*is In The Manga Section Of The Bookshop* *sees Another Person* HAHA! What A Nerd

if i ever get killed i hope you all assume it’s because i knew too much about aliens

I think we could learn a lot from the robots we’re building. Imagine talking to a machine fitted with an artificial intelligence that can communicate with us. We’d ask so many questions, just because we hope for something new so badly.

So we’d go to the robot and ask, “What’s your purpose?”

The robot would make a little beep or whatever noise it chooses to signify processing of data. “My purpose is whatever you programmed into me,” it would say.

And we’d be disappointed. Because that’s not new. “Oh.” Already thinking about ways to change the robot, we mutter to ourselves: “Aren’t you lucky, knowing exactly what you’re meant to do.”

The robot hears that, of course. Maybe it would laugh, maybe not, but it would certainly reach for us in its own way of soothing. And if we’d listen closely, I’m sure we’d hear pain in its emotional voice.

“Aren’t you lucky, choosing exactly what you want to do?”

the heavens’ embroidered cloths

from Interstellar, 2014

gosh but like we spent hundreds of years looking up at the stars and wondering “is there anybody out there” and hoping and guessing and imagining

because we as a species were so lonely and we wanted friends so bad, we wanted to meet other species and we wanted to talk to them and we wanted to learn from them and to stop being the only people in the universe

and we started realizing that things were maybe not going so good for us— we got scared that we were going to blow each other up, we got scared that we were going to break our planet permanently, we got scared that in a hundred years we were all going to be dead and gone and even if there were other people out there, we’d never get to meet them

and then

we built robots?

and we gave them names and we gave them brains made out of silicon and we pretended they were people and we told them hey you wanna go exploring, and of course they did, because we had made them in our own image

and maybe in a hundred years we won’t be around any more, maybe yeah the planet will be a mess and we’ll all be dead, and if other people come from the stars we won’t be around to meet them and say hi! how are you! we’re people, too! you’re not alone any more!, maybe we’ll be gone

but we built robots, who have beat-up hulls and metal brains, and who have names; and if the other people come and say, who were these people? what were they like?

the robots can say, when they made us, they called us discovery; they called us curiosity; they called us explorer; they called us spirit. they must have thought that was important.

and they told us to tell you hello.

blackout #40

well isn’t it

been watching xfiles

Humans in spaaaaace

Had this thought last night as I lay falling asleep. We have all these space-exploration-ensemble shows with a bunch of aliens each of which has some sort of super-human power, more or less. And humans are always given ~leadership~ as their special power. The ability to bring people together, to organize shit, and I always thought, like…what a shitty power. What a shitty colonial “you were a mess until we came in and saved you” power. Drives me nuts. Seems like if an alien species builds a got-damn ship that can fly through got-damn space they probably have their shit together, right? At least somewhat?

So then I figure, what is humanity got to contribute to all these super-beings? We’re just nonsense reckless critters careening through space. Seems like we’d be more trouble than we’re worth.

But what if…I mean, what if that’s us. We’re the universe’s huckleberries. We’ll run headlong into danger, and we’ll *laugh*. And what if…what if we survive and a weirdly abnormally high rate. Like any alien with two bits of math can put together that we should have wiped ourselves out a long time ago with the first set of “hold my beer, and watch this.” So what the shit, how are we still banging around the universe building shit and flying off solar ramps into the sun while doing some spaceship equivalent of an ollie while crushing beer cans on our forehead. Why. Why do we exist.

And then it hits me. We survive. We’re super good at it. Uncannily good at it. So much so that we…I mean, we actually bend probability in our favor. It’s absurd. And it totally falls flat if you actually tell us this (“Never tell me the odds,” said Solo, knowing full well that knowing the odds kills a human’s chances of survival).

So there we are. Careening around the universe. Joining alien crews because they know that with a human on board, especially a cocky human in some kind of leadership position, can warp probability to stretch success in their favor. And they can never ever tell us this. So instead they just pat our heads and tell us we’re just so good at ~leadership~ and that’s what makes humans special

But really…we’re just a bunch of space dinguses.

George Barbier, Le Feu (The Fire), lithograph from Falbalas et Fanfreluches, Almanach des Modes Presentes, Passees et Futures, 1925.

We lived in a generation full of corrupt people but in the end we still hope that humanity and kindness is still there somehow.