Greetings to the people of earth! We have been dropping by occasionally over the centuries to see how you’re doing, and we’ve been impressed by your progress. However, the development of your civilization over the last hundred years has caused us much concern.
Your technological progress has been astounding, but your political maturity has fallen far behind your technological sophistication. This first became apparent with your development of nuclear weapons. You have — so far — managed that challenge adequately, but you have failed to solve this deadly problem.
Worse is your complete failure to address the climate change that you are creating. The few measures that you have taken are completely inadequate to the magnitude of the problem; you continue to pump carbon into the atmosphere at an appalling pace.
We have monitored the progress of many civilizations over the millenia and mentored a few, and our experience allows us to pinpoint the central problem: you remain saddled with obsolete notions of the nation-state in a globalized world. The most important problems you face cannot be solved through treaties between several hundred nation-states. Your situation demands an effective global government, yet you do not even aspire to such a step forward. This is why you are impotent in dealing with the profound challenges threatening your civilization.
Our experience with so many civilizations allows us to confidently predict the future development of yours. The problems generated by climate change will impose overwhelming costs on all your little nation-states. The poor nation-states that have emitted little carbon into the atmosphere will blame the rich nation-states for their predicament and demand compensation — which the rich nation-states will be unable to provide, as they will be struggling with their own climate-imposed costs. These geopolitical stresses will be exploited by ambitious nation-states to expand their power. Everybody will believe that the situation presents them with an existential crisis. This will trigger confrontations that will ultimately lead to nuclear war and the collapse of your civilization.
We view this outcome with horror. Only a few hundred million of your people will be killed by the weapons themselves, but the great majority of people will die from the collapse of civilization. They will die from starvation, lack of medical care, or crime. We calculate that, when the situation has stabilized, the population of humanity will amount to a few million people. Eight billion human beings will die ugly, painful, or miserable deaths. Moreover, your nuclear war will combine with climate change to instigate a mass extinction, driving extinct many species.
We cannot in good conscience permit suffering of such magnitude to proceed. We have therefore decided to bring your civilization to a humane end. We have genetically engineered a virus and infected your population with it. It has had plenty of time to spread through your entire population, although we built in special safeguards for a small number of human groups who can maintain themselves in the absence of civilization. The virus has been dormant, but beginning on May 24th, ten days hence, it will activate. It will induce your bodies to begin manufacturing a blend of hormones and endorphins that will give you a pleasant feeling of happiness. For the first week, it will not interfere with your ability to function. But by the second week, the sense of serene satisfaction will have grown to the point that you will lose any sense of drive or purpose. You will spend a few more days in a foggy state of happiness, and then will grow increasingly drowsy, until you slip into a coma and die.
Our virus has also infected your domestic pets, who will experience similar symptoms and die similarly pleasant deaths. It does not affect wild species.
We understand that you will resent our intrusion into your lives. We assure you, however, that our solution is preferable to the fate you have set for yourselves. In effect, we are euthanizing you for the same reasons, and with a far superior technology, that you would use to euthanize a seriously ill pet. We are sad that your civilization must come to an end; it could boast of many admirable achievements. But it is fatally flawed, and its destruction is inevitable. We are providing the kindest, gentlest way of ending a doomed civilization.
Be at peace, humanity.