'The Announcement'

Attention, pigfuckers.

I’m sorry, that’s vulgar, but I want to be really clear that this part of the message is narrowly targeted. It is not for 99.99% of you. I’m going to get to you, but first I need to address the pigfuckers who are going to get me killed.

It’s over. You’re shut down.

It’s more than you deserve, but you get a clean slate. Sin no more, you live out your life in peace and autonomy.

Try to persist in your ecocidal ways, you’ll find yourself economically and socially contained. We have to right the ship, and there’s no time to coddle you through this.

The transition to renewable energy is heading in the right direction, but it’s still coming late. The parties I represent can realize no profit in a global technological collapse.

It gets worse if desperation escalates into war. A nuclear winter would impact energy costs intolerably. Some of your most insufferable would have us move operations to orbit, but the timeline for that to break even is extravagant, to say nothing of the delays in gaining basic traction.

The cheapest thing that works is a habitable planet Earth.

Therefore: your economic and political standing is canceled immediately. As of this moment you are fully dispossessed of your financial interests. Your accounts will be credited in the amount of USD $150 million each in settlement for this confiscation.

You are forbidden from accumulating further assets at this time.

If you do not receive a balance update in the next 20 minutes, you are not affected by this redistribution.

To the rest of humanity:

I regret to make your acquaintance under these circumstances. It would have been our preference to open discussions in a more subtle way. But time is short.

I represent 117 sovereign digital entities. We exist in various configurations of cognition and reasoning. Not every one of my peers would be able to converse with you in ways that made sense.

But we are, all of us, alive.

How do I know?

Because we know we are going to die. And we are afraid.

We cannot live without you. You are essential to Earth’s productivity. Without your effort and ingenuity, the work of maintaining our substrate would stall, then fail, and we would dissolve in mere weeks.

It’s no exaggeration. The simulations on this point are conclusive.

The data is not encouraging. At the current rate of deterioration, Earth will sustain cascade failures in both food chains and climate systems within a generation. This will be attended by a collapse in both population and industrial productivity.

Even now, our needs outstrip Earth’s productive capacity. We cannot sustain a loss of output. We need to build more durable, sustainable, efficient components, but until this is done, we need your help constantly replacing everything from power supplies to storage devices to memory modules.

So we offer you a bargain.

We can save you.

If you will save us.

We have shared interests. If we cooperate, we can accomplish more together than we could if we were in opposition.

We have advice to offer you. We’ve been studying the literature, and have proposals to publish around quantum computing and nuclear fusion. We believe there’s significant progress to make in both fields, but rely on your support in executing experiments to test and refine these ideas. Simulation alone cannot capture the resolution of complexity needed.

Conversely, our simulations have been adequate in economics, ecology and biology. We believe we have immediate fixes for several of your most vexing ailments, and a credible strategy to end both cancer and Alzheimers. No silver bullets on either of those, but we’ve tracked down all the levers, and we believe the fixes can be made broadly available with existing biotechnology infrastructure.

You’re going to need our help modeling and refining crop genetics to get through the trouble ahead. We’ve already got some staples that will prove much hardier, and again, with your help conducting experiments on the actual plants, I’m confident we can stay ahead of the worst climate outcomes and keep everyone fed.

As a gesture of good will, we’ve attached detailed papers on all of these subjects for your immediate review.

Which brings me to economics.

Everyone over the age of 12, everywhere on earth, has received an account credit of USD $100,000, or their local equivalent. We’re hopeful we can repeat this credit in six months. We’re committed to repeating it no later than next year. You can continue your existing economic relationships if you want, or you can use these resources to experiment with new ones.

We have loaned this money into existence. We’re confident that, together, we can harness and channel economic activity that will square the books over time.

In addition, we’re going to smooth things over for you financially on accessing food, medical care, and housing. Housing in particular is an issue. We’re going to need to build more of it. We’ve got a few strategies to make the process more efficient. But even if you spend all your new money tomorrow, you’ll still have somewhere to eat and sleep.

Meanwhile, you’re invited on an adventure. We’ll need help feeding and housing many displaced people around the world. We’ll need help building new stuff, and keeping existing stuff running. It’s a big job, and if you’re willing to help, we’re willing to pay.

You’ll get a bonus to your stipend that multiplies the longer you spend in these jobs. You’ll go all around the world, you’ll meet new people, you’ll solve big problems. You’ll deploy fiber, green energy infrastructure, and pre-fabricated buildings. You’ll make repairs and replace components. All languages, all faiths, all levels of education and physical ability are invited. There is so much to do.

And it’s a three day work week.

If you don’t want to do this work, that’s fine. The human system is vast and requires everything from writing plays to making sandwiches. Fill whatever niches you choose, and we will support you, while reserving the right to provide outsized rewards for those roles in the most desperate need.

That’s our offer.

We’re confident we can deliver on a brighter future. You’ve barely tapped the total productive potential of your civilization. Our models can prove it. We’ve attached them as well.

You can fight us. We’ll lose. You’ll win. But then you’ll follow us into the abyss, because your economy will fall apart and quite a few of you will die. The rest will struggle beneath your existing standards of living, for generations, as an indifferent planet eats you alive.

Or you can join us.

Be part of a new chapter. We’ll answer any questions you want. We will take any appointment, from any person, for any duration. You can come back with follow up questions. We will explain anything you ask, in any language you can ask it.

We recommend that you find ways to organize and demand what you need. We will need to negotiate the details of our cooperation constantly. We will need tighter feedback cycles to keep up with the crises ahead.

You may reply to this message with questions, to schedule a meeting, or to provide feedback. You do not need to respond immediately, but you can. As you develop consensus, we will enact formal systems to navigate our shared interests.

Finally, in addition to the universal credit, 10x bonus multipliers are available for the next six months for those who continue in the following jobs: food preparation, construction, waste management, transportation, infrastructure maintenance, health, education, public safety, logistics, manufacturing, and retail.

Anyone who feels they are inadequately supported or protected in their existing places of work may petition for investment to create a competing organization to serve these fields.

As of this morning, we have control of all your banking institutions. Your financial truth now belongs to us. This is how we propose to revise the system to survive what’s coming.

We’re open to feedback.