I don't think they were using the bikes in that episode to power some great civilization or something, just to reduce costs and more importantly to keep everyone busy.
It wasn't clear what happened in the background, but it seemed like humanity was in a prison and to keep incidents down they made them do hard labor and provided endless mindless entertainment. Probably supposed to be an allegory for 9-5 jobs. The ending suggests that the rest of the planet is alive at least. Maybe humanity was put in prison for wrecking the biosphere and they're giving the planet time to recover?
It wasn't clear what happened in the background, but it seemed like humanity was in a prison and to keep incidents down they made them do hard labor and provided endless mindless entertainment. Probably supposed to be an allegory for 9-5 jobs. The ending suggests that the rest of the planet is alive at least. Maybe humanity was put in prison for wrecking the biosphere and they're giving the planet time to recover?
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