this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2026
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We're above nature in a far more profound way than the ant-eater, because for the most part humans don't rely on nature replenishing itself -- we have agriculture. None of the problems facing us really have to do with replenishment so much as they do with unchecked consumption. For example with climate change the problem isn't that we're burning fossil fuels faster than they replenish, but rather the fact that we're burning them at all.
People making this point probably usually think of climate change destroying humanity, but the truth is that even completely unchecked climate change will not make humans go extinct. It may destroy our global society, lead to the death of a large chunk of our population and set us back hundreds of years, but it almost certainly won't kill us all. That, I think, goes to show just how far above nature we are, for better and for worse.
This is an overly pessimistic (though sadly all too common) view that disregards all the good parts of humanity in favour of dooming and glooming over all the bad parts. On the whole humans are doing pretty damn well, and we're constantly improving.
The difference is that such creatures will survive by pure chance, while humans will survive by the thing that elevates us above nature: technology. In a purely natural environment large animals like humans would be the first to go extinct in a major extinction event.
Humans are not controlled by their primal urges, so we're already halfway clear. As for nutrition, almost none of what the typical human eats comes from nature. Instead it comes from crops grown and engineered by humans.
Nature isn't about being carbon-based, it's about whether the ship is adrift on the whims of natural selection or steered deliberately by an intelligent actor, and the entire story of the human species has been about increasing our control of the ship.
You have a fairly unrealistic view of what an apocalyptic scenario would look like. Existing technology would not go bad overnight. A lot of stuff works without electricity (a relatively recent invention in the tech tree, all things considered), and electricity isn't that difficult to get going "from scratch" to begin with. Not to even mention that a world-ending meteor is something humans can, from our lofty heights far above nature, detect and even divert before it hits Earth.
Actual hunter-gatherers would be among the first to die out in an apocalypse like that, because they're wholly dependent on the ecosystem, and would lose their only source of food when prey animals go extinct. The survivors would be developed humans in whatever area happens to both not be hit particularly hard (so in the case of global ash/dust clouds, probably somewhere near the equator where farming will still be possible) and that manages to stay relatively cohesive societally.
So on an individual level survival would be down to mostly luck, but on a species-wide level it would not be.
This is another one of those strangely common romanticized views of nature, but it's also incongruent with reality. By definition nothing about what humans are doing to the planet (i.e. climate change, anthropocenic extinctions, what have you) is natural, and as such the consequences aren't a natural mechanism either. Humans just practically won't be able to wipe ourselves out in the same way that e.g. island animal populations may go extinct if balance is thrown off.
We can shoot ourselves in the foot real bad, but making ourselves extinct probably just straight up isn't something we're capable of. Sure, there would absolutely be a certain kind of poetic irony in humans, in our hubris, making the planet inhospitable to modern civilization (and it's possible, too), but this common metaphor of Mother Earth's immune system working to restore a natural balance is, if you forgive my being crass, complete hippie nonsense.
The problem in this discussion is that "nature" isn't defined clearly. Or rather there are two definitions:
the narrow one, meaning nature is everything which happens without the influence of humans
the wide one, meaning nature is practically everything
This wouldn't be a problem if we wouldn't constantly switch between them while talking about it. The everyday meaning is the narrow one, but if we think more about it in a discussion like this we realize we ARE a part of nature. So in a way saying plastic isn't natural because it is produced by humans can be seen as the same as saying wood or silk isn't natural.
Again picking and choosing what to respond and now the apocalyptic event you yourself brought up is unrealistic? What kind of 2 cent bait and switch is this? What exactly is this realistic apocalyptic event you speak of from which humans rise by the help of technology?
I'll give you that you have a point with populations dependent of nature entirely being picked off fast, but then again populations that are dependent on scavenging tin cans are not very well off either unless somebody knows what to do next. Which, as opposed to survivalist fantasy, very few actually do, unless it involves shooting other people. Generating electricity is relatively easy, sure, but how and how much? Plumbing is also easy in theory, except there is a shitload (heh) of complications when done at scale. Medicine? Have you any idea how dependent modern medicine is on infrastructure that will simply not exist if an actual apocalyptic event takes place? Farming everybody has a vague idea of how it works but how many know how to actually do it? Tech tree? What is this, an argument about a computer game? It was once unlocked and now the species know how to do it?
Why do you keep arguing like I have said that humans will make themselves go extinct? I've never said any such thing.
I also haven't said anything about "mother earth's immune system", that's more words that you are putting in my mouth. If you look up natural history you'll find plenty of examples of ecological systems self regulating. Not because of a higher intelligence or any intelligence at all but by sheer consequence. Self regulating systems are one of the least speculative things in this thread about hypothetical apocalypse and survival that is an entire sidetrack from the original discussion about what makes humans supposedly separate from nature.
I mean I could also start making paper dolls and cut them down. "Oh, so you don't believe in self regulating systems? Why do you argue that traffic jams are orchestrated by lizard people huh? Is that your super natural humans, is it?"
It's entirely pointless though.