Monkey Darwin

versus

Mr. Satansman

One bright sunny day, Monkey Darwin came down from the trees and found a big, fiery red metal sphere in the clearing.

"What is this fiery metal sphere?" he asked. He got closer, but he didn't touch it, because when metal is glowing red, it's also burning hot. It was so hot it was even setting some of the local flora on fire.

"This is the Satansphere," said the red guy in the window.

"Oh! Who are you?" asked Monkey Darwin.

"I'm Mr. Satansman," said red horns guy.

"What are you doing in a fiery metal sphere, Mr. Satansman?" asked Monkey Darwin. "How are you exploring a fitness landscape or satisficing your survival and reproduction needs?"

"Oh, I don't do any of those things," said Mr. Satansman.

Monkey Darwin peered in the window of the Satansphere. "Then what do you do? And what are all those little guys squirming around in the flames?"

"Oh, those are the souls of the damned. I torment them! That is, when I'm not busy tempting intelligent life to damn itself."

"That doesn't sound like it optimizes for anything," said Monkey Darwin, confused.

"Oh, sure it does! Suffering!" said Mr. Satansman.

"But why would you want to optimize for that?"

"Seemed like a good idea, still does, so I keep doing it."

"Well, would you mind moving your Satansphere somewhere else? It's catching some of our biodiversity on fire."

"Would you sell me your soul?"

Monkey Darwin blinked. "I don't have one."

Mr. Satansman smiled confidently. "Then you won't miss it. Come on in here and sign this document, and I'll pick up my Satansphere and be on my way."

"Dude, I'm not going in there," said Monkey Darwin. "Being on fire is bad for my inclusive fitness. And besides, you'd just turn me into one of those burnt torture guys."

"No way!" said Mr. Satansman. "Do I look like the kind of person who would do that?"

"Yes. Yes, you do."

"Well, that's just prejudice! You said you wanted to save your biodiversities from being burned up. How much could you really want that, if you won't even sign a little contract?"

"Look," said Monkey Darwin, "I don't believe you're really the devil, because there's no such thing. But I believe that you believe you're the devil. And your beliefs have causal power over whether you're likely to torture me in your burning metal ball."

"Sphere," corrected Mr. Satansman. "It's hollow; balls are solid. And look, do you want me to save your biome from burning down, or not?"

"Why would you do that? You like causing suffering, you said so yourself!"

"So now I'm a liar, too? Let's not forget how much of a hypocrite you are. You say you want to save all your precious little life forms, but when it comes down to it, you won't put your soul on the line."

This was getting nowhere. So Monkey Darwin ran away, Mr. Satansman's laughter echoing in his big monkey ears. "This guy has got to go, but I need to solicit cooperation from my tribe. I'm a social animal, after all."

Behind him, the grass continued to smolder and burn.

Before long, Monkey Darwin had found his friends Monkey Joe and Monkey Jane. "There's a bad dude setting the clearing on fire!" he explained.

He left out the part about the damned souls. He even left out the part about the mysterious big red burning metal sphere that had suddenly shown up one morning. He definitely left out the part about Mr. Satansman looking like the devil, but not really being the devil, but believing he was. Monkey Darwin figured the others would find those out soon enough. The danger message had to be quick to get his tribe's attention: "There is a bad dude in the clearing and he's setting the ecosystem on fire!"

Monkey Jane looked to Monkey Joe. "Let's be good guys."

Monkey Jane and Monkey Joe went back to their village and returned dressed in their finest, fanciest firefighter formalwear, fit for a lively night of saving lives.

Their spiffy red jackets could keep flames off their backs, while also signaling danger to other primates. Monkey Joe had a water hose. Monkey Jane had a shovel for digging ditches.

Ditchdigger Jane looked to Hosehaver Joe. "We are hella prepared to manage this incident."

Hosehaver Joe nodded. "Being a tool-using species pretty much totally rocks."

"How can I help?" asked Monkey Darwin.

"Take notes for the postmortem," said Ditchdigger Jane.

Before too long, Mr. Satansman was looking out the window of the Satansphere when he saw the monkeys come right up with their hosage and shovelstuff. "Oh, now what are those monkeys doing?" he asked himself, "And where did they get such wonderful toys?"

Ditchdigger Jane set about digging a ditch that separated the on-fire part of the environment from the not-on-fire part, so the fire wouldn't get across. The fire stopped at the edge of the ditch.

Hosehaver Joe had his hose spray cold water all over the Satansphere, raising a terrific cloud of steam. The cooling metal made creaking and cracking noises. and Mr. Satansman looked out with concern. "What are those monkeys doing to my Satansphere?!"

Monkey Darwin was taking notes. "Hello again, Mr. Satansman! We're mitigating the incident by deploying hydraulic cooling and isolating the affected region geologically." He was copying down the words that the other monkeys had used to describe their work.

Suddenly the metal sphere gave a strong shudder as it started to warp and twist, the water-cooled areas pulling away from the burning-soul-heated ones.

"Stop it!" yelled Mr. Satansman. "The thermal contraction is going to tear my Satansphere apart! All the damned souls will get loose!"

"You could have left earlier," Monkey Darwin pointed out. "But you kept on dumping negative externalities and generally defecting against everyone, and now there's a whole alliance against you."

Mr. Satansman pulled a lever that seemed to have been made out of someone's spine, and the Satansphere rumbled. "Fine! I'm leaving!" The Satansphere rose out of its crater. "I'll come back some day! And I'll take all your souls!"

As the Satansphere blasted off into the bright blue sky, Monkey Joe looked to Monkey Jane and Monkey Darwin. "What was all that 'souls' business about?"

"Oh! I looked that up," said Monkey Darwin. "It's a metaphor for the process of a living mind. I figure he has a way to record people's minds and torture them. Pretty awful thing to do."

"What a jerk," said Monkey Jane. "We should stop him."

Monkey Joe laughed. "Dude, is this an origin story or something?"

"Yeah, probably. I'm fine with it. You two?"

"Sure, what the heck."