In this economy...

An excerpt from Scott Adams' book, The Dilbert Future:

We're attracted to the people who have the best ability to survive and thrive. In the old days, it was important to be able to run down an antelope and kill it with a single blow to the forehead. But that skill is becoming less important every year.

Now it only matters if you can install your own Ethernet card without having to confess your inadequacies to a disgruntled tech support person.

It's obvious the world has three distinct classes of people, each with it's own evolutionary destiny:

1. Knowledgeable computer users who will eventually evolve into godlike non-corporeal beings who will rule the Universe.

2. Computer owners who try to "pass" as knowledgeable but secretly use a hand calculator to add totals for their Excel spreadsheets. This group will gravitate towards jobs as high school principals and operators of pet crematoriums. Eventually, they will become extinct.

3. Non-computer users who will eventually grow tails, sit in zoos, and fling dung at tourists.

Obviously, if you're a woman and you're trying to decide which evolutionary track you want your offspring to take, you don't want to put them on the luge ride to the dung-flinging Olympics. You want a real man. You want a knowledgeable computer user with evolution potential.

And women prefer men who listen. Computer users are excellent listeners because they can look at you for long periods of time without saying anything. Granted, early in a relationship it's better if the guy actually talks. But men use up all the stories they'll ever have after six months. If a woman marries a guy who's in, let's say, retail sales, she'll get repeat stories starting in the seventh month and lasting forever. Marry an engineer and she gets a great listener for the next 70 years.

Plus, with the ozone layer evaporating, it's a good strategy to mate with somebody who has an indoor hobby. Outdoorsy men are applying suntan lotion with SPF 10,000 and yet by the age of 30 they still look like dried chili peppers in pants. Compare that with the healthy glow of a man who spends 12 hours a day in front of a video screen.

It's also well established that computer users are better lovers. I know because I heard an actual anecdote from someone who knew a woman who married a computer user and they reportedly had sex many times. If you still doubt the sexiness of male PC users, consider their hair. They tend to have either: (1) male pattern baldness -- a sign of elevated testosterone -- or (2) unkempt jungle hair -- the kind you see only on people who just finished a frenzied bout of lovemaking. If this were a trial I think we could reach a verdict on the strong circumstantial evidence alone.

Henry Kissinger said power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. And Bill Clinton said that knowledge is power. Therefore, logically, according to the U.S. government, knowledge of computers is the ultimate aphrodisiac. You could argue with me -- I'm just a cartoonist -- but it's hard to argue with the government. You would think this was enough to convince anyone that men who use computers are sexy.

Finally, there's the issue of mood lighting. Nothing looks sexier than a man in boxer shorts illuminated only by a 15-inch SVGA monitor. If we agree that this is every woman's dream scenario, then I think we can also agree that it's best if the guy knows how to use the computer. Otherwise, he'll just look like a loser sitting in front of a PC in his underwear.

15-inch SVGA? Pssh, obviously this was published 10 years ago... (1998, to be exact)