The Dumpster Fire

@midjourneybot: /imagine: ecological disaster

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The Dumpster Fire

Imagine you get a knock on your front door one day and when you open it up there’s two little green aliens with giant eyeballs staring at you. Your first instinct is to run, but then you notice they are wearing lulu lemon joggers and slurping on fresh smoothies. “Sup!” they say, “we come in peace. Actually, we have a gift for you”.

Despite your confusion about their outfits, you invite them in for tea and cookies. 🫖

The aliens explain that they have been monitoring the Earth very closely for thousands of years. They pull out their “holographic presentation thingy” and show you the Earth 5,000 years ago. It’s teaming with all kinds of plants and wildlife. As they slowly march the hologram forward in time, the aliens show you how each location on Earth suffered catastrophic loss of life within just a few decades of first contact with human beings. You watch one-by-one as animal and plant populations collapse in the Middle East, China, Europe, and then the Americas. The aliens explain to you that human beings are the destroyers of worlds the rest of the galaxy is super worried about. Like, when Oppenheimer detonated the first atomic bomb, the rest of the galaxy went on notice that humans are technologically close to interstellar travel. The rest of the galaxy already knows what we do to planets, and animals, and people weaker than us.

As the timeline of the alien’s hologram reaches the Industrial Revolution, you witness the world’s economies fill our air and our rivers with industrial waste which eventually decimates the wildlife in our rivers and our seas. All that’s left is a planet full of fences and endless rows of monoculture produce. Whenever humans walk in “tall cotton”, every other living thing living gets bounced from their homes (including some human races unfortunately). As the alien’s hologram progresses to today, you see every place humans settle turns into one big dumpster fire. Literally. Today there’s a Great Pacific Garbage Patch choking out marine life, while forests around the world are burning to the ground. 🗑️🔥

The aliens say, “Look, we have the technology to make new planets and we’ve already made an entirely new Second Earth for you guys to have. For reals. We harvested DNA from all your creatures and populated Second Earth with every creature from First Earth except…?”

“Except?” they repeat while looking at you expectantly.

“Humans?”, you wonder (while still trying to figure out why two little green aliens came knocking at your door).

I went looking for a relevant alien giphy that was funny, but I kept laughing about this interstellar gas. If that isn’t funny to you, then you should cancel me right now. Cancel me. Just X out of this page right now.

“Exactly.” the aliens say, “Second Earth has the exact same continents and oceans and rivers and plants and animals. It’s exactly like Earth in every way, except it doesn’t have humans. Next week we are going to quantum-space-jump Second Earth directly into a binary orbit with your planet, replacing the moon, so humans can go back and forth between the planets if you want.”

@physicsnerds: I know this would never work. It doesn’t matter. Its a pretend scenario so save your comments.

As you get more cheese and crackers for the aliens you say, “That’s great guys. Sounds like our environmental problems are solved. So why are you telling me? Like, why did you show up and knock on my door? How can I help?”

“Well”, the aliens say, “we monitor all the Earth’s communications. Our advanced technology noticed that every time you talk to your television, your computer, and your phone…you are usually complaining about how everyone else is ruining the world. And after a lot of deliberation by our intergalactic alien senate, we have chosen YOU to be sole ruler of Second Earth. You can have Second Earth free of charge but our only condition is that anyone you invite to live on Second Earth must be given their land for free too. Don’t worry about any invasion from First Earth because the Second Earth is protected by our alien forcefield that’s completely magic to you.”

The aliens invite you aboard their spaceship to see Second Earth and it’s incredible. Second Earth is teaming with life. It has clean rivers and looks like our world 5,000 years ago. The aliens give you the keys to the protective magical forcefield and return you to your house on First Earth.

You have two weeks to decide all the new laws that will govern Second Earth. 

So, will you allow everyone on First Earth to get a couple acres of land on Second Earth?

What criteria do you use to determine citizenship?

And why is that?

Are black people allowed?

Are brown people allowed?

Are white people allowed?

What about fat people?

What about poor people?

What about mentally challenged people?

Are republicans allowed?

What about democrats?

Are communists allowed?

Can the new citizens of Second Earth live anywhere they want?

Or will you set aside some land reserve for the other animals already living there?

If you set aside a land reserve, what percent of Second Earth’s total land mass would be preserved?

Sorry for the velvet rope, but this comedy club has a cover charge. The next 8 questions, 1200 words, 4 YouTube videos, 3 mediocre points, and 1 interesting beaver story are just for VIP. 👋