Years from now...

...in the distant future...

machines are the only thing that do any sort of physical labor...

Let's face it... after a few hundred years of innovation they just became too goddamn efficient. The entire blue collar labor force was replaced with robots... at least in America.

However, American Psychologists theorize that there is a certain cross-section of the population which must have work to be happy... So a gigantic program is started by the federal government to create Blockstacking Factories, where day in, and day out, people do nothing but stack blocks, one on top of the other...

These Stacked Blocks are shipped to Block-Unstacking Factories, where the blocks are just as meticulously taken apart... and shipped back.

Of course, someone has to oversee these Block Stackers, so Block Floor Managers arise, along with a giant administrative force -- which produces nothing, but exists soley for the purpose of keeping everyone busy, creating the excuse to give everyone a paycheck.

Of course, it is essential that everyone remains clueless about the fact that this Blockstacking is ultimately purposeless... Otherwise they might just go home, stop working, and live without any sense of meaning in their life... and don't even mention the effect that would have on our great American Economy.

Enter a reductionist passer-by. He says that everything that you do is just stacking blocks, and that anything "constructive" that we call "work" follows a relatively constricted set of rules, which could concievebly be eventually replaced by an intricate program or machine...

of course, I'm not sure if I believe him.

After all, it's really nice to get my paycheck every two weeks, and drive my car to the Wal-Mart where I can get various manufactured consumer products...

--nate