Those Humans, Our Children

Satire

We used to go visit those humans all the time, us aliens.

We gave them a little nuclear technology, to help them solve their energy problems, with a warning that nuclear could be deadly, if used the wrong way.

What they did next shocked even us, who thought we’d seen it all.

They actually pursued this thing we warned against, testing it on some others of their species, culminating in two large explosions, killing millions in the end.

Since then we’ve seen them compete with one another, to aim more and more of it at each other, to the point where now their whole planet and entire species would face extinction if even a fraction of it was ignited.

They even put in place a policy to maintain that state, calling it MAD.

A whole species, aiming a weapon of mass destruction at its own head, with feverishly twitching finger over the trigger.

One twitch too much, one lapse in concentration, one careles nudge of the elbow, by perhaps another passing species, and boom…

So we don’t go near them any more.

What else can we do, when our child is sitting with what is effectively a loaded gun to its head, whilst continuing to pollute its world by burning the fossil fuels of its beautiful planet?