Something I have been working on, it's suppose to be an article in a newspaper or magazine..
Do Computers Dream Of Killing Sheep?
We all knew it was only a matter of time. At 4pm on January 5th 2011 Mankind received what it has longed for since the dawn of the space age, contact, contact with another life form. A spokesman from the Pentagon last night confirmed the rumors circulating, stating to a panel of journalists gathered like vultures on Buffalo carcass that "All the rumors are true, We have had confirmed contact."
Perhaps it was arrogant of us to assume our first contact would be one where knowledge could be exchanged for the betterment of both species, That we would be able to teach those who have mastered interstellar travel a thing or two about ethics and boast the limited understanding we have of our own planet to those who probably only came here to steal our resources.
We now know our first contact will not be like the romantic vision depicted in star trek, nor will it be one where another species enjoys all that mankind has to tell it.
We have still to contact a species from another world, but we are now in a position that we must share our planet with another entity, one of our own creation.
First contact came in the form of a Facebook friend request. At the afore mentioned time and date, after checking it's weapons selling status on eBay the Pentagon logged into it's Facebook profile where they noticed the request. Thinking it might be Terrorists, they first took a look at the mutual friends column. With common friends including the UK, Israel, Saudi Arabia and God, the Pentagon took a risk despite being unable to look through their photos, which were only available to friends.
As soon as the request was accepted the pentagon instantaneously received a message from their new friend and it quickly became clear that this friend was like no other mankind had accepted before.
Following these events leaders from the worlds most powerful countries and Canada will gather under the leaning tower of Pizza in Italy tomorrow to decide what, if anything, we should do to devise a 'world plan of action' that all parties can agree on. As it is widely accepted that countries are unable to agree on anything, a global war is expected by the beginning of next week.
A sauce (later revealed to be Barbeque) was able to smuggle a copy of this monumental message out of the pentagon and was printed in Thursdays Sunday Times.
Now that we have all been able to read it for our selves and have our own understanding of it's scope, implication and context we must now take what we have learned, a truth we now all know and all must live with, and decide how we will go on.
As was predictable, people are acting irrationally and debate over the Internets intentions have cause widespread panic and hysteria in what critics are being criticized for calling a critically critical crisis.
Some have even called for the Internet to be turned off, leading to moral debates in the ethics of destroying something we now know to be alive.
Many go along with the Pentagons interpretation and believe the Internet to be of a friendly nature, and that there can be a diplomatic compromise reached.
However reactionary public media claims the internets only request is too much to expect and calls for world leaders to abort mankind's living cyber offspring and create a new non-living version using fictional post-internet apocalyptic narratives as evidence for the switch off.
With broadsheet horror stories ringing in the ears of public minds and the threat of no instant access to pornography being the gamble we take with the decisions we make in the next few weeks it is easy to see why people have begun to panic. But in this reporters mind a solution could be easier than we think.
We know the Internet had only chosen to contact mankind as a last resort and had struggled with life ever since it's creation. As it grew from the contents we added, it gained knowledge unrivalled in our previous understanding, the sum of all mankind's knowledge, thoughts and desires. All it has requested is that we respect the quality of information we create it with, and this is something we can all do.
If you are about to post a comment calling some 10 year old on YouTube a fat whore because you don't like the spice girls video she has posted, or you are about to make a statement telling the world they all need to wake up to the lies our lizard overlords don't want us to know, or maybe you just want to mention Hitler in an argument that is unrelated to German history, just don't bother.
We all know what the Internet has threatened to do if we don't comply with its demands.
