Life After Humans: The Octopus Manifesto

Humans, naturally, assumed the planet would cry without them. Oh no, where’s my Amazon Prime shipping? But if the future belongs to anyone, it’s the octopus. Not a democracy, not a monarchy—let’s call it a suctionarchy.

Imagine them in an underwater version of Paris—Parisquarium—octopus poets in their hidden dens writing about the beauty of salt, motion, and that squid they almost ate but didn’t because they were feeling existential that day. Eight limbs mean multi-tasking perfection. While one arm scribbles philosophies about freedom and fluidity, another arm sculpts kelp into monuments. There’s a renaissance down there. Michelangelo didn’t hold a candle to this.

The world’s oceanic silence—no human industrial churn—would become a canvas. For millennia, octopuses have practiced being artists, architects, and escapees. Yes, escape artists—don’t pretend you didn’t read the headline about Inky slithering out of an aquarium like a silent-film villain with a tiny suitcase. (You could say the octopus invented ghosting.)

Their civilization would start small. Maybe it’s a network of dens—a sort of subway system, but without commuters holding coffee and resentment. Communication would be color-coded. Who needs language when you can literally pulse electric blue to signal, “I’m busy, go away”? In the octopus world, there’s no passive aggression. They flash their feelings like neon billboards.

Imagine, then, their culture blooming: underwater octo-markets where limbs haggle over pearls, starfish jewelry, or fermented crab delicacies. There’s drama. An octopus with a cloak of algae is the talk of the den. “Oh, look at her pretending she’s kelp. Very avant-garde.”

Their science? The great octopus minds don’t invent computers; they build bio-networks. Brains connected in water, ideas transmitted through touch and shared current. Faster than any human broadband. Human Wi-Fi? Please. Eight-limbed minds have been streaming the “meaning of existence” in 4K Ultra-HD for centuries while you’ve been buffering.

And oh, they’re natural philosophers. See, octopuses already know the truth about survival. Humans loved pyramids and buildings that touched the clouds—stone and steel monuments to permanence. But permanence is a myth. The ocean taught octopuses that. They understand life is fluid. That the best hiding place is temporary. That when something doesn’t work, you squish through the cracks and start over.

Next time, friends.