Minutes of the Four Horsemen Corporation’s Quarterly Planning Meeting
Date: June 20, 2025
Time: 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM EST
Location: Hell, Executive Level
Meeting Chair: Mr. Death (Acting CEO)
Attendees
- Mr. Death (Chief Executive Officer)
- Mr. War (Vice President, Global Conflict Operations)
- Mr. Famine (Chief Supply Chain Disruption Officer)
- Mr. Pestilence (Director of Public Health Initiatives)
2:03 PM - Call to Order
Mr. Death opened the meeting and noted that Q2 performance metrics were "very promising."
Mr. War, embracing the Corporation's Casual Friday initiative, from his champagne-filled hot tub in the corner, informed the meeting that it was all his department's work and everybody could thank him later.
Mr. Pestilence, who had been frantically sanitizing his hands since arrival, cleared his throat nervously and reminded Mr War that as effective as Global Conflict Operations had been in maintaining the bottom line, most of the upside going forward was projected to arise from his (Mr Pestilence's) division and in particular the North American office where Mr Kennedy's secondment to the current Administration promised to unleash a vast and loathsome tide of suffering upon the land, such that the rivers shall run thick with necrotic humours and Great Palaces of Bone shall be raised unto the heavens.
Mr Death said that was just super and he was very much looking forward to it.
2:10 PM - Divisional Reports
Mr Pestilence apologised for the slow progress on the avian flu initiative but reminded the meeting that while start-up costs and the investment required to prepare for a global epidemic were considerable, his Division's work on mass hysteria was well ahead of schedule.
Mr Pestilence was interrupted at this point by Mr War's laughter over in the hot tub.
"Sure thing, buddy!" Mr War brayed out. "You keep working on your little TikTok thing and leave the grown-ups to get after it in the Middle East. You seen my boy Bibi over there? Dude's a fucking killer, bro!"
"Well, we're all killers," Mr Famine muttered from the sandwich buffet.
Mr War did not take up his point but did argue that his Division should be the preferred functional area for corporate allocations going forward, given the blue-sky projections for his team in the final weeks of Q2, let alone Q3.
Mr. Pestilence reminded the meeting that the data suggested that slow-burn epidemiological events actually generate more sustained civilizational breakdown than acute conflict responses. "It's about building persistent anxiety, not shock-and-awe mortality spikes."
Mr War laughed like a Viking, as usual, and threw an empty bottle of Krystal at Mr Pestilence, inviting him to "slow burn that in his ass."
Mr Death gavelled the meeting back to order, suggesting to Mr Famine that if he joined them at the conference table, the meeting might go faster, enabling a late lunch to be served.
Mr Famine agreed but brought a plate of muffins with him.
2:18 PM - Strategic Resource Depletion & Market Headwinds
Mr. Famine sighed and began his update in a voice so flat it made the air seem tired.
"I don't know why I even bother," he said and gestured vaguely toward his tablet. "Ozempic. Wegovy. GLP-1 receptor agonists. People are going without, and they don't even feel hungry. It's like… what's even the point, you know?"
There was a brief, awkward silence until Mr. War said, "You got this, bro."
Mr. Pestilence offered a brief nod. "It's okay, guy. Lots of people are still going hungry. You're doing some great work in Gaza."
But Mr Famine insisted that it was all down to their contractor, Mr Netanyahu, who technically reported to Mr War.
Mr. Death insisted that the board understood Mr Famine's concerns, but pointed out that his Division still had real traction.
"There are some promising indicators in those Black Sea shipping bottlenecks, Fam. You're doing excellent work."
"I suppose," said Mr. Famine. "But I used to build global famines like symphonies. Now it's just semaglutide and clickbait all the way down."
Mr Death suggested they move on and encouraged Mr Famine to talk to the in-house counselors about his feelings.
2:41 PM - Market Analysis and Growth Opportunities
Mr. Death refocused the meeting on emerging opportunities, causing Mr War to become so excited that he left the hot tub in a surge of suds and body oil, his grotesque bulk slapping against the tiles like a boiled ham escaping a bin fire.
"Can we talk about my American Civil War plans now?" Mr. War said.
Mr Famine professed himself so very tired that he had no energy to protest, and Mr Pestilence agreed to listen but only if Mr War promised that his plans would not affect the Pestilence Division's small but flourishing rebuild of the North American plague market.
Mr War assured everyone that what he had planned for North America would 10X everybody's returns, including Famine's.
"These people have more guns than Famine's missed hot dinners," Mr War reminded the meeting. "And thanks to my friend Pestilence's assiduous focus on poisoning the well of comity and fellow feeling from sea to shining fucking sea, they all hate each other with the intensity of crackbrained televangelists fighting over a giant golden dildo stuffed full of crypto and bath salts."
Mr. Pestilence thanked Mr War for his kind words and asked whether there might be a path to profiting from the widespread anxiety disorders, depression, and social fragmentation that would precede his colleague's civil war scheme.
Mr Death, as chairman, pointed out that they had a no-compete agreement with Mr Zuckerberg and the other social media tyrants, which might make that difficult, but if Mr War's projections were accurate all such arrangements would soon enough be voided.
"Just like their bowels as they're led to the guillotine," Mr War laughed loudly.
Mr. Death nodded approvingly. "Now that's good systems thinking."
3:07 PM - Action Items and Q3 Strategic Priorities
Mr. Pestilence raised his hand tentatively. "What about our climate change competitive analysis? That stuff’s really eating into our market share."
Mr. Death waved dismissively. "Climate's all physics, no personality. We stick to human-driven apocalypse solutions where we have a competitive advantage."
3:15 PM - Meeting Adjournment
"Next quarterly review is September 15th," Mr. Death announced.
“If September comes, amirite!” Mr War bellowed.
There was much amusement.
Meeting concluded at 3:15 PM
*Minutes recorded by Ms. Consequences, Executive Assistant*
*Distribution: Board Members, Stakeholder Relations, Accounting (for expense reporting), HR (for performance review documentation)*
It's not them - it's us.
Humans didn’t start killing each other on a large scale until after they discovered agriculture and became sedentary about 10,000 years ago.
That was when land and its possession first became an integral part of human life. The further conglomeration of land into nation states turned that possession into something positively evil.
That evil has dogged humanity ever since.
Up to and including the First World War humans fought and killed each other hurling armies, usually made up of young men, at each other.
The First World War was significant because of the industrial scale of death involved. Soldiers in their millions ceased to be warriors and became simple cannon fodder fed into the sausage machine of that war.
Historians still argue about what caused the war but agree that inbred precocious aristocrats carry a lot of the blame.
For civilians war was something that didn’t necessarily involve them. Watching armies fighting each other was often a spectator sport, a bit like football is today.
It was only during World War Two that technology, especially airborne technology, enabled combatant nations to inflict heavy casualties on each other’s largely innocent civilian populations.
That now seems to have become the modus operandi of modern warfare.
We now have, for instance, nation states like Ukraine and Russia and Israel and Iran indiscriminately hurling missiles and drones at each other hell bent on murdering as many as possible of each other’s innocent civilians, especially women and children.
Where that ends and what the objective is defies logic. Presumably whichever side inflicts the most death, destruction and misery becomes the victor.
No other creature on the planet is this crude, capricious, greedy and blood thirsty.
I'm picturing a Clarke and Dawe-style podcast here. Could easily be a regular thing.