Genady

I didn't hear it as a teenager because there was no second opinion then 🙂.

Perhaps you're right. I just think that the humor of this joke is apolitical:

You know as well as I do that correlation does not imply causation. E.g. Far more religious people than atheists reject vaccinations. Far more religious people than atheists are on the Right. Or. Uneducated vs. educated. Etc.

Me too.

Being an idiot is not political. There are plenty of anti-vaxxers on both sides. And were there before Covid, too.

But how is this humor political?

Details matter here. It depends. Which humans? How were they trained? What parameters were given for the analysis?

And the pressure wave went around the world seven times!

The Pompeii story was well known and popular in the USSR. I guess it was "promoted" there thanks to the Russian painting, The Last Day of Pompeii - Wikipedia.

Martinique is a bit far from here, but the Collectivité de Saint-Martin is around the corner. I'll visit there at some time perhaps. P.S. In fact, Martinique is close on the map - it's just more difficult to get there from here than to St. Martin, because of the Dutch part, Sint Maartin.

The story of that convict, with a bit more details (he was jailed again later) is mentioned in the Krakatoa book. Ludger Sylbaris - Wikipedia

Thank you. Added to the wishlist.

Did it have an explanation of plate tectonics then?

... about this legendary but entirely unknown to me until now event. A good book, too.

Today, after going through about one third of this book, I learned that I don't care about English kings.