The Devastating Reason They Visited Earth | You Like It Darker

0:21 Hi guys, it's Quinn here. If you appreciate my content, consider hitting the like button. It's the best way to get the YouTube algorithm to notice this channel. If you want to do more to support this channel, consider checking out the Patreon link in the description. What does the end of the world look like?

0:41 Fire, water? Will it be us that takes us out, or something else? Humans have been contemplating the end of everything since before the dawn of civilization, it seems. And yet, we have always managed to just barely survive. Will that always be the case? Humanity, for all its ingenuity, is fragile, walking a thin line between survival and collapse.

1:07 We play with fire in ways our ancestors never could have imagined. Nuclear weapons, climate change, biotechnology. How long does an intelligent species last? We cannot say. We have no reference point. It could be that we are but a fledgling species, that compared to other intelligent species that inhabit the cosmos, we are merely beginning our journey.

1:33 But the opposite could also be true: that we are close to reaching our end. Existential uncertainty isn't limited to our own species. The concept of the Great Filter essentially says that the scarcity of intelligent life forms we encounter might be because advanced civilizations often hit a barrier they cannot overcome.

1:56 This hypothetical barrier could be self-inflicted, such as nuclear war or ecological collapse, or external, like a cosmic event or an encounter with an advanced species beyond comprehension. The fact that we haven't observed clear evidence of other advanced civilizations might itself be a warning sign.

2:16 Are we approaching that invisible threshold? Or have we already crossed a line from which there is no return? The concept of the superorganism is especially relevant here. Humanity, when viewed as a collective entity, behaves more like an emergent singular being rather than a collection of individuals.

2:38 This superorganism acts on instincts that mirror those of evolutionary pressures, survival, reproduction, competition. Even with the benefit of history and foresight, we seem unable to curb our most destructive impulses. It is as though the human species is caught in a feedback loop of creation and destruction, blind to its own demise, much like a colony of bacteria that thrives until it depletes its resources entirely.

3:08 You Like It Darker is a book of short stories by Stephen King, released in 2024. It contains a story titled Two Talented Bastards, which is a story told of two men and what they encountered one night outside a remote cabin in the woods. It would go on to change them forever, not just due to the tangible realities of what occurred, but because of the secret that was revealed to them on that night.

3:35 The secret of humanity's future. The short story opens more than forty years after these pivotal events, and the truth of what occurred during their hunting trip in November of 1978 would not be revealed until after the death of one of the men. Laird Carmadi. In my opinion, the story implies that he is attempting to leave whatever was given to him to his son.

4:00 His son reads his father's journal recounting the hunting trip, and learns what his father and Uncle Butch had seen in the sky, what came down, and how afterward the two of them went on to become talented and famous in the fields of painting and writing. They were given something on that hunting trip, a gift from something not quite human.

4:22 But they were also given knowledge, knowledge of a shadow looming in humankind's future. What I remember most clearly, other than a sense of awe, was how divided my mind was during the five or ten minutes it went on. I wanted to see what was making those lights, yet I didn't. I was afraid, you see, that we were close to artifacts, maybe even intelligent beings from another world.

4:49 That exalted me but also terrified me. Looking back on that first contact, for surely it was that. I think our only two choices were to laugh or to scream. If I'd been alone, I almost certainly would have screamed, and run away probably to hide under my bed like a child and deny I'd seen anything. Because we were together, and grown men, we laughed.

5:15 Eventually these lights in the sky do disappear, but nights later something else occurred. Instead of lights in the sky, something even stranger happened. There was a girl on the bridge, but something about her was wrong, uncanny. She was inexplicable. She had long black hair. It was a breezy night, and I noticed that when the wind gussed, her hair blew in a clump, as if the strands had been glued together.

5:48 There were no gauzi flyaways, just that clump. Grab her feet, Butch said. We have to get her off before the fing bridge falls into the fing creek. He was right. I could hear the supports groaning, and the gelazi thundering in full spate thanks to all the rain. I got her feet. She was wearing boots and corduroy pants, and there was something funny about them too.

6:11 But it was dark and I was scared, and all I wanted right then was some solid ground under my feet. Butch lifted her by the shoulders and gave a cry of disgust. What? I asked. Never mind. Come on, hurry. We got her off the bridge and into the clearing, only sixty feet, but it seemed to take forever. Put her down, put her down, Jesus, Jesus Christ.

6:31 Butch dropped the top half of her, and she faceplanted, but he paid no attention. He crossed his arms and started rubbing his hands in his armpits as if to get rid of something nasty. I started to put her legs down and froze, not able to believe what I thought I was seeing. My fingers appeared to have sunk into her boots, as if they were made of clay instead of leather.

6:54 I pulled free and stared stupidly at the marks of my fingers as they smoothed out. My god. It's like. fuck, like she's made out of play-doh or something. Butch, what? For Christ's sakes, what? Her clothes aren't clothes. It's like body paint or camouflage or some damn thing. He bent toward her. It's too dark.

7:19 Have you got a a flashlight? No. Didn't bring it. Her hair. I touched it, then pulled away. It wasn't hair. It was something solid but pliable. Not a wig. More like a carving. I didn't know what it was. Whatever this thing was, it wasn't a girl. It wasn't even human. When they found it, it seemed to be in the process of changing itself, camouflaging itself to look more human.

7:54 It was wounded, but clearly putting on a disguise, attempting to conceal its true form. As a short amount of time passes, she seems to become more real. Her clothes even look more real. The men, even while knowing deep down that whatever she was, she wasn't really what they were seeing, attempted to help her in any ways they could.

8:17 It is for this reason, ultimately, that they would be rewarded. Eventually a bright light fills the entire room. The woman, or whatever she was, is gone, and in her place is a man. But he is not really a man. Where do you come from? Butch asked. It doesn't matter. Why? I asked. Why do you come? That's a more interesting question.

8:46 And because you said Yila, I will answer it. We gather. Gather what? I asked and thought of stories I'd read and seen on TV about aliens kidnapping folks and sticking probes up their asses. People? No. Other things. Items. But not like this. He reached into his bag and showed us his empty beer can. This is special to me and means nothing.

9:15 There's a good word for it, perhaps French. Ah veneer. Souvenir? I said. Yes, it is my souvenir of this remarkable night. We visit yard sales. You're joking, I said. They are called different things in different places. In Italy, Vendita in the Cantiri. Samoan Fana Fatao. We take some of these things to remember, some to study.

9:43 We have film of your Kennedy's death from rifle shot. We have an autographed picture of Jajudy. Wait, Batch was frowning. Are you talking about Judge Judy? Yes, Jajudi. We have a picture of Emmett Till, a young man with his face gone, Mickey Mouse and his club. We have a jet engine that came from a repository of discarded objects.

10:09 They're dump pickers, I thought. Not much different from Rini Lacasi. We take these things to remember your world, which will be gone soon. We do the same on other worlds, but there aren't many. The universe is cold. Intelligence is rare. The reason, though not malicious, is devastating. The alien beings were merely collectors, observers.

10:39 They were not here to invade us or suck our world of resources. It was our existence as intelligent beings that was of interest to them, and then only of passing interest. We were a doomed species, they were morbid collectors. When the men asked the being how long we have, the answer that it gives only adds to the devastation.

11:04 Our demise will be soon, and at our own hands. How soon will ours be gone? Do you know or are you just guessing? And before he could reply, you can't know, not for sure. It may be what you call a century, if you are, as you say, lucky, which is only an eye blink in the sweep of time. I don't believe that, Butch said flatly.

11:31 We've got our problems, but we're not suicidal. Then perhaps thinking of the Buddhist monks who had been setting themselves on fire in Vietnam not so long ago. Not most of us. It's inevitable, the young man said. He looked regretful. Maybe he was thinking of the Mona Lisa or the pyramids, or maybe just of no more beer cans, no more autographed pictures of Jujutti.

11:57 When intelligence outraces emotional stability, it's always just a matter of time. He pointed to the corner of the cabin. Your children playing with weapons. I thought about this line a lot after I finished the story. When intelligence outraces emotional stability, it's always just a matter of time. It has been suggested before that intelligent species might, like individuals, go through stages of maturity, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, etc.

12:38 Human individuals have the potential to not only be very intelligent, but to also be rational, thoughtful, and smart. But when humankind acts as a superorganism, which it can't help but doing, it is guided by a force and momentum that is beyond the will of any individual to control it. To the collectors, we were a curiosity, a sad small species that would likely destroy itself soon, following the trajectory of so many similar other sad small species.

13:15 What I also find interesting is the things they take. They are alien beings, so the things they value as souvenirs are different from the things we would see as valuable. The exact how of humanity's end was not known, but it was certain. Within humankind was a ticking time bomb of annihilation that was in fact rapidly accelerating.

13:42 Extinction seemed to surround us. If you look at the real world, there are seemingly countless ways in which our world could come to an end. For example, technological advancement has given us remarkable tools of insight, but it has also armed us with the power of self-destruction on an unprecedented scale.

14:02 The Anthropocene epoch marks an era where humans have become a geological force capable of altering the planet's climate, biodiversity, ecosystems, the duality of our intelligence, a gift that allows us to create but also to destroy, might be our undoing. And this is something that science fiction authors have recognized since the days of Mary Shelley.

14:28 We've now harnessed the power of the atom and mapped the human genome, and yet we struggle with basic cooperation and we don't seem to possess the collective willpower to address global threats like climate change. It's as if the very traits that make us intelligent are inherently self-sabotaging. Consider the paradox of Fermi's question.

14:52 If intelligent life is as probable in a universe as vast as ours, why haven't we seen clear evidence of it? One unsettling answer could be that the natural progression of intelligence leads species toward self-annihilation. Perhaps it's a common story. Civilizations evolve, reach a peak of technological prowess, and then collapse under the weight of their own innovations.

15:21 Asimov wrote about a galactic empire collapsing, but will we get that far? The Earth's geological history is full of extinction events, but this time we are the potential culprits. Our advancements are not guided by wisdom, but the immediate desire and fears of a species that is still at its core primitive.

15:46 And when you add to this the tenuous nature of our interconnected systems, the global economy, the internet, the energy grid, they all form a delicate web that keeps modern civilization afloat. These systems are again a marvel of human ingenuity, but also points of vulnerability. A massive solar flare, a series of cyber attacks, or a pandemic could collapse the entire structure almost overnight.

16:16 Despite our technological advances, our survival hinges on a very precarious balance. We exist in a moment of unprecedented power and unparalleled vulnerability, a combination that, perhaps like in this story, might prove to be our undoing. Before the being leaves, however, he bestows upon the two men a gift.

16:47 This gift is ineffable. It is the ability to access what was within them, the ability to express truth in the form of art. Anyone can have a thought or an idea, but the ability to take that dream, that idea, and manifest it in reality is a gift. This story stuck out to me because, although it is short, it's about something much deeper than a creepy alien encounter that two men had in the woods one night.

17:21 It's about the human superorganism's unconscious desire for its own destruction, a shadow cast upon all of us that represents our collective death wish. In the end, the ability to express truth in the form of art doesn't make Butch or Laird any happier. And how could they be, knowing what was to come, knowing the future that would be left for their grandchildren?

17:49 The depiction of the male alien being also gets to me. This image of this stoic, evolved being taking pity on two insignificant individuals, understanding that they were a piece of something great and beautiful that would be destroyed through no true fault of their own, because, as I said, it's never the individual, it's the superorganism.

18:14 Humankind often places itself on a pedestal. We think highly of ourselves, but in the face of these beings, we are lost in the dark.