SO, HUMANS, YOU ARE BORED? HERE ARE SOME THINGS TO TALK ABOUT.

In 2016, the little invisible aliens who designed and seeded the Earth billions of years ago, decided we needed some stimulation. So they sent us plenty.

Because they are still around of course. Watching us as, in their view, we make the most colossal physical, political and social mess of this planet. They have tried to send us warnings, but we ignore them.

Australia aflame, floods everywhere else, climate change, melting icecaps, Covid19, locusts, droughts, tree diseases, a few earthquakes here and there. Just to remind us that we humans, we arrogant and egocentric humans, are no match for the nature they designed and controlled. I like to think. Meanwhile, we are busily electing or appointing or otherwise accepting some of the most unqualified and inappropriate people as “leaders” of our nations. We allow them, and we are complicit in their inanities and insanities, to do the most catastrophically wrong things in what they like to pretend is in our name.

So what are the little invisible creatures making of all this? 12&63444(5) says to 357&@724, “I think we ought to look at the stuff we may have got wrong, don’t you?”

Such as …?

First, that sexual reproduction business. Pretty well all the organisms we implanted are managing without causing trouble, but the humans? What were we thinking when we made sex so pleasurable? We should have realised that they would not be able to control themselves, and the males, in particular, would immediately go about with their ridiculous erect penises, having fun and orgasms.

But we gave a little pleasure button to the females too, didn’t we?

Yes, we did, more’s the pity, but we thought that this would help with occasional urges to reproduce. Got that wrong. And in any case, the males don’t seem able to do anything with it.

And then what about different skin colour? Look at the trouble that this is causing. Surely we could have given them all the same colour, so they could cope with sun or cold or whatever, without having to go all racist on us, some of them having somehow decided that white skin is superior to any other colour. That was a big mistake.

Anything else?

Oh, yes. Lots. We thought that throwing in a few viruses and bacteria would help to keep the human population under control. I mean, just look at them. Almost eight billion of them now and more to come. We planned for about 4 billion as I remember, max. We’ve tried with flu and poxes and wars and a lot else, but they seem to have used the brains we gave them to defeat the controls. Or where they failed, and a few million died, that damned penis got going again and now look. Eight billion! I ask you!

And …?

Oh, yes, I’d nearly overlooked the fact that we programmed their brains to consider greed and growth as good things, because that was the best way to keep them stimulated and, in the long run, alive as a species. So they developed in a way we could not foresee — killing animals for no sensible reason and certainly not for food. Destroying forests and habitat for the sake of planting alien trees they don’t need. We gave them a unique mix of gases which helped the planet and everything on it to thrive for ages and ages, and now they seem determined to change that mix by pouring carbon dioxide into their air — because we showed them how to make fire all those aeons ago. Another fine mess. We must have been mad.

I agree. But we also invented and implanted the law of unforeseen consequences, didn’t we? We thought that this would help to curb excess, but it didn’t. Why did we do that? So now what?

I don’t know. The best bet is that as we can’t do anything any more, we’d best go back home to our own galaxy and let them get on with it. They'll have no trouble, eventually, in destroying themselves. The politicians we allowed them to develop will see to that. With a few exceptions I can’t explain, they are electing or accepting some of the most stupid, vapid, arrogant and ego-driven of their species to lead them. Lead them? That’s a laugh.

Well, can’t we do something to re-wire their brains or … whatever?

How long have you been doing this job? You know that the job is to start things moving, and once we have done that, we can’t undo what’s been done. Billions of them have developed a particular kind of madness which tells them that an all-powerful God or gods have the power to do, well, anything. Nonsense, of course, but thank goodness they haven’t developed any such kind of faith in us. They’d quickly find out that we have no such all-encompassing powers.

Yes, that’s right. So shall we go home, refresh ourselves and then head off to any one of the millions of planets in the universe where conditions are roughly similar to what we put together here, and this time, get it right?

Sounds like a plan. Shall I get the Starporter ready? We’ve been here long enough.