. . \ted-talk_2022-02-16.mp3
Note: I transcribed this from an audio recording someone made on their phone. Video doesn’t exist on the website.
//transcript//
Good afternoon.
My name is Roland Myr.
I’m an aerospace engineer, soon-to-be former employee of NASA, and welcome to my TED Talk, Success in Science: Space Careers.
Except—
I’m not gonna talk about that.
What I’m about to do instead is turn off my phone [garbled] so they can’t explode my fucking brain, and talk to you about aliens.
[whispers]
And not just aliens.
Alien invasion.
[gasps]
No, don’t worry. It’s not going to happen…
There’s one simple reason—
(No, that’s OK. You can walk out. We’ll see who’s “fucking crazy”.)
—for that:
It’s already happened.
They’re already fucking here.
(Go ahead. Record me. That’s the way this message gets out. What, you think they’ll keep this on the TEd Talks List?)
Tell me: you ever notice, sometimes, subtle movements—out of the corner of your eye?
Movements where nothing is.
That’s them.
That’s the peripherals.
They exist on the edge of our sensations.
Not just sight, but hearing—that ringing in your ears in dead silence; and touch—the chill on your skin when the air is still and warm, and the windows are all closed; and smell—that hideous burning scent clinging to your nostrils…
We all sense them.
They hide, but imperfectly.
(How am I not real? I’m right here! You can’t Google me because they’re scrubbing me off the internet.)
I don’t know how long they’ve been here. Twenty years. Thirty.
They’re what’s raising the Earth’s temperature.
They emit heat.
Multiply.
Do you smell the burning now? The trick is not to focus on it.
[commotion]
They exist on the periphery of knowledge too,
of consciousness.
(I am awake. Are you?)
Question: Do you have trouble concentrating? Lose interest quickly? Does your attention drift?
We used to read books. As a species, we read fucking books. Now we can barely follow a headline. You came here to listen to a lecture—
No!
You came to consume a fucking soundbite.
Wanna blame social media? Think YouTube has somehow gutted your mind?
It’s—them!
They’re siphoning off your concentration, your attention span. Distributed-goddamn-cognition. You’re thinking for them.
(None of us have a future. That’s the point!)
Your focus is shrinking.
Your peripheries are expanding.
They feast.
Humans used to have a wider range. (“Of what?”) Of everything! Sight, hearing. (What do you see? Your fucking phone screen.) All you hear is bass. Thump-thump-thump. They’re remaking you to colonise you. They want you to specialise—to narrow your focus so they can expand their environment.
You’re letting them.
(You think this is funny? It amuses you, you cockroach?)
You’re letting them take us over!
[music]
The invasion isn’t happening! It’s already happened! They’re already here!
[“We are experiencing technical difficulties. The presentation is temporarily suspended—”] (Suspended? You wanna suspend something—) Get your dirty hands off me! (—suspend your fucking disbelief!) [“—and will resume shortly. We thank you for your patience.”]
[music]
//transcript//