WASHINGTON—Discouraged and demoralized almost to the breaking point by news of political corruption at the highest levels, images of migrant children still being kept in cages, time-lapse videos of disappearing polar ice caps, and a constant barrage of other relentlessly harrowing information, sources across the nation are shuddering to think how terrible the world would seem if they were denied access to an inexhaustible torrent of free pornography. “We are witnessing nothing less than our entire civilization being brought to the point of collapse, and I’m not entirely sure how I would handle that without an unlimited stream of high-quality sexual imagery,” said Jacob Krieger, 29, noting that on-demand access to over 13 million hours of every conceivable form of recorded human perversion was “a great help” while observing the inexorable transition of the world’s democratic nations into authoritarian states. “I just can’t imagine how depressed I would be if I had to face this broken world, where greed and intolerance have been elevated to the status of virtues and the most ruthless bullies are celebrated as role models, if I was ever more than a few clicks away from more smut than I could watch in 10 lifetimes.” At press time, the nation was dealing with breaking news regarding the staggering surge in the number of central European women abducted into the international sex trade by watching the Cubs game.

Advertisement