I realized something. I read a lot of stuff about how people are basically nasty and selfish, and generally suck. Hell, I WROTE most of that stuff. On the surface of it, it seems that I have something in common with all of those nature freaks, religion freaks, and any other freak who feels the need to project his/her self-loathing issue on everybody else. Some may think that I actually would be able to empathize with those who believe that humankind is some kind of particularly awful blight on this planet. HA!
Humankind may be a blight, but it's just one of millions of blights on the planet, a result of that one big blight, life. For all of the nature-loving numbnuts out there, they sure hate it when people act like everything else in nature: completely self-centered. Let's face it, kids. We are what nature made us. Nasty, brutish nature made us determined to ensure our own survival and to be as comfortable as possible in the process. Just like so many other creatures, we alter the environment to suit our needs. Examples: beavers, termites, and many different kinds of parasites (courtesy of Discover magazine). Also, just like all other animals, when the natural predators that keep us in check, whether megafauna or microscopic, become ineffective, we run the risk of destroying our environment. Koala bears do it. Deer do it. Any animal will do it. Why can't we? Seems like a rather arbitrary double standard.
Of course, as far as animals go, we're pretty unique. We're the only creature on Earth that can say, "Uh oh, we might destroy ourselves through our success. We'd better be careful." I was thinking that we're also the only animals capable of anything like revenge. A non-human animal won't plot to avenge a slight by another animal. On the other hand, we're the only organism capable of mercy. When was the last time you saw an animal spontaneously care for the young of another species? Let me think…almost NEVER. Sure, people have their sucky points, but they also have their good points. All in all, it averages out. But that's all trifles.
The REAL point of this essay is to send a bitch slap to all of those genuine human-hating psychos. I'm not talking about those casual misanthropes like myself who don't like people but harbor no special distaste for Homo sapiens. No, I'm talking about those people who wail about how shamed they are to be humans and yet can't find the will to do the world a favor and kill themselves. These are usually PETA types, but also radical religious nuts and their cranially deficient ilk.
It all comes down to this: we are the Earth's only chance for survival. It may take billions of years, but someday the sun will either balloon like my ex-girlfriend-turned-evil-backstabbing-ho and turn the planet into a cinder, or turn cold and dark like my tortured heart transforming the planet into a snowball. Either way, everything this planet has wrought, all of the crawling, bleating, madly-fucking life that those nature nuts claim to love, will be killed more thoroughly than we could ever do. After all of the meteor strikes, climate change, continental drift, and solar flares, the struggle will finally end in either fire or ice.
What's the indigenous life of Earth to do? Will spotted owls be able to fly away? Will dolphins, with all of their purported intelligence, be able to escape that fate? Will Julia Butterfly's fucking tree be able to pull through? Only WE have even the tiniest potential of making it off this rock and saving at least a portion of life on Earth. Sure, many people doubt that interstellar travel is possible, but even if we can take bacteria and shoot them out into space in capsules, we've done our job. At least we gave life a chance. Smoke that you Gaia-worshipping, progress-fearing freaks.
Then you've got those brain dead nuts who insist that we don't have the "right" to develop worlds that are otherwise lifeless. God, some people just have issues with making something out of nothing. Maybe they weren't smacked around enough as kids.
People suck, but no more than anything else on Earth.
