The Overlords Are a Metaphor for World Government

The overlords are a metaphor for world government, an idea which has gained serious ground in recent years. People have by enlarge, lost purpose, partly because of the welfare apparatuses, but also because they have confined their ideas and actions to what is acceptable by the overlords. Childhood's end fabulously shows how any central planner has their own ambitions. And as regards human rulers, we've already discussed in our episode on privacy and psychopaths, how a portion of the population not only does not care about the general welfare, but literally cannot conceive of anything but their own personal gratification.