Humans Should Be Nerfed

Maybe we are all inside a giant simulation.

Perhaps some alien folks out there are having fun at our expense. Although, I wouldn’t lazily make the existential argument here that if we all live in a giant simulation, and there is no free will, then nothing actually matters. But rather, I will take the absurdist route of claiming that “if nothing matters, then enjoy life as if that is exactly the case”. After all, you will need not ascribe any meaning to life if you live with that philosophy.

But I’d be careful if I were you. Because such philosophy can easily spiral out of control. And thus, absurdism can turn into nihilism. Nihilism, if I need to define it, is the total rejection of all religious and moral values as the natural status of the human experience in the experience that life is essentially meaningless.

This piece isn’t about existentialism. Existentialism is a philosophical theory or approach which emphasizes the existence of the individual as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will.

This write-up rather is intended for me to take a simplistic view of literally considering life to be a game. A game where humans exist as players. Just like every other animal. But the twist here is that I’m going to try making the argument that humans make the server (Earth) a little unbalanced, therefore they should be nerfed (to make less powerful, to downgrade/debuff) so that other players (animals can) have a fair playing experience. This will be in line with me believing that we are in a simulation of some sort: where Nature, God, or some unknown foreign entity consciously created the earth and every player on it.

This piece is intended to be light-hearted, comical, and to appear as a parody. You may need to have some kind of gaming experience in order to fully understand the whole aspect of this piece. If you are a weeb, a gamer, a geek, a nerd, or all of these things combined, you will definitely get the best out of this write-up.

So, without further ado. Let’s get into it. Welcome to the Phaze-verse.

Starts transmission…

Earth, Season One

Before humans, we had dinosaurs as the most overpowered species. They could fly, swim, run, etc. Some of the dinosaurs had scales as thick as that of a dragon. Their armour was impenetrable. They also had some nice skins. I suppose, through their evolution, they were able to turn their skins into different colours and patterns. Unlike humans that have some kind of battle pass – depending on how rich your family is. Beyond just skins, humans today can even change sex. But we’ll get to them shortly.

For all we know, dinosaurs were the most broken and overpowered players on the Earth server. Until one day, the powers that be said they’d had enough, and they decided to send a gigantic asteroid their way to yeet all of them.

The dragon-scale armour that the dinosaurs had wasn’t enough to withstand the one-shot spell that the creators of the server cast upon them. They had neither the intelligence, nor the capability to craft themselves some type of gear that will help them parry the asteroid, and send it back from whence it came. But no, they couldn’t do anything as such because they forgot to spec some points into intelligence. They maxed out the stats of armour, strength, intimidation, and other such skills.

Soon after the asteroid hit the server, the dinosaurs and all other players were eliminated. In essence, the server was reset about 66 million years ago. But in the following season, new players started spawning from different parts of the planet.

Earth, Season Two

Some new players have now emerged. Although, in comparison to the previous players on the server, the new players appear to be significantly nerfed. A debuff of some kind. No one animal (player) is allowed to dominate the servers like the dinosaurs did in the previous patch. In this new update, there are different classes of players. Just like choosing to be a mage, tank, support, marksman, etc, in any other RPG game, in this simulation you can only choose to belong to one class – one genus.

Just like every good multiplayer game, the new season of Earth now has a ranking system. Genus, otherwise family tree, is a taxonomic rank system used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below the family. Your genus could be Homo, Panthera, Canis, Gorilla, Rat, etc.

Each new player belonged to a family. The family each player belonged to could be mammals, fish, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Under the system of family, there are also species. From the mammalian family, a particular type of player began to rapidly outdo every other player on the server. These were the Homos.

They evolved from the Great Apes about 6 million years ago, and they were about to replace the dinosaurs as the most overpowered animals on the Earth server.

With each of their patches, they spec their upgrade points on intelligence stat, which made them unlock new abilities that helped them stay above the food chain.

They unlocked fire, speech, and tools. These three things in the pre-historic eras helped them dominate the server.

With fire, they chased other players off their territories: with speech, they were able to communicate effectively, when other players were still in their evolutionary process of signalling things like “food”, “danger”, and other such means of communication: with tools, the Homos were able to craft new equipment like spears, bow and arrow, flint, slings, tomahawks, etc. These tools helped them survive multiple battle royales against other players on the server.

But not just in intelligence: they also spent their upgrade points on other stats like agility, which enables them to chase down any other animals/players over long distances. They also spent some points on speech, mana/energy, fortitude, etc.

Although they forgot to put some points into armour and strength. Where other players have thick skins and furs to protect their bodies, Homos are very vulnerable to things such as the cold, bites, scratches, etc. So, I guess this was the developers trying to make them not too overpowered.

The developers also introduced a dangerous player to the server – the cockroaches.

This new player absolutely scares the homo species to their bones. It is worse when the cockroaches start flying. Even the only surviving species of the homo genus (homo sapiens) have yet to unlock new skills that will help them fight against this absolute menace.

Generally, the Homos have a pretty effective build. But they weren’t the only players that were evolving on the Earth server. Other players from other families that aren’t just mammals were also evolving. Although not at the same rate as the Homos. Especially given that they are probably the players that spent most of all their skill points on intelligence.

Although the developers nerfed the homo genus by making every other Homo, except Homo Sapiens, leave the server. They simply went extinct. The last Homo to leave the server was the Homo Neanderthals. They still managed to survive until 10,000 B.C.

Apex Predator

The last of the Homos is the Homo Sapiens. Or in plain English, the Humans. It is my belief that the developers yeeted the wrong Homos from the servers. Little did they know that these puny humans will totally dominate the server.

It all started 40,000 years ago when humans in their primitive form left the East African sub-server, and they began spreading all over the continent. They were able to spread to most if not all parts of the continent before the ice age. Which I believe was an update by the developers to accommodate the evolution of this emerging species. Thus, humans now have new locations with different climates and activities.

Whether intended or not, humans were able to unlock new skills that helped them tame some other players on the server (animals). The first of these tamed players was the dog – a variant of the Canis genus. The dog was man’s first friend. Then the humans got confident, and they moved to tame other players like horses – variants of the Equus genus. They also tamed cats, from the Felis genus. And on and on and on.

They were becoming more and more of a force to reckon with on the server. But one single discovery turned them into Apex Predators.

12,000 years ago, this set of players (humans), discovered agriculture. This basically meant that they never had to bother themselves with hunting and gathering anymore. They can rather plant and grow things. This period of 12,000 B.C. marked the beginning of the Agricultural Revolution.

With farming, humans applied the infinite-food-hack.exe. A cheat that enabled them to spawn as much food as possible.

From that point, humans started settling down. They also built huts and things as such. Before you know it, they began creating communities. These communities made villages, and the villages made towns, and the towns made countries. At a different point, civilizations began sprouting around places with water bodies. Places like River Nile, Indus River, etc.

Civilizations like Mesopotamia (4000-3500 B.C.), Ancient Egypt (3100 B.C.), Ancient India (3300 B.C.), Ancient China (2000 B.C.), and Ancient Peru (1200 B.C.) were the earliest to begin expanding. Soon enough, humans went through different ages: from the Stone Age, Iron Age, Bronze Age, etc.

Humans becoming settlers was a turning point because it meant that they didn’t actively have to grind for exp, only for them to spend their upgrade points on stats that were survival based. Stats like agility, armour, and strength. Rather they spent most of their stats on intelligence.

Overpowered Players

Soon enough, around 600 B.C., they were able to unlock a new knowledge tree called Philosophy. Which, if you ask me, is just overthinking, but with extra steps. With this new knowledge tree, they were able to unlock many new abilities and talents.

Philosophy gave birth to other fields of academia: like economics, history, psychology, biology, anthropology, etc. With all these new talents, humans were able to advance in different aspects of their experience on the server.

I suppose the developers got worried about these players dominating the server. Therefore they released a new patch to the game.

To balance the servers and make sure other players can enjoy the game, the new patch contained updates such as religion, ideology, pathology, HIV, etc. This was all in a bid that this update will enable humans to fight amongst themselves.

A major human civilization (the Roman Empire) introduced Christianity to the European sub-server, and the Arabs introduced Islam to some other continents. Buddhism spread to other regions of Asia and the like. The human players like those of the Inca and Aztec empires were still butchering other humans en masse. All in the name of some sort of ritual intended to appease the perceived creators (gods) of the server.

There were crusades, jihads, and several other religious battles among the human players. Then in later centuries ideologies like Marxism, Capitalism, Transgenderism, Nazism, Fascism, Anarchism, Liberalism, etc, began sweeping the servers. As of the time of this writing, the human death toll since the release of this new patch by the developers is in the millions. Perhaps even within the range of a billion.

At the height of their power, during the 1945–1991 cold war DLC, the human players almost destroyed themselves with nuclear weapons. I speak of course about the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. At this point, they posed a danger not only to themselves. But also to other players on the server.

These primitive players that once had spears and slingshots for weapons now have weapons of mass destruction.

In 1969, humans for the first time were able to land on the moon. They practically left their server to move to another server. And right now as it stands, it seems like they have plans to colonize the Mars server.

These truly are the most broken players of all time.

They aren’t just taming other animals anymore: right now they are creating robots and giving them something akin to a brain. They call this Artificial Intelligence.

As it stands, A.I is almost smarter than humans. Maybe before humans become sentient about their role and place in the universe. Or before they destroy themselves, they might upgrade and update these A.I technology well enough that the A.I (perhaps in the body of a robot) become sentient (to be conscious/aware), and then they bring doom to the human players.

Perhaps this is how the developers programmed the humans to work. But I don’t suppose there is any fun in knowing how it ends. So, I know for certain that the game will significantly change in the coming years.

Although I still believe that humans should be nerfed. Maybe not having them destroy themselves is not sufficient. Maybe they should rather just get some debuff. Or better yet, other lifeforms should also get some buffs.

This will make for a good playing field.

Ends transmission…

Epilogue

Thanks for checking out a new write-up from me. I truly hope you enjoyed it. If you did, remember to comment, and share with your friends.

If you didn’t get all the nerdy references, I apologize. My next piece will be a more “all-encompassing” type. I’m certain you will enjoy it. I hope you’ll be here for it.

You can find me here on Twitter.

Cheers!