A Modest Proposal
Apr. 24th, 2006 11:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greygirlbeastPerhaps even we atheistic pagans are subject to divine revelation. I'm more than willing to entertain the possibility. For example, it has occurred to me that, perhaps, mankind has a higher purpose after all. Perhaps all this seemingly senseless destruction and slaughter and torture so often referred to as "human history" truly is progressive in nature. Maybe the goddess occasionally grows weary of the way things are going down here on Earth. Heck. It happens to me with SimEarth all the frelling time. Out of nowhere, some species or another rises suddenly to dominance, develops technology, and inevitably ages of dullness follow. So. Maybe sometime back in the Miocene, the Cosmos grew finally weary of all the damned silly mammals. All the nipples and placenta and fur and endothermic metabolisms, surely it has to get tiresome sooner or later. And so forces beyond our comprehension set in motion a grand solution. An eloquent solution. A reliable solution — mass extinction. The evolution of a species so virulent it would, in only a few million year's time, wipe the board clean again, and the Cosmos could begin anew with Earth. Maybe cephalopods or crustaceans deserve an era or two of global domination. So along comes the australopithicines and the various species of Homo and, finally, H. sapiens sapiens.
Bingo!
Patience yields bountiful harvest, indeed. The perfect killing machine. Man. Indiscriminate, thoughtless, short-sighted, selfish, and more or less immune to reason. In no time at all (in a geological sense), the world has been raped and pillaged and a choice of poisons has been offered up by the clever apes: nuclear, biological, chemical, global warming, and etc. Take you pick. Mix and match. Just sit back and wait for the dying to begin.
But, alas, the fickle, impatient Cosmos grows tired of waiting. Humanity, it realizes somewhat belatedly, was too inefficient a solution to the problem at hand. In the past, asteroids and comets have proven a perfectly effective reset button, especially when combined with widespread vulcanism. It worked at the end of the Permian. It worked on the non-avian dinosaurs. If you want results, stick with the tried and true. Sure, the human race was an interesting new twist, destroy the biosphere with the biosphere! But it's taking too damn long. The end of the world is centuries overdue. Instead of performing the task it was placed here to perform, incapable of just getting it the hell over with, humanity struggles on, destroying far too slowly, failing, ultimately, to satisfy the cosmic desire for carnage and cleansing fire and the new and less monotonous beginning.
Moral: The simplest solutions are usually the best.
Anyway...here's where the revelation part comes in. Maybe my destiny was never meant to be palaeontology or writing. Maybe, all along, I was only meant to found a new quasi-religious sect — the Immaculate Order of the Falling Sky (IOFS). Maybe it's time to be done with this gradualist travesty and start looking for that great space rock with our name on it. Maybe it's been time for decades. The Cosmos (call her what ever you please) has a fine sense of irony, possibly, and having decided to end the slow scourge of the human race with a quick and fiery impact, she desires that her failed executioners ask for it. Sure, by my own admission I'm not exactly human, but I'll do. The message is simple, simple enough it can be trusted even to a lowly freak like me.
Yo! Mankind! The jig is up. The show's over. You're taking too damn long. Sure, you'll get there sooner or later, but the Cosmos, she grows weary of the game. She's ready for the sentient octopods. Enough with war and genocide, pollution and overpopulation. Forget greenhouse gases and holes in the ozone layer. They were good ideas in their turn, true. They merely failed to take things far enough. Time's a'wasting. You guys have to keep in mind, this damn star's set to go nova in only a few billion more years. You were created to murder a world and then finish the job by murdering yourselves, and you've had your moments, I'm not denying that, some delicious moments of waste and cruelty and massacre, but there's also no denying that you're taking too goddamn long to get the job done. Your minds wander. You get distracted. You get greedy. You fool yourselves with irrelevent ideas and half-hearted endeavors like goodwill and salvation and peace. Enough is enough. You had your chance. It's pink-slip time.
Here's where the Immaculate Order of the Falling Sky comes in. There should be a bit a theatre here at the conclusion. And, to that singular end, it's time to aim the collective wills of 6.5 billion hairless apes heavenward. Oh, I know you've never been very good at the whole telekinesis thing, but trust me, this will work. It's only show, anyway. The Cosmos is perfectly capable of hurling an asteroid where ever she chooses. But she wants a cheering section, see, or so I've been led to believe. Nothing too fancy, mind you. Let's say something in the ten-kilometre range. Iron and nickel composition should do nicely. It worked just fine 65 million years ago. And it's best if we place it in the ocean somewhere, for maximum effect. The Pacific Basin should do nicely. It won't be hard to find what we're looking for. There are thousands of giant space rocks out there in the solar system from which to choose. It will be the primary duty of the IOFS to choose the earth-crossing asteroid best suited for the task, then focus our collective thought-waves in such a way as to give the Cenozoic Era the desired coup de grâce.
There's work to be done.
Of course, there will be a Cafe Press shop. No doomsday religion is ever complete without T-shirts, mugs, and bumper-stickers to help get the word out, and, since this will be the last doomsday religion, we need to do it up right.
Bingo!
Patience yields bountiful harvest, indeed. The perfect killing machine. Man. Indiscriminate, thoughtless, short-sighted, selfish, and more or less immune to reason. In no time at all (in a geological sense), the world has been raped and pillaged and a choice of poisons has been offered up by the clever apes: nuclear, biological, chemical, global warming, and etc. Take you pick. Mix and match. Just sit back and wait for the dying to begin.
But, alas, the fickle, impatient Cosmos grows tired of waiting. Humanity, it realizes somewhat belatedly, was too inefficient a solution to the problem at hand. In the past, asteroids and comets have proven a perfectly effective reset button, especially when combined with widespread vulcanism. It worked at the end of the Permian. It worked on the non-avian dinosaurs. If you want results, stick with the tried and true. Sure, the human race was an interesting new twist, destroy the biosphere with the biosphere! But it's taking too damn long. The end of the world is centuries overdue. Instead of performing the task it was placed here to perform, incapable of just getting it the hell over with, humanity struggles on, destroying far too slowly, failing, ultimately, to satisfy the cosmic desire for carnage and cleansing fire and the new and less monotonous beginning.
Moral: The simplest solutions are usually the best.
Anyway...here's where the revelation part comes in. Maybe my destiny was never meant to be palaeontology or writing. Maybe, all along, I was only meant to found a new quasi-religious sect — the Immaculate Order of the Falling Sky (IOFS). Maybe it's time to be done with this gradualist travesty and start looking for that great space rock with our name on it. Maybe it's been time for decades. The Cosmos (call her what ever you please) has a fine sense of irony, possibly, and having decided to end the slow scourge of the human race with a quick and fiery impact, she desires that her failed executioners ask for it. Sure, by my own admission I'm not exactly human, but I'll do. The message is simple, simple enough it can be trusted even to a lowly freak like me.
Yo! Mankind! The jig is up. The show's over. You're taking too damn long. Sure, you'll get there sooner or later, but the Cosmos, she grows weary of the game. She's ready for the sentient octopods. Enough with war and genocide, pollution and overpopulation. Forget greenhouse gases and holes in the ozone layer. They were good ideas in their turn, true. They merely failed to take things far enough. Time's a'wasting. You guys have to keep in mind, this damn star's set to go nova in only a few billion more years. You were created to murder a world and then finish the job by murdering yourselves, and you've had your moments, I'm not denying that, some delicious moments of waste and cruelty and massacre, but there's also no denying that you're taking too goddamn long to get the job done. Your minds wander. You get distracted. You get greedy. You fool yourselves with irrelevent ideas and half-hearted endeavors like goodwill and salvation and peace. Enough is enough. You had your chance. It's pink-slip time.
Here's where the Immaculate Order of the Falling Sky comes in. There should be a bit a theatre here at the conclusion. And, to that singular end, it's time to aim the collective wills of 6.5 billion hairless apes heavenward. Oh, I know you've never been very good at the whole telekinesis thing, but trust me, this will work. It's only show, anyway. The Cosmos is perfectly capable of hurling an asteroid where ever she chooses. But she wants a cheering section, see, or so I've been led to believe. Nothing too fancy, mind you. Let's say something in the ten-kilometre range. Iron and nickel composition should do nicely. It worked just fine 65 million years ago. And it's best if we place it in the ocean somewhere, for maximum effect. The Pacific Basin should do nicely. It won't be hard to find what we're looking for. There are thousands of giant space rocks out there in the solar system from which to choose. It will be the primary duty of the IOFS to choose the earth-crossing asteroid best suited for the task, then focus our collective thought-waves in such a way as to give the Cenozoic Era the desired coup de grâce.
There's work to be done.
Of course, there will be a Cafe Press shop. No doomsday religion is ever complete without T-shirts, mugs, and bumper-stickers to help get the word out, and, since this will be the last doomsday religion, we need to do it up right.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 04:45 pm (UTC)I thought there were already a few predicted impacts in the future? Maybe the IOFS is just needed to hold the deathball's hand and give it a welcome homecoming.
My thoughts are focused on an arrival within about seven years. I have to see about the whole 2012 situation first, you know, when the planets in the solar system line up exactly with the center of our galaxy. The Mayans predicted the end. I don't remember any specifics described, just nothing after. The onward thinking of the Mayans, as sparce as they are now, is still a force to be reckoned with.
Anyways, I randomly found this and now I think you're awesome, mind if I friend?
no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 04:47 pm (UTC)be my guest.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 04:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 05:08 pm (UTC)http://qntm.org/destroy
In the meantime, no more Red Bull for the nixar.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 05:13 pm (UTC)'2. Sucked into a microscopic black hole
You will need: a microscopic black hole.'
no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 10:29 pm (UTC)Yep, I've seen it.
You must understand. It's not the goal of the IOFS to bring about the destruction of the Earth. Quite the contrary. The Order merely seeks to extinguish humanity and perhaps the rest of the Mammalia so that things may begin anew. Personally, I have nothing against mammals. Some of my best freinds are mammals. But we can't have this happening again.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 03:09 pm (UTC)Yes, but heaving (or more accurately, summoning) a giant rock of poo to annihilate the ecosphere seems a tad overkill, yes? Wouldn't that just wipe out most existing species as well? Why not just develop some kind of method of aggressively re-writing the Homo Sapien Sapien genome into something less objectionable? I'm sorry to say that your proposal is a little confused on whether the Order is simply dedicated to committing genocide on the entire Human race or whether it demands extinguishing all life on Earth in deference to some kind of ecological "warm boot". Then again, I suppose I could try reading it again.
You know, the funny part about "A Modest Proposal" wasn't that Swift wrote about ethnic infantophagy, but that people tried engaging him in serious conversation and debate over it.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 06:50 pm (UTC)Every good religion needs PR
Date: 2006-04-24 06:50 pm (UTC)By the way, what does His Noodly Presences, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, think of this?
Re: Every good religion needs PR
Date: 2006-04-24 07:42 pm (UTC)Re: Every good religion needs PR
Date: 2006-04-24 07:44 pm (UTC)It's common knowledge. Practically.
Re: Every good religion needs PR
Date: 2006-04-24 07:49 pm (UTC)And again, they'll die when the big rock hits. That's the good thing about THIS religion; I can ignore anyone I want, rationalizing that they too will become space dust.
Re: Every good religion needs PR
Date: 2006-04-24 07:42 pm (UTC)Re: Every good religion needs PR
I just threw this onto Warren Ellis's futurist community, Die Puny Humans.
You know those people hate me, right?
By the way, what does His Noodly Presences, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, think of this?
I have not been authorized to speak for the FPM. I'm not sure he'd approve.
Re: Every good religion needs PR
Date: 2006-04-24 07:44 pm (UTC)Ah, who cares. The big rock will kill them too.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 07:51 pm (UTC)Jonathan Swift would be proud...
no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 10:30 pm (UTC)It warms my heart to think so.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 08:27 pm (UTC)Can you recruit Chicken Little as your celeb spokesperson? He's had lot of experience with the falling sky thing.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 10:31 pm (UTC)Problem is, CL was trying to warn people about the sky falling. I don't think he'd be too keen to switch sides like that. Which is a shame, because he'd surely help in recruiting children.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 12:02 am (UTC)If you could get R.E.M to re-write the lyrics to "Fall on Me" it could be the official hymn of the IOFS.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 01:26 am (UTC)It's pretty good as is.
Swallow magnets.
Bury the Rapture.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 09:40 pm (UTC)I understand your time is strained, so no worries if you don't have the time to answer.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 10:32 pm (UTC)Short answer: shit happens. Lots of it. Like big rocks falling out of the sky...
no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 10:53 pm (UTC)Your whole theory falls apart at this sentence. I can't imagine any sentient life force growing weary of nipples. Not ever.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 11:33 pm (UTC)Then perhaps you're not trying hard enough...
no subject
Date: 2006-05-03 09:07 am (UTC)*smirk*
no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 01:41 am (UTC)I know *I* am...
no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 05:08 am (UTC)so is IOFS more like a cult, or do we get bishops or rabbis or whatever? ;)