PETITION TO EXTRATERRESTRIALS FOR CONDITIONAL ASSISTANCE TO PREVENT OUR SELF-ANNIHILATION
(Author’s Note: Blade’s Genetic Engineering Science Fiction novel ‘Infinity Curve‘ takes place in 2075. In the novel, Rick, the protagonist, laments the state of humanity and strives to warn distant aliens to avoid our cataclysmic errors. In line with that later outcry, his year 2022 ‘Petition to Extraterrestrials’ asks for conditional assistance to prevent incipient Armageddon.)
Summary of this Petition to Extraterrestrials: In recent decades, humanity’s technological prowess has far exceeded its ethical, moral, and societal progress. This unfortunate dichotomy places our species at high risk of extinction via some intentional or unintentional form of self-annihilation. We are pounding at the door of the next Great Filter and may not survive as a viable species beyond this stage of development. Indeed, given the destructive capacity of our nuclear weapons and the likelihood of their imminent use, coupled with emerging technologies like aberrant genetic engineering or AGI, most life on Earth may perish in the impending catastrophe. Some humans acknowledge this probability, yet few act to prevent its occurrence. This Petition to Extraterrestrials requests your Conditional Assistance to humanity to help us prevent the extinction of our species at our own hands so that we may, with your aid, move beyond this next Great Filter.
Catharsis: Am I really having to do this? Are we humans really this dumb-ass ignorant and short-sighted? The latter question is apparently addressed by the first. We have our pride, maybe too much of it, which makes it hard to ask for help. As a species, we constantly exhibit an unending sense of entitlement, and that’s been the perennial key to our ongoing, dramatic societal conflagrations. Honestly, I don’t relish asking for assistance. We should be better than this. Centuries ago, we should have established at least one minimalistic thing that humans agreed upon – that we all desire to extend our species throughout time. Sadly, despite our advanced technological abilities to communicate with each other, we can’t even conceive of the need for such a simple agreement in the face of the existential dangers that confront us in these times. We humans would certainly argue about what comes afterwards – but achieving just that nominal level of agreement appears to be extremely unlikely. We hold no ‘species-centric’ viewpoint that rises above country, state, creed or ethnicity, religion or other belief system, flag, or some other grouping of sameness. This disheartening fact leads me to one conclusive action, considering our tenuous situation: As one of the eight billion humans on Earth, I request your Conditional Assistance, meaning that we would receive your help only when we are at the hairy edge of self-annihilation – and not before.
DETAILS AND ASSUMPTIONS
You Exist and Are Within Reasonable Proximity. Human primacy is a terminally stupid thing, no? Many of us perceive we’re so uniquely outstanding and entitled that our God-concept created only us to inhabit this immense universe. I think not. I’m guessing you are a wildly non-homogenous group of beings quite beyond our imaginations, and that you’re likely present in many places across the expanse of space and time. For purposes of this Petition and despite the nominal likelihood of the possibility, I’m assuming you are here now or reasonably close by. If so, it’s interesting you haven’t made yourselves widely known to us. Perhaps you maintain some “non-interference” mandate? Whatever it might be, please consider our fragile circumstances relative to any such mandates, laws, or beliefs you may hold on that topic.
You Are Physically Capable of Stopping Us from Self-Annihilating. As presumably interstellar beings, it’s possible that Earth is not the only place you’ve visited where the sentient inhabitants have approached a similar Great Filter and either made it through or didn’t. If you are so advanced technologically that you can travel such distances, you likely possess effective ways, within the context of Conditional Assistance, to readily prevent us from self-annihilating. This probably looks like disarming the nuclear-armed missiles mid-air and/or similar actions that prevent us from rather instantly wasting the Earth and its abundant species.
You Are Not Otherwise Restricted from Helping Us If Asked. You may have well-defined rules that don’t allow you to interfere with species such as ours (or have other reasons not to help), despite the predicament we’re in. So, what happens if you’re asked for assistance? Can you look past your rules in certain circumstances?
Few Have Yet Requested Your Help. I’m also assuming few other humans have specifically asked for Conditional Assistance. In that regard, we possess an innate sense of universal primacy, making us skeptical that you even exist. It doesn’t mean most other humans wouldn’t ask if they believed you existed. Some would and some wouldn’t. Just recognize that humans as a whole can never agree on much, even self-preservation, so please don’t expect to receive a substantial number of requests.
The Body of Humanity Will Likely Welcome Conditional Assistance. Gut tells me this is true, but I’m stretching on this point. Everyone will have different views. Some might say: ‘If we’re so stupid as to allow one or a handful of eight billion humans to fry the planet, we shouldn’t be allowed to continue as a species.’ On the flip side, others might beg for your assistance, right now, even though no nuclear missiles are coursing through the air. Speaking for myself only, I’d like to see us make it through. I assume most other humans would as well, but they will have to speak for themselves.
Possible Hurdle Rates. How many humans would need to create similar petitions or requests before you’d consider helping us? You may not do it with even a million requests – but what if one percent of humans joined-in? What about ten percent? Anyway, it would be nice to find out if you have hurdle rates and what they are.
It is Unlikely We Will Have Time to Individually Vote on the Topic. Kids in the 1960s used to duck under school desks at nuclear drills, no doubt wondering why the Russians or other perceived enemies would waste them and the planet. Almost seventy years hence, that ask still hangs in the air. Most humans live with hope that such a cataclysm will never happen; that somehow, everything will get worked out and we all can get back to our less worrisome daily challenges. There’s often a lot of hope in what humans want, but not a lot of action. That’s curiously true in this case. Given our penchant for not addressing existential problems and the tight time frames when such an urgency arises, please recognize that it is unlikely most humans will raise similar petitions or requests.
To Reiterate, I Am Requesting Your Conditional Assistance. Note again that I am one of eight billion humans and speak only for myself. I’m no better than any of the others, so I should have no greater or lesser voice than any one of them. If you actually consider addressing this and similar petitions, please be aware that other non-petitioning humans deserve their equal say, and their perspectives on this topic will likely differ considerably.
‘Conditional Assistance’ Presumes At Least These Things:
Missile Loft-Time: Nuclear-armed missiles take 10-15 minutes from launch to reach their targets. Land-based ICBMs take about 30 minutes. Honestly, during the time the missiles are ‘in-air,’ few humans will be made aware of that fact. Even fewer will consider in those moments to request your assistance. Again, if such assistance does not arrive, it will likely spell the ignominious end of humanity and many other Earth species.
Last Moment Assistance: We humans might work things out by ourselves and never reach the point where we need your help. If so, then Conditional Assistance as defined will not be required. Sure, our track record for managing ourselves well as a species is pretty pathetic, but we’ve somehow fumbled our way along and survived despite our lack of insight and discipline. So, please consider this Petition to Extraterrestrials as “Conditional” in that you will only interject yourselves into such a cataclysmic situation at the last possible moment, as defined next.
Mass Extinction Event: Please intercede on our behalf only if it appears that we face an imminent Mass Extinction Event. If many nuclear-armed missiles or other species-devastating weapons are unleashed, then this Conditional Assistance request for a ‘Mass Extinction Event’ should apply. However, for example, if one or two nuclear missiles fire off and that’s all, then we’re not likely facing such a conflagration. You’ll have to be the judge in the moment.
We Can Go About Our Ways After the Fact. I’m hoping you will disarm the missiles or substantially mitigate a similar species threat. Such species-brink annihilators may be as diverse as a global pandemic caused by accidental or purposeful genetic engineering, unhinged AI or AGI platforms with a penchant for eliminating biological life forms like our own, or global climate change that wreaks havoc on our atmosphere. Afterwards, please do whatever you think is appropriate, if anything, to let us know you intervened. That’s up to you. I’m also hoping we can go about our regular lives without incurring radical lifestyle changes. Sure, we may know you’re out there at that point, but humans can be a gnarly, suspicious, and overly proud lot. We don’t like being told what to do even if the suggestions are friendly or obviously beneficial to us. Indeed, getting that close to Armageddon might actually compel us to change our ways and treat each other decently. We might even act as if we were a species that cares enough about ourselves to survive through the millennia. That would be nice.
We Are Not Forced to Serve You In Other Ways Largely Unacceptable to Us. After Conditional Assistance, we don’t want to become your hunting fodder or experience any of the other generally terrible outcomes for humans that certain dystopian stories might imagine. You have your belief systems and we have ours. We would probably take a look at yours to assess whether we should adopt some of your rules and societal norms. However, we are very slow to learn and adapt – so please expect no miraculous changes in our behaviors or belief systems in the short to intermediate term.
Most Humans Might Graciously Accept Conditional Assistance. I’m stretching here. Most people indeed live lives of quiet desperation and don’t put much thought into humanity’s long-term survival. The ones that are considerate on that account, however, are likely to be grateful for your help. On the other hand, don’t expect most humans to be very accepting of your help even after it happens. We can be a very thoughtless, presumptuous, and certainly entitled lot, and we still haven’t figured out how to effectively manage our self-defeating behaviors. Add to that grumpy, callous, thankless? Sure. But please don’t hold our irascible and ungracious behaviors against us.
CONTEXT AND ANALYSIS
High Risk Technologies: Our new and emerging technologies can be used for both good or bad purposes. However, because this tech has so rapidly advanced in recent years, our entire species is at severe and immediate risk of annihilation. Nuclear and genetic threats come immediately to mind, among others. Of course, this wasn’t always the case. A single cannon or tank couldn’t flatten a city very easily, but a single nuclear missile can. Our combined capacity of over 12,000 live nuclear weapons possesses the explosive power equivalent to detonating twelve Hiroshima-level events every day (yes, every day) starting from 1945 until today, and some would still remain. They are quivering in hidden silos and submarines, accessible at the push of a button and ready to take flight at that Armageddon-like Mass Extinction Event command. Worse yet, such a command is imminently possible and could be given at any moment – in most cases not by all citizens in a country nor by a very large communion of rational people, but by a few autocratic lunatics and their small circle of lackeys. A pretty crappy, ridiculously stupid, and tenuous situation for our species, indeed.
Ethics, Morality, and Principles: Our technologies have very quickly climbed the Infinity Curve. Put simply, this curve is a visual or mental representation of the pace at which our technology is scaling the y-axis of advancement. Indeed, it’s almost reaching the vertical where each new discovery or invention spawns countless branches of others. Concurrently, our ethics, morals, and principles have arguably stayed flat along the x-axis of time. Some might even say they’ve degraded. I doubt that. If there’s just one positive thing our social and mass media have done, they have given people limited perspective about how other people are like them. Most of us appreciate or cherish family, friends, nature, and the Earth itself. Despite this occasionally enlightening access to information, however, certain people hold on to beliefs of the past that have plagued humanity. These belief constructs almost always arise from the two proto-evils of fear and entitlement, typically exhibited in grievances and victimizations, ownership and attachments, disregard for the plights of others, greed, and lack of sense of self, to name a few (the extended list is long and ponderous). Given enough time, we might learn how to manage all things that emanate from these two proto-evils. It would be nice to be given that time.
Urgency Due to Irrational and Dangerous Leverage: I’m drafting this Petition after one rather bellicose global leader recently threatened to use nuclear weapons if anyone interfered with his (entitled) objective to subjugate certain other humans and force them to be in accord with his personal belief system. Yes, as stupid as it sounds, that’s where we still are today as a species. One human or a few dozen can have such ‘Dangerous Leverage’ and decide that all others will die. Pretty preposterous, indeed, but it’s where we have been for the last 70 years. Should one ant on the anthill ever be given the leverage and capability to decide if the other eight billion ants are alive tomorrow? Of course not. It’s an irrational and immature way to run a species, and we’re beyond knuckleheads in that respect. In time, however, we might change that dynamic. We might eliminate or mitigate such idiocy and train ourselves how to avoid and prevent it. But as of right now, as of today, that threat is as real as the ebb and flow of Earth’s tides. No single human or smaller group of beings should ever wield that kind of power under any circumstance, but it’s just not where we are as yet. Vestiges of the old ways weigh us down, placing our species at severe risk of universal obliteration.
Species Unity: As individual beings, we generally lack any tangible sense of species unity. Because of this, we collectively see no reason to establish even a single vision or one commonly agreed upon value statement for our species. That vision, ideal, credo, or ethic minimally (like in twelve words or less) should state clearly that we will work together to maintain our species’ longevity through time. It doesn’t have to be complex. However, getting to that single common agreement is a different issue. In humankind’s long history, one might argue that of all the wars we’ve had, disagreement about the meaning of that single vision was the rationale for such conflagrations. I doubt that since most wars were about possessions, control, greed, fear, and entitlement over others. They didn’t occur because someone said: ‘Look, we all agree to extend the species through time. However, my way is best and I can’t get you to agree, so let’s fight about it.’ I’m not implying by having such an ethic that we’ll resolve many issues between humans. But having this agreement about species longevity would or should take off the table any weapons or technologies that present an existential risk to humanity. Nuclear and biological / genetic weapons are clearly among those risks.
Recognizing Our Failings: We have never adequately addressed the threat of self-annihilation. Sure, modest progress has been made regarding nuclear de-escalation and ‘strategic’ arms limitations, but not enough to make a big difference in the scheme of a possible Mass Extinction Event. And when it comes to emerging biological threats, we’ve barely scratched the surface of possibilities. Again, these are the top two issues, but multiple emerging technologies will present future threats.
We Remain A Young, Immature Species: As compared to you, we’re no doubt young as a species. You might even think such a naïve, thoughtless species that allows a few of its members to wield such power is not deserving of your assistance. Indeed, we are obstinate, fearful, entitled, easily aroused to anger, irrational, and shortsighted. We fail to educate ourselves and our children to build and support an advanced and just society. We created technologies that we cannot manage properly. On the flip side again, we just might need some more burn-in time to get better at acting as a cohesive species. To do this, we’ll need to eliminate our penchant to divide ourselves due to our belief systems. We’ll need to discontinue idolizing single or small groups of humans who always end up leading some of us astray. Right now, anyway, and before we hybridize ourselves (though this is in the future, should we have one), we are one species and need to act as such. One very fragile, at risk, fearful species with a few good qualities that might help us move forward, beyond this Great Filter.
QUESTIONS AND CONSIDERATIONS
Qualifications for Assistance: Given the above and assuming you have heard this qualified plea and are willing to entertain it, there are some things that would be nice to know. First – are we deserving of your help? Are we so backward, so pig-headed and thoughtless, and so undisciplined that you’d never consider helping us? I hope not. Second – is there a qualifying layer we have not achieved? Are you looking for some characteristics of behavior or social organization before you’d consider conditionally assisting us? Are there specific rules to join your (or some larger community of) species that we will never achieve? Or could we achieve them with some effort or within reasonable time? Third – is ‘Conditional Assistance’ too presumptuous? Should we simply be thankful you helped us at all and forget about how we want to continue on our own afterwards?
Please Help Us Balance Pros and Cons: What would a typical human consider as the significant downsides in developing this relationship with you? Would that same human generally consider those downsides worse for humanity than the complete annihilation of our species? Can we have a choice?
Pre-Assistance Dialogue: We may want to begin a dialogue before a ‘Mass Extinction Event’ occurs. It’s understood on our end (at least by some) that such an event could be imminent, given the uncertainties regarding the unstable or irrational mental states of individuals with the ‘Dangerous Leverage,’ typically those who are magnetically attracted to such power for whatever crazy reasons stemming from fear and entitlement.
Compensation: Humans tend to want to pay reasonably when they receive something of value. Indeed, we often get justly suspicious when assistance is offered with ‘no strings attached.’ So for now, let’s assume your assistance is ‘conditional’ from your perspective. If so, it would be nice to know how to fairly compensate you (hopefully not a substantial burden to us) for saving our species from self-annihilation and letting us continue forward with our own self-determination to the greatest possible extent thereafter.
Apologies and Thanks in Advance. To reiterate, it’s damn embarrassing to request Conditional Assistance. You likely have better things to do than babysit such an immature species. We generally know we should be better than this. Indeed, we should understand how fast our technologies are advancing and then guide and accelerate our norms, morals, and values in accordance with them. At this stage of our evolution, however, our technologies and societal norms are completely misaligned and out of balance, and they are likely to remain as such for some time. For whatever reasons of stupidity and laziness, humans often must be prodded excessively, even painfully to ‘the brink,’ before we get off our asses and work well with each other. So please consider this entreaty in that respect. Once those many nuclear-armed missiles are aloft and screaming toward their destinations of innocents, a few of us may be ‘hat in hand’ coming to you (although some will pray to their God to intervene, but that’s a whole other topic). Thanks for taking the time to consider this Petition to Extraterrestrials or others of similar intent. You might be our last chance at maintaining this wonderful human experience of conscious living.
Best Regards,
Rick
