophers have come up with the idea of "the best life is hoarding endless wealth while others toil in poverty", it's almost like it's a horrible idea.

Luckily when they come back they'll see that it was just a mistake, and the rest of human history is totally smart and good.

Ultimately of course it doesn't matter what Jesus actually teaches because people just make up what they want it to be after the fact.

The theory of Occams Razors (plural): the simplest solution to any given problem is often to razor the other guy.

Those are the engineering vampires you dolt! After 10,000 years of philosophy, you still don't know the difference?

Thales, in the corner: "yes we are going under water, but everything is water, when you think about it, so..."