U.S. — As distrust in experts reaches record highs across the country, many experts are issuing a dire warning that if you stop listening to them it will make them feel sad.

"We cannot stress enough just how serious this is," said Harvard Sociologist Marv Werdleskeez, an expert on experts. "If people stop unquestionably believing every single thing experts say, experts' feelings will be very hurt. Then they might lose their confidence and retire from being experts. This will leave us with no more experts and everyone will die."

According to a survey of experts nationwide, 90% of experts believe it would be very terrible if everyone stopped believing them. The other 10% said they would jump off a cliff. Sources familiar with the impending crisis say we are running out of time to start believing the experts before it's too late. "Lives are at stake," said Werdleskeez. "If we don't salvage the self-esteem of the expert class soon, it could be catastrophic."

At publishing time, several experts disagreed that the "expert crisis" was really a crisis, leading to them being immediately demoted from being experts.

When guns are finally banned in the coming utopia, you may still need to defend yourself on the rare occasion.