In Science Seminar today, the professor asked us to give one thing that we could change about the world if we could.
After some thought, I decided on drastic measures: eliminate humans.
I think this not only because I believe that, despite the many wonderful and altruistic attempts being made by many, mankind will never fully live in peace, but also because it does not belong.
Think: we are the only beings capable of reason. Some might argue that dolphins, chimpanzees, mice, and other animals are capable of sentience. But this is not what I mean. Have you ever discussed philosophy with a cetacean? Compared economics with a great ape? Debated politics with rodents?
Living organisms everywhere on the planet have some sort of protection mechanism. Plants sting and poison, animals run and fly, have claws and fangs, shells and hair a scales.
What do we humans have? Bare skin, weak eyes, a lousy sense of smell. What we have is the ability to use tools. Constantly, we devise new ways to deal with what faces us. We create new tools, develop a new compound, build new factories.
And in doing so, we blatantly disregard those we share the planet with.
Every single living being interacts directly with the others that surround it, living and dying on a daily basis.
Not us.
We're separated from the rest of the living world by the way we live. We are the only land animals next to an ocean of fish. We can prey upon them, they are helpless.
One might argue that humans' brains are our share of the evolutionary pool. But it's so different from anything else, so alien, that we cannot coexist with the rest of the living world.
I may sound cliché and Jurassic Park-ish, but life finds a way. If humans were removed, nature would soon take over and go back to equilibrium.
Tchernobyl survived. The Earth can manage without us and right the wrongs we have done it.
After some thought, I decided on drastic measures: eliminate humans.
I think this not only because I believe that, despite the many wonderful and altruistic attempts being made by many, mankind will never fully live in peace, but also because it does not belong.
Think: we are the only beings capable of reason. Some might argue that dolphins, chimpanzees, mice, and other animals are capable of sentience. But this is not what I mean. Have you ever discussed philosophy with a cetacean? Compared economics with a great ape? Debated politics with rodents?
Living organisms everywhere on the planet have some sort of protection mechanism. Plants sting and poison, animals run and fly, have claws and fangs, shells and hair a scales.
What do we humans have? Bare skin, weak eyes, a lousy sense of smell. What we have is the ability to use tools. Constantly, we devise new ways to deal with what faces us. We create new tools, develop a new compound, build new factories.
And in doing so, we blatantly disregard those we share the planet with.
Every single living being interacts directly with the others that surround it, living and dying on a daily basis.
Not us.
We're separated from the rest of the living world by the way we live. We are the only land animals next to an ocean of fish. We can prey upon them, they are helpless.
One might argue that humans' brains are our share of the evolutionary pool. But it's so different from anything else, so alien, that we cannot coexist with the rest of the living world.
I may sound cliché and Jurassic Park-ish, but life finds a way. If humans were removed, nature would soon take over and go back to equilibrium.
Tchernobyl survived. The Earth can manage without us and right the wrongs we have done it.
2 comments:
Oh dear. That seems a bit drastic to me. Drastic but, I admit, effective. Unfortunately I can't think of anything better. However,I have decided that I am too selfish and I'm afraid (as we are in the realms of fantasy) I'm going to use my veto and save humankind. Actually what I'm doing is saving myself but I can't be too selfish and save only myself, so....
GB has responded on the emotional level. Mine is more an argument against your reasoning. The world is currently in a balance - a balance in which man plays a major role. Just as, in days gone by the dinosaurs played the dominat role in a planet without man. Without man the world would simply be in a new form of balance. Many species would suffer without human intervention; a new form of animal (big cats or insects perhaps) would come to dominate; and what is the logic in simply removing one species (however nasty) to change the status of many others?
With or without man the world will never stand still, it will alway be evolving. The fact that man has the power to change the planet in a more global fashion and at a faster rate than other species is not necessarily an argument for getting rid of him.
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