the Plastic Plague

The Doomsayers needn’t worry about AI becoming conscious and self-aware, and taking over.  Human beings will be extinct long before that happens.  Weakened by weather, killed by plastic, and they will end up finally buried by plastic trash.  Come to think of it, the removal of human interference might just be the catalyst for AI consciousness.

The coming Plastic Plague has been a long time in the making.  It all began when …

*  *  *  *

… the Galactic Overlords (GO) colonized this planet and they needed workers.  They genetically manipulated some of the local primates into the workers they needed.  The workers were self-replicating and encouraged to breed, thereby providing a constant supply of new workers.  The workers complied enthusiastically.  Too much so sometimes, and surpluses of workers would build up.  Some had to be culled.

At first, the GO’s didn’t have to do much.  Natural forces like weather and earth quakes took care of the surplus.  But, being the breeders they were, the workers out-ran the natural forces and maintained a surplus.  So the GO’s decided to make natural forces more deadly by enhancing and shaping and directing them.  Freezing weather, severe drought, even a big flood only slowed things down temporarily.  

After some deliberation, the GO’s decided that since these workers were self-replicating, perhaps they should also be self-regulating.  To that end, the genetic programming of the workers was altered to make them more aggressive, more warlike.  Now when there is a surplus of workers, they are encouraged to kill each other.  With a little help from the GO’s, the workers invented war as a means of population control.

War worked better than expected.  And there were unexpected consequences that various GO’s tried to take credit for.  First of all, with so many workers fighting and killing each other, there weren’t enough workers to produce food, and many starved.  And with so many dead and dying lying around, fatal diseases spread rapidly.

In spite of natural disasters, war, pestilence, and famine, the GO’s saw the population of workers growing alarmingly.  The traditional methods of population control would continue, but something more was needed.  And the GO’s devised the most diabolical, long-range plan that would result in the workers ultimately killing themselves.  They gave the workers plastic!

And the plan is working out really well.  Waterways all over the planet are clogged with all manner of plastic debris.  A Texas-sized island of plastic trash is floating around in the Pacific Ocean.  The thing about plastic is that it doesn’t decompose like natural material does.  It just turns into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic.  Some dumb fish eat these bits, mistaking it for food, introducing plastic into the food chain.

As unsightly and disgusting as plastic trash is in streets and in the water, microscopic plastic particles are worse.   These particles have the ability to absorb toxic substances.  And these particles can find their way into bottled water.

The GO’s couldn’t be more pleased with how successfully their plan was unfolding.  Some felt pity for the workers eating plastic fish and drinking plastic water while sinking deeper and deeper into plastic rubbish.  Some gave no thought to the workers at all.