One Solution a 13 Year Old Can Understand

A solution all species (except one and maybe their dogs) would vote for

As ‘Offenwrong’ is my middle name, I’ll assume that someone will find this missive readable enough to get to the end of all the (909) words, words, words (and consider what they point to).

Progress: I’ve realized that anything that needs to be said that matters using words can be explained to a thirteen year old in few enough words (with some repetition), and that the rest (overuse of parenthetical asides and links) are details at best to help the overeducated (schooled). All else and otherwise are distractions. So my message to humankind, any elders’ warning to humanity, is to be addressed to those who are 13 years of age (or who will be 13 if they persist long enough, inclusive of the 100th generation to come).

The 13 year olds with inquiring minds may eventually want to know more than their 13-year-old mind could understand, for which details can be offered, but otherwise don’t bother trying to communicate with anyone 20 or over — it wastes your time and annoys the human. Some 19 year olds may not have been fully assimilated yet, and for them some parentheticals and links may help. For the rest of you (with the possible exception of those entering a second childhood, possible at any age), have another latte (while you can).

Some ‘real solutions’ to our problematique (our meta-problem of overshoot) would require Klaatu, but 13 to 19 year olds should consider why Klaatu might use her advanced technology (that would appear as magic to us clothed apes) to interfere with the lives of over 8 billion humans.

Young’uns (who are posterity to all older than they are) are likely to be the ones who pay the overshoot debt we Anthropocene enthusiasts are incurring without the slightest thought of being the ones who will pay the debt (e.g. those enthusiasts who have gone to or are now going to school to get an educayshun and, perhaps later, go to Davos).

So change one rule (strictly enforced) to save life on Earth (including, if possible, Homo sapiens sapiens)… and what would it be?

Not being a malevolent being, Klaatu does warn humanity. There was the World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity of 1992 that was ignored (effectively, though every ‘educated’ human heard about it). Another warning was offered in 2017, ‘A Second Warning’, but with no expectation that over 20k scientists would sign it (with the same outcome as the first). Scientists tend to not repeat the same pattern while expecting a different outcome [right click, open in incognito window].

So Klaatu, noting that the Anthropocene mass extinction event could rival that of the Permian, informs humanity that in one year (from the moment she stops speaking) any human wearing covers of any kind will drop dead in about 2 nanoseconds (all neural activity ends).

A cover while sleeping wasn’t ‘wearing’, but rolling, crawling, ambulating, driving, sailing, flying… while covered was (a necklace or headband would not provide significant cover, but a cap could be pushing the seemingly new law of nature). Those who dressed their pets soon learned that the law was universal and that a collar was not ‘wearing’.

Hominins (and their ancestors) had lived thus for over six million years until ‘displaced’ (made to go extinct) by the last hominin standing, i.e. those who still think clothing and ‘digital watches are a pretty neat idea’.

So one Earth orbit later and those who believed that what was warned of couldn’t happen literally didn’t know what dropped them (2 nanoseconds is too little time to know anything). And those who for whatever reason hadn’t gotten out of bed or were in the shower… didn’t know how the others were made to drop either. No MDs nor people with PhDs (i.e. no human) knew what had hit humanity (or, with few a exceptions, why).

The Great Depopulation just happened as warned. Embracing a high explosive to be turned into a red mist has a determinate outcome from a ‘persistence of life’ point of view. Klaatu’s way was just quicker, with less collateral damage.

So there was a rapid depopulation of humans event. Wonder why?

People in the Kalahari who don’t wear clothes never knew anything had happened, at least not beyond the encroaching settlements of Bantu pastoralists clustered around fossil-fuel powered water wells who were mostly found dead, and while some birds still sang, no planes flew.

Within a few decades the last Anthropocene enthusiast (able to think that no planes flying was a bad thing) had died. The culture of expansionist growth was extinct, i.e. the condition that would have come anyway if Klaatu had not intervened, had come sooner. The cause of the Anthropocene mass extinction ended a year later that it could have. I wonder why Klaatu delayed?

Some knew Klaatu (aka Gaia who is also ‘unkind’) could do what she said to those who could listen. They didn’t believe her, but they didn’t believe she couldn’t foresee or cause what she clearly stated would happen in terms almost any sixth grader could understand. Some voted with their feet and took as much information of possible value to posterity with them as they could.

And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

— from Little Gidding by T.S. Eliot

PS: And some did.