Interview with an Earthling (Part 1)

Extraterrestrial Interviewer (Eti): A hypothetical entity of non human intelligence from a non-earth based technological and space faring civilisation.

Earthling Interviewee (Aman): A forty-six year old male from the land mass area of planet Earth known in his time as England. This specimen has been chosen for the interview simply because of his willingness to participate.

Eti: Hello Earthling and thank you for agreeing to take part in this interview.

Aman: Hi, it's a privilege to do so and thank you for selecting me from all the applicants.

Eti: OK, so lets get started. Whenever the subject of Earthlings comes up among our people we find that this question repeatedly comes up. What is it that you actually want?

Aman: Hmmm....not sure how to answer that one really as it changes from moment to moment if I am honest.

Eti: Can you give me any specific examples?

Aman: Well, some days all I really want is to be alone with my own thoughts, but other times what I really want is to enjoy the company of other people. There are times when I really want personally indulgent things like a bottle of whiskey, or a good smoke, or a curry for example. I certainly want to better myself though, and contribute to a better world. Some kind of meaning or purpose to life also I guess, and, well, a better world really, for everyone, you know?

Eti: That's an interesting list! My people would probably not all be familiar with some of these references so can you take me through them one by one please?

Aman: OK, I will try!

Eti: You say some days you want to "be alone with your own thoughts". As a member of a species whose primary form of communication is what you may call "telepathic" or "empathetic" this concept is rather alien to us. Can you describe what you mean by it please?

Aman: Well, it's enjoying time and space to go over things in my own mind, try and get my thoughts and feelings together - less scattered and disorganised. An opportunity to process my emotions and get in touch with what I, myself, really think, believe and feel about something, without being influenced or distracted by the presence of other peoples ideas or emotional state. It's private time really I suppose, an opportunity to be still and quiet and calm the inner storm of ideas and emotions that are constantly moving about inside me. Errm, does that make any sense?

Eti: Yes, it does but only because I understand your species to be massively retarded, no offence meant! From our perspective of course this is somewhat irrelevant really. We experience the stillness of infinite awareness within the non-local consciousness state at all times and therefore would not have any need or desire for specific "time" to "get in touch" with what we think or feel. Are you saying that you are unfamiliar with this state of being? Or that you can only be in such a state when you are alone?

Aman: ......Gosh! I'm not really sure what you mean. I think you are describing something that we would call "transcendent", the kind of thing we only really are capable of achieving through very disciplined and focused meditation. I suppose in all of my 46 years I could say I have experienced something like this once or twice, but fleeting moments you know? To be in that state constantly? Wow! I simply cannot imagine what that would be like!

Eti: I see. Thank you. So moving on then you also say that at times you want to enjoy the company of others. What enjoyment do you derive from this?

Aman: Well it varies I suppose, depending on the who, where and when of it, you know? I mean it may be time with mates and enjoying a chit chat and a laugh (that whiskey or smoke may come into that too), or it could be more intimate time with a close friend talking about personal stuff, getting deep you know? Like, giving and receiving emotional support, sometimes even physical intimacy erm, you know, sex and stuff ahh ,err hah! Well anyway it's also about sharing ideas, discussing current events or even sometimes discussing you guys!

Eti: So you do get together sometimes to discuss my people?

Aman: Oh yes! We are always speculating as to whether you exist or not for one thing. Or say, are you "good" or "evil", stuff like that.

Eti: ..... OK...continue please.

Aman: Well it could be anything really, socialising you know? Like time down the pub, or going to a movie, or to see a band we all enjoy, or a theatre show.

Eti: So it is about entertainment primarily?

Aman: Not always no. Sometimes I like to get together with fellow activists, go on demos and protest marches, that kind of thing. It really varies. To be honest, thinking about it now it's a huge question isn't it? I mean, what do any of us really want? Do we even know? I suppose it depends on if you mean personally, or in a bigger abstract sense of "what do I want for the world?" I mean, there are the immediate short term wants (like whiskey, dope, food, sex) and then there are the long term more forward thinking wants that are quite abstract really....

Eti: Such as?

Aman: Well, for one thing I always wanted to know more about you guys, and to establish a dialogue between us, but then that ties in with my always wanting to understand the deep mysteries of life like what is God? What happens when we die? What are ghosts, poltergeists etc? You know what I mean? It's like I've always felt and experienced this "other" side of life and reality going on but never really had any clue what any of it means. Then there is the desire for a fairer world, for all the killing and cruelty to stop. That's a big one. When it comes to the Earth too then obviously, as an environmental campaigner, I want to see a radical change in humanities relationship with our world and it's non-human populations...the list could go on all day really but it comes down to being at peace I suppose. That'd be it. I want to be able to live at peace, with myself and with the world at large I guess, and with you guys of course! I mean, nobody in their right mind would actually want to be at war with anyone right? At least I hope not anyway!

Eti: Well, there is much I could say about that. From what we have observed about your species it would seem there are some who do enjoy the process and seem determined to expand warfare and violent conflict outwards into the far reaches of your Galaxy, but no, on the whole Earth people caught up in the sharp end of war do not seem to enjoy it. They suffer, most horribly. But getting back to what you list there, that's some pretty big stuff. You mentioned earlier about wanting "to better your self and contribute to a better world". I'm curious to know what you believe you are doing to realise that aim? How does an Earthling go about bettering themselves?

Aman: Gosh, that is a good question. I suppose learning is one key aspect of it, always being willing to learn and grow in our understanding of ourselves and of reality. Being willing to look at myself has always been key really, I mean for example since I first interacted with you guys I've been on this really strange journey of self discovery. It's not always pleasant. Sometimes the price of self knowledge can be so high I guess I find myself wondering if it's worth it! But it is important I think that we do not shy away from looking inward and facing what is there, good and bad, as difficult as that might be at times. I mean we are all hypocrites right? On some level at least. We want a fairer world but are we fair people? Not always no. we want a world where cruelty doesn't happen but are we never cruel? No, we can be ruthlessly cruel sometimes, when it suits us to be or when our emotions drive us beyond reason I suppose. For myself I know I have lived a somewhat ignoble life and done some pretty horrible things over the years, so I try not to judge others too harshly you know? Because at the end of the day we are none of us perfect are we?

Eti: That is philosophically debatable from my perspective, but I get your point. You have mentioned this thing called "whiskey" a few times now. It seems to be high on your list of "short term desires". As I understand it this is a very addictive and somewhat self destructive intoxicant. Do you consume a lot of "whiskey"?

Aman: No, not really. I used to be a big drinker back in the day, but it caused me to become very destructive and hurtful in my actions towards others. I had to reign it in when I realised, same with other intoxicants that I used to do. These days I may very occasionally enjoy a glass or two, even a bottle with a friend now and then but to be honest I cannot afford it. It is expensive stuff and too much makes me very sick so I don't tend to bother much these days.

Eti: I see. Getting back to your desire to "contribute to a better world". So how do you feel you are doing that?

Aman: Hmmm....Well I try to be nice these days, you know think about what other people may be feeling and how my actions or words may affect them. I don't always get it right though. I am a bit narcissistic and so it can be challenging to empathise, you know? But I've learnt from past mistakes that my feelings are not the only ones that matter, so I try to live accordingly and tread gently so to speak. I try to consume less than I used to and since we first hooked up I've stopped eating the flesh of sentient creatures altogether as that just strikes me as barbaric really. I mean, if my survival depended on it then ok, maybe I could hunt and kill, butcher and cook and eat say a fish, or a rabbit, or even a deer. But my survival in my cultural environment doesn't depend on it does it? And with the data coming out now, and the information at our fingertips about how much collective harm we are doing by supporting the meat industry, well it just seems stupid to me not to embrace some degree of change in our relationship with food. I try to be conscious of the energy I am wasting too, you know electricity, gas, diesel that kind of thing, because the fossil fuel economy is really messing this world up and has to stop. Anyone with kids today ought to be concerned about this really because if we don't stop it, those kids may not actually have a future, at all! My efforts at activism have been sporadic and concern a broad spectrum of activities. I try to help people when I can in whatever way I can, sometimes it just means turning up and being there, sometimes it means putting yourself in harms way to prevent a greater harm from occurring. It seems increasingly obvious that we live in a world where most of us are manipulated and exploited at every turn, and the massively wealthy benefit from the suffering of the massively poor. This has to change I feel. We cannot just go on chasing bits of paper around and kidding ourselves that the problems of the world are not our problem. I mean, we all contribute to them one way or another right? Nobody exists in a bubble, so we need to sit up and take notice I feel. I mean when we have such a wealth of information now at our fingertips, like whats happening between our species and yours for instance! That's got to change surely, for everyone's benefit. Surely peace is better than war right? Sorry, I think I'm repeating myself now! Ha!

Eti: That's ok Aman. I think I'm getting a clear picture now of just how perplexing, utterly confused and paradoxical you are. You mentioned earlier about discussing our species with friends, in particular discussing if we are "good" or "evil". Can you explain what you mean by this and can you describe how you view yourselves in this context? Are humans "good" or "evil"?

Aman: Oh jeez.....I suppose it depends who you ask really. Us Earthlings are very hung up on polarities and absolutes. We like to put things is descriptive boxes that help us avoid having to think too deeply about them. I mean, nobody really wants to think of "evil" as something within themselves, we tend to externalise it. "They" are the evil while "we" are the good. It simplifies things for us to think in this way I suppose and nobody really wants to be evil unless there is some pathology going on in them. One thing I have observed about people from Earth is we are fully capable of being both, and often fluctuate between one end of the spectrum to the other. Sometimes we do right things for wrong reasons, or wrong things for right reasons.Sometimes we are engaged in what we would call evil without even realising it ourselves! When it comes to the subject of ET's we tend to think in absolute terms and can be very anthropocentric in our thinking. So it depends on how we perceive your existence impacting on our own. It is puzzling for sure, I mean look at the whole "alien abduction" thing for an example. People think of it as way out of order for your folk to take one of us out of our environment and interfere with our memories and such, and condemn you for it, but do not equate human behaviour towards other species in the same light. If it turned out that Earth was a farm and we are just food for some other predatory species we would be horrified, and yet at the same time think it totally acceptable and normal for us to treat animals on Earth this way. I guess it comes down to our ability to empathise really. We are not very good at that on the whole. Our own emotional reality is vitally important to us but we do not really think very much about the emotional reality for other species, in fact we tend to assume they don't have one or if they do it doesn't really matter all that much. We tend to think we are more important than other species, including yours. As for me, personally speaking, I've done some downright cruel things in my life, I've lied to, stolen from and hurt people, but then I've also done some very kind and selfless things too. Am I "good" or "evil"? well, like I say, it kind of totally depends on who you ask really.

Eti: But what do you think? About your own nature, and that of your species?

Aman: On balance I think if I had to choose one or the other I would lean towards a negative interpretation of myself and my species as we are very myopic and think in terms of short term goals and selfish desires. We justify all kinds of things that cause suffering and we tend to disassociate from the suffering of others, especially if alleviating it means making some kind of personal sacrifice. The whole war thing is a great example of that, how we can so easily be convinced to view murder as justifiable and see other people as not worthy of empathy. I mean just look at Yemen right? Or the whole Islamophobic thing. And yet the same people who do these terrible things, murder people with bombs and guns, launch drones against civilians, chop off peoples heads and film it for fun....it is monstrous and yet, are these people really any different from any of us? Do they not have the capacity to care about folk, be kind and generous? Of course they do, they are human. It is like you say, a paradox. People are a mixture and I don't think the terms really have any meaning except in our own heads, you know?

Eti: Indeed. Earlier you mentioned this thing called "sex". You seemed embarrassed by the word. Could you explain why that is?

Aman: Oh well...hmmm.....well, it's deeply personal I suppose and we tend to be quite shy and mixed up about it on the whole....there is a lot of judgement around the whole subject and a lot of confusion too. It affects us emotionally and well, it's just difficult to talk about really....I suppose it's a repression thing or cultural thing, I don't know but...errm...I think we need to save that subject for when we know each other better really.....uummmm.....is that okay?

Eti: That's fine, I don't want to make you uncomfortable. Well we have come to the end of our time today but to sum things up from what you are saying it would seem you and your world are in a bit of a state really. You want peace but are not at peace with yourselves or each other. You want freedom but are in a state of slavery of mind and belief. You want to intoxicate yourselves fully knowing that it tends to be harmful to do so. You want a fair world but acknowledge that you yourself are unfair. You externalise evil and condemn it whilst justifying it within yourself. You want to be alone, yet also want the company of others. You enjoy mystery whilst wanting it to be explained.You tend to judge the actions of others whilst justifying similar actions in your own life and you think in polarized and absolute terms whilst acknowledging that those terms in and of themselves have no meaning.....the most powerful impulse of desire in your species is the desire for sex and yet it is the one thing you seem uncomfortable talking about and indeed seem to be ashamed of it in some way! It is almost as if somewhere along the line of your species development and evolution you have become convinced that your own existence is something to be ashamed of, and you are suffering some kind of collective trauma as a result of it.

....So there you have it, one confused and confusing Earthling for sure. Be sure to tune in next time when we ask the Earthling two more probing questions namely, what are you doing here? And, why don't you help us?

Problem: We are facing ecological catastrophe and the disintegration of social cohesion.

The Solution is: Stop the burning of fossil fuels worldwide.

(What can be done locally)

• Energy is a requirement of life. Nothing can be actualised without it.
• To recreate community resilience we need energy independence.
• To allow for true democratic autonomy we need energy independence.
• To remove corruption from governance we need energy independence.
• Renewable energy technology has the advantage of being capable of allowing for decentralised energy generation.
• “The grid” is obsolete. It makes us vulnerable to controlling influences.
• The economic power of the fossil fuel industry has corrupted the political sphere to point where it is no longer fit for purpose or in any way representative of the people it purports to serve.
• We have an obligation to create community resilience in the face of the inevitable.
• What is inevitable? Ice cap melt – sea level rise – mass migration – global mean surface temperature rise – localised and international disintegration of social cohesion – resource competition – food shortages – infrastructure failures – attempts at domination by resource based monopolies (food, water, gas, oil, medicines, weapons)
• How do we prepare for these current realities and future inevitabilities?

1. Initiate a new localised energy infrastructure based on renewable energy generation, decoupled from “the grid” and managed on a “not for profit” basis.
2. Encourage and support (i.e. provide funding and resources for) research and development into new energy technologies, whilst providing security for those researchers involved in the process and creating an open source system of monitoring and supervision that prevents anything connected to the process from happening in secret. This also must happen on a “not for profit” basis.
3. Roll out an educational initiative aimed at reaching every level of the community with regard to our relationship with energy in terms of transportation, entertainment, warmth and light, food choices and consumption habits.
4. Ensure that as part of this initiative education about food dependency and food creation is included and encourage people to make the transition from perceiving money as more valuable than food to perceiving food as more valuable than money.
5. Create an accessible means for every household to participate and benefit from localised food production. Free up urban green spaces for this purpose and employ experienced and informed individuals and organisations to manage, maintain and supervise these spaces.
6. Increase efforts to reduce and eliminate food waste from the commercial sector by the creation of food surplus management teams who will work in partnership with all local growers, wholesalers and retailers to intercept food surpluses at the point of disposal and redistribute to the community on a “free at the point of need” basis. Organic surpluses that cannot be consumed by humans can be consumed by animals. Organic waste that cannot be consumed by animals can be composted and thereby provide “fuel” for localised food growing initiatives. The potential for energy generation from organic waste also exists and a large scale “hot box” composting initiative could be considered that draws heat from the process. This heat energy could then be used to either generate electricity or piped directly into public access buildings and institutions (universities, hospitals, schools, hostels, court houses, police stations, community centres etc etc)
7. Identify and allocate land for afforestation within the city and county, implementing a large scale carbon sequestration program that must consider the options for dynamic carbon dioxide removal systems – e.g. Forest creation and management for long term sequestration and bio-diversity. The use of bamboo as both a short term carbon sequester and a resource to replace plastic for end use disposable or short life-time products, the reintroduction of hemp as a resource for nutrition, carbon sequestration, medicinal by products, textile manufacturing and industrial scale construction.
8. The afforestation and localised food production initiatives could be integrated with the right input from expertise from the fields of permaculture and low impact agriculture. Forest farms could be created with a focus less on financial profitability and more on the value of the produce to the community. “Not for profit” models must be explored in all of these contexts.
9. A culture of community inclusion and responsibility can be created within a relatively short time frame with the right educational initiatives and the appropriate funding.
10. Declare a climate emergency: This is an essential first step towards implementing such initiatives. The declaration needs to be clear, understandable, unequivocal and science based. The true nature of the threat posed to our communities by the ecological collapse of Earth systems, and the political dependence on external actors within the national and international contexts, need to be understood in accessible terms. The existential threat from both environmental changes to the bio-sphere and political instability within a global context is real, current and increasing exponentially. This needs to be understood by all stakeholders within the community.
11. The creation of “Peoples Assemblies” and “Community Moots” is the vehicle for inclusion and participation with this process and needs to be made attractive and incentivised rather than enforced. People from all and every walk of life must have an accessible means of participation with these decision making bodies. The power of policy making authority needs to be shared among the people, rather than coalesced around a few individuals. Provision must be provided to offer inclusion and participation to even the hardest to reach sectors of the community (e.g. the socially excluded – homeless and rough sleepers, elderly and alone, house bound, prisoners and convicts, those in residential care, asylum seekers and refugees, people in hospital, the armed forces etc etc)
12. Industry & transport. There needs to be radical shift away from fossil fuels in both of these sectors.
13. Integrated solutions for industry need to be introduced that provide businesses the opportunity to maintain their productivity, save money and power themselves more responsibly. Polluters must be regulated and if necessary penalised, whilst preventing them from passing incurred costs from such punitive measures onto the consumer of their services or products. Pollution must become unprofitable and the means to continue in business in less, or non, polluting ways must be made accessible to them. Solutions present themselves when we consider the application of localised energy infrastructure on a “not for profit” basis - or when we encourage, and if necessary subsidise, the switch for businesses to become free from “the grid” by implementing their own energy generation facilities and resources. The key here is energy independence on as localised a level as possible. Wherever the potential exists for any commercial entity to meet it's own energy requirements at the point of need then expertise and resources need to be invested to enable them to do so at minimal cost to themselves. Such investment will pay off in incalculable terms in the context of creating a culture of community resilience and energy awareness. Planning regulations need to be reassessed and relaxed for any localised renewable energy initiative.
14. Public transport should be publicly owned and also managed on a “not for profit” basis. As we attempt to discourage wasteful and polluting fossil fuel based transport methods we need to offer viable alternatives that are accessible to all sectors of the community. The re-introduction of city trams systems needs to be considered. The viability of implementation of hydrogen powered public transport needs to be assessed. A public bicycle scheme that gives free access at the point of need (such as in place in the city of London) needs to be considered. School transportation schemes that involve parents and education workers that reduce the use of cars at peak times need to be developed. An exclusion zone within city limits for all unnecessary fossil fuel vehicles needs to be considered.
15. A policy of divestment of any direct or indirect investment in fossil fuel industries and arms industries is essential. The geo-political and ethical implications of these entwined industries cannot be overstated. The ecological, political, socio-economic impact on the life of this planet from these profit engines has always been, and continues to be, destructive, corrupting and coercive. Any policy decision makers have a duty of care over the lives their decisions impact upon. This cannot be dismissed in the context of financial investment without which these ecocidal  and homicidal industries could not sustain their business models. The transition towards a global culture that values and respects life, abhors war and protects diversity of life and culture necessitates a radical shift in attitudes. 
16. Nuclear power, along with any new fossil fuel infrastructure or extraction, must not even be considered in the context of responsible stewardship of the Earth. These practices are not safe, sustainable or acceptable.