Koko’s Final Message to Humanity — The Real Version

Believe me. I speak fluent Kokoese.

Koko (1971–2018) was a gorilla born in a zoo who “enjoyed” being an experimental subject for (almost) five decades of her life.

For all I know, she was treated well and had a good life. However, I’m 110% sure it wasn’t the best life she could have lived because one crucial element was missing: freedom.

While we could argue some breeds of cats are born/selected to be pets, that’s not the case for gorillas. Gorillas enjoy living with other gorillas in gorilla-friendly environments doing gorilla stuff, like wrestling, hugging, and generally living with other gorillas in social structures comparable to human ones. Gorillas aren’t supposed to learn sign language and spend their lives with humans as Koko did.

There’s a video of Koko, which people present as “Koko’s final message to humanity.” You can watch it here (link and embed below):

In summary, Koko signs the following message during the video: “Koko is love. Nature is love. Both love humans. But Humans stupid. Stop destroying Earth.”

As I commented on X, more than “Koko’s final message to humanity,” this is Koko’s trainers’ final message to humanity. Or, in Koko’s limited vocabulary: “Koko not thinking on her own. Koko saying what she was taught to say.”

Because if Koko was thinking on her own, she would say something like: “Why was I born in a zoo, and when are you going to set me and the others free?”

Some people argued in the comments I was wrong, which is impossible. And based on my latest discussion on the Ouija board with Koko, she agrees.

While hosting a star like Robin Williams is a strong argument in any discussion, the fact “Koko learned the meaning of an impressive number of words is debatable.” She learned a lot of words, that’s true. But how much of it did she understand? It’s much harder to tell.

And anyway, she didn’t choose the words. Her trainers did. It’s not like Koko read whatever she wanted and formed her own informed opinion on the state of the planet and what it means to survive as a species.

Another commenter said it was “a great message nonetheless.”

Yes, maybe, but if someone uses psychological manipulation to convey a message, I tend to reduce their rating on my credibility scale. Psychological manipulation in this context means using cute-looking animals or kids to present your ideas instead of doing it yourself. If a message isn’t convincing based only on its arguments, it invites debate. People who use marketing strategies to sell me an idea because “they know better than me” don’t rank too high on the trustworthiness scale.

Koko “tells” us to fix Earth

To me, this is the ultimate arrogance of the human race. Whatever we do, we won’t destroy the planet. We can have a nuclear war and destroy our modern civilization. We might be able to end humanity, although I doubt it — even with a nuclear war, some people will survive. But we won’t be able to destroy the planet or anything remotely looking like it.

Earth has been around for 4 billion years and will still be here in as much time. The first human ancestors were born 10 million years ago. Earth and humans simply live on a different scale. As hard as we try, we’re not powerful enough to destroy the planet.

But of course, we can destroy our current environment and significantly reduce the number of species — for a while. We’re pretty good at it, mostly because we’re pretty good at increasing the size of our species in recent centuries. We went from 200 million 2,000 years ago, 6.1 billion in year 2000, and 8 billion today.

We cannot be so many humans on the planet, all wanting to live the luxury lives of billionaires (or, at least, of Instagram influencers), traveling the world and the seven seas on their yachts without significantly impacting the environment.

Like all species on the planet, Koko’s primary goal would have been reproduction. If it were in her power, Koko’s message to humanity would have been to kill us all and let her and her species take over the Earth.

That’s what nature does.

Without humans around, Koko might have had to fight with rats, bacteria, dogs, and raccoons (among others) for dominance. But humans are around, and Koko spent her life in captivity.

Humans might become wise enough to control themselves, be reasonable, and devise ways to live harmoniously with nature.

But when I look at my children eating marshmallows, I have doubts.

Smillew is Top Hatter in Chief at the Top Hat Seminar on Substack.