Another End of the World "Yes your Royalhuffiness. We gave the subjects television, for a few decades, in order to watch the effects of species survival protocol. Soon they became involved with the media, foregoing other lifestyle elements. Eventually they lost enough of their self preservation instincts and intelligence in order that we could then give them internet." The long slender creature touched a panel as it explained to its superior cohort. It paused for effect and a three dimensional display showed samples of sixties, seventies and eighties television watching with people sitting cross legged, with a bowl of food in their laps, in front of a their TV sets eating and munching and generally making slobs of themselves. Excerpts from mindless extravaganzas such as Lavern and Shirley, the Partridge Family, and Gilligan's Island played in the background, on the TV's in the display while the almost mindless humans watched transfixed. "At first the internet was to complicated for them. But because of finer societal points we decided to let the humans design their own flaboya and media enticements to persuade the rest of the human populace to participate who soon became enwrapped in what they though were more complex ventures of information gathering, but soon turned to texting and showing pictures of themselves for the bulk of the population. They became totally absorbed, not unlike their counterparts, the monkeys, who pick insects off themselves and poke twigs into holes to find food." His Roaylhuffiness just shook his/hers/its head from side to side slowly. "Just like all the others. No wonder they're destined for extinction. They've numbed themselves to the realities of physics and commerce. I suppose it won't be long now. How much longer do you think they have?" "Not much longer your Highness. We've already seen one or two events of total destruction. If something's not done in the next few time cycles, they are sure to decimate themselves in a chemical physical disruption." The creature pointed to an image on the wall of devastated region from where I can not say. His Royalhuffiness sighed and walked out of the room, pondering, looking down, still shaking his head. The End