For the past 15 years, I have devoted my life to learning more about the elusive and misunderstood Annuit Cœptis Americanus tribe of North America. I have lived among these strange people, participated in their customs, and survived in their backwards and confusing society in an effort to shed some light on their eccentric and peculiar lifestyles so that the entire world can learn more about these legendary people’s ways. I have had an easy time making observations about their culture, its understanding them that daunts me. No matter how much I have contemplated and pondered my observations, any type of rhyme or reason for these traditions have eluded me. These are just a few of my notes on the fascinating and weird ways of the Americanus.

When I first arrived in the sacred and guarded lands of the tribe, the first thing I noticed was the lavish and elaborate shelters the clan has erected. I had first assumed that dozens of people lived in these large structures, but I later was surprised to learn that only two to about 5 tribe members on average took refuge in them. Not only were they excessively large, they were also very wasteful and inefficient. Many of them had unnecessary features that contributed to this wastefulness, such as large basins of filtered water for the natives to swim in, whereas the shelter directly next to that one had one just like it. Upon closer inspection of the shelters on the interior, I found many more superfluous distractions. The centerpiece of the common living area is a rather large, flat panel. When activated, moving images flash on the screen at a very fast pace. The inhabitants of that particular layer seem to be distracted and fascinated by this spectacle, and many times, they will actually stop whatever activity they may be doing in favor of staring blankly for endless hours at the panel. Not only does this needless activity cause inefficiency in the work that would otherwise have been done by the tribe members, but it also requires gratuitous amounts of energy to run.

This brings me to my next observation: the insatiable thirst for power the natives seem to have. This power may be electrical energy, which they use to run many devices similar to the panel described earlier; or chemical energy, which is perhaps the most sought after source of energy. It is drawn from the earth in huge amounts in the form of petroleum and burned in order to heat shelters and power automatic means of transportation. Despite the scarcity of this substance, the tribe members insist upon using the automatic transportation to reach every conceivable destination, even if that destination is close enough for them to simply walk. Their reasoning for this is beyond me.

Through my experiences interacting with the people of the Americanus tribe, I have concluded that the driving force behind their social structure and their economy is the insatiable urge to outdo each other with every thing that they do. This includes having possessions with a higher worth, earning more currency to buy new possessions, and to have the most socially acceptable, perfect body. This drives the natives to spend much of their time acquiring and showing off new and unnecessary possessions and using strange and foreign machines to “perfect” their image as much as possible. This drives their society forward, but at the same time it causes many problems. The drive to outdo each other usually leads to very wasteful, inefficient behavior that destroys the natural ecosystem around them. It seems to me that they are very aware of the detrimental effects of this quest for dominance among each other and the other species around them, yet they do very little to change their customs to adapt to this problem. It is surprising to me that such an intelligent group of people could not take action in order to prevent their homeland from being destroyed.

Because of all the time I have spent with the Americanus clan, I have learned a great deal about their way of life, yet at the same time, I haven’t. I haven’t even begun to try to comprehend the reasons for some of this wasteful and self-destructive behavior that I have observed. Maybe someday, someone reading these notes will understand the mysterious ways of the Americanus.