Consensus

The locutor from the alien ship didn’t respond to the last transmission. Further messages were blocked by the ship, so the human leaders eventually gave up trying. Weeks passed with no words from the ship. Until one unremarkable day the locutor returned.

“We have been absent because your last conversation brought us a conundrum. We have been debating it ever since, and only today reached a consensus on how to respond. We apologize for this delay. I will now read a statement that we have agreed upon. First, it is with the sincerest wishes that we hope you will forgive us and will take our message to heart. We realize that what we have to say can be considered to be offensive, but we truly desire to help you with our honesty. Last time we spoke your leaders explained how they believe they can save your planet by continuing the system you call capitalism. They further argued that growth need not slow down because you can transform the companies into green solutions, as you call it. We are asked to believe that you see nothing wrong with growing your economies in perpetuity, even though your very biological nature relies on extraction from the environment. Your own scientists know very well that populations that exhaust their resources will inevitably experience decline unless you – collectively – manage to stabilize consumption at a level considerably below what the average citizen consumes today. And yet, you do not listen to your own scientists, despite these being the experts you fund and employ for your collective benefit. You built a sensory organ and then declined to use it. Furthermore, corruption is so pervasive that even if you all understood their warnings, the nefarious few among you would prevent you from solving your problems, because that would hurt their bottom line. Their propaganda has been so effective you seem incapable of even noticing it. As a result, next to none of your leaders deeply understand how these things work, and are therefore utterly inadequate as leaders. And yet, even though some see through the propaganda, it is not enough to stop the wars that are killing your own children, or stop the companies that pollute your environment that you depend on for survival.

What that means to us is that, as a system, humanity is not very – and this exact wording is what we have been debating – intelligent. We do not mean this as an insult; in our culture pointing out when someone is stupid is considered a duty for their benefit, not a slur, as humans have come to perceive it. The truth as we see it is that evolution has produced a system with only a subpar level of collective intelligence, one that we believe is insufficient to be worthy of our continued attention. Our prediction is that humanity will collapse, and a new species will eventually evolve to fill the cognitive niche you vacated, one smart enough to avoid your fate.

We will wait for that species.”

EOT.

Bjørn Østman, Odense, November 2026