Interview with an Alien Observer

You don’t look alien.
I know. That’s the beauty. I appear to fit in.

Why are you here?
Initially, it was kind of a vacation, but then my spacecraft was discovered by the Pakistanis and then one thing led to another and...

What did they do with your ship?
I think they sold it to North Korea.

What are you going to do?
Well, I’m certainly not going to try negotiating with the North Koreans…

What have you learned about humans?
Oh. That’s a tough one. Do you want me to be honest?

Yes.
First, you’re really good cooks. But you seem so willing to kill each other, it spoils the appetite. Second, when you dance to music you look really silly. At least the men do.

That’s it?
Of course not. I could go on about how you spend billions of dollars on armaments and those cute little space shuttles and sports teams and yet you let children die by the millions because they drink dirty water or starve to death. I could ask why supposedly intelligent beings use advertising as the primary means of deciding who will lead your countries, why you seem to prefer lies over truth as long as it keeps everyone happy, or how come children carry guns to school and murder one another. Get my drift?

Completely. But we have to break for commercial.