this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2025
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I'd like to share a revelation during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals.
Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area.
There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.
You are a plague, and we... are the cure.
(This scene not brought to you by an LLM... yet.)
I have to admit that part of the film always sticks with me.
We need to fundamentally change our values to prioritize life over money. Money, the abstraction of value for exchanging resources, has brainwashed us into collecting and spending it. We've allowed it to get between us and access to literally everything tiny thing we need to survive, and we even use it as a social score that places us in castes. Money truly is the root of all evil. Think about it, every decision we make is based on money, how much it costs, how fortunate you are to have the money in the first place. Money money money. Life over money, please
We need to fundamentally change our values to prioritize life over money.
while i agree with the sentiment, i want to point something out.
when you say it like this, somebody else will read it and say "aha, so instead of maximizing money, we have to maximize life, which implies forcing women to have babies. pro-birther confirmed." and that's probably not what you intended.
so i guess one could maybe modify your statement a bit to make it make more sense in some other people's eye.
That's a chicken or the egg situation isn't it?
You need money to feed someone, to get a roof, for healthcare. Wouldn't anyone growing up their entire life in this system be reasonably expected to be obsessed with money? Thus perpetuating the system and the issue.
Human labor transforms the physical materials of nature into useful goods. Humans can decide how to collectively organize their labor.
We don't actually need money to feed anyone (look at indigenous tribes for example). We have collectively decided to put paywalls on everything we produce. Which is a shame, because we produce more than enough for everyone.
Infinite growth is not sustainable and will lead to ruin fast.
Planned obsolesence lead to huge waste of finite resources.
Shitty wealth distribution, Billionares are not compatible with a functioning society.
Capitalism needs to come along with heavy regulation and anti-corruption messures.
Under capitalism, capital will always accumulate into the hands of the shareholders. Those with the capital will always find a way to influence politicians into deregulating, no matter how many anti-corruption measures you put in place. We've seen this happen over and over for as long as capitalism has existed.
We need a fundamental change in the system that prevents capital from accumulating. That change would be socialism, where the workers collectively own the means of production, rather than it being owned privately by the shareholders.
There are other ’non-nightmare–extinction-shit-show' options than just the one, but its certainly better than our chosen path, that you¹ are choosing every moment you dont act, of nightmare extinction shit show.
¹the reader, that's you.
That change would be socialism, where the ~~workers~~ workers' self-appointed representatives own the means of production, rather than it being owned privately by the shareholders.
We've been down this road. We know where it ends.
If you would stop bending my words for a moment, you would realize that I'm advocating for direct ownership by the workers, not some phony representative democracy. Any system with hierarchies of decision-making power, even supposedly self-appointed ones, will always corrupt.
And how would the workers exercise that "direct" ownership? Workers aren't a hive mind. There will always be hierarchies.
They are not compatible with any society, or continued existence of life.
Infinite growth is not sustainable and will lead to ruin fast.
infinite growth is not sustainable in a finite space, but if you develop spaceflight, you have literally infinite space available, so the argument falls flat.
i just wanted to add that addition. it's actually why spaceflight is pushed forward in america, because it enables growth without destroying the planet at the same time.
While the universe may be close to infinite, the number of habitable (or reasonably terraformable) planets we can get to is a far smaller number.
A number statistically similar to zero. (assuming travel times counted in less than a human livespan)
Well, we are parasites
Ironically, life generally has those cancer cell characteristics.
Is there any population of anything that will self govern it's resource consumption? Or is all life limited by resources and / or predation?
The difference is surviving species reach equilibrium typically. Humans won't do that in a capitalist system.
We are the equivalent of an invasive species with no natural predators. Sure, some animals would happily eat us like polar bears and orcas, but we don't live in the Arctic and we don't swim in Orca hunting grounds.
We are our predators.
Most organic life lived in a decent amount of equilibrium for millions of years before us ... dinosaurs lasted about 60 million years before they got wiped out be an asteroid. They probably could have lasted millions of more years if they didn't get affected by anything.
Our closest ancestors appeared about two million years ago but they weren't anything like us today. Our most modern ancestors that are exactly like us are only about 50,000 years ago. So, we're still very, very new to the game of life.
We shouldn't be so surprised at our 'success' yet. We're a pretty young species and we may yet figure out a way to wipe ourselves out sooner rather than later and give the next sentient species a chance to restart a new civilization without us.
We are just another iteration .... whether or not we last is anyone's guess. But at the moment, the odds don't look so good.
Sure we will. It might just be an equilibrium that doesn't include us anymore.
Tbf, there are equilibrium events where one species whipes another and equilibrium is met. Granted the parasite can usually adapt quicker, and there's so much more we can go down that rabbit hole...
We ain't the earth. She's going to be just fine without us. Even if we nuke the planet, there are still deep sea thermal vent communities that will jump start evolution here by billions of years.
There will also be another intelligent species. Let's hope there are still some shipwrecks left that they can find some non-poisoned iron for their medical equipment.
I don't think that's a fair comparison.
An ecosystem contains many species at equilibrium, but the ecosystem itself consumes all available resources.
Similarly, companies within a capitalist system maintain a kind of equilibrium, but the system itself will consume all available resources.
An ecosystem contains many species at equilibrium, but the ecosystem itself consumes all available resources.
But that equilibrium can be maintained by those resources being replenished within the ecosystem through the actions of components of that ecosystem.
In our example, that's not happening. The resources are being exploited and not replaced.
That's true, but it doesn't respond to the point I was making.
The comment I replied to was comparing an entire system to a single component within a system.
The problem is the concept of externalities, which means that capitalism will happily overshoot our sustainable resource base, and then collapse. It's the Minsky Moment at ecological scales.
Explain how an ecosystem consumes all available resources.
This seems obvious to me. By definition, an ecosystem includes all inputs.
Well explain it like I'm an idiot.
If you look up dessert rust, you'll start thinking of fungi breaking up rocks as parasitic.
The problem isn't "human nature". The problem is that, under capitalism, profit must always be increased. Marx talked about the inherent contradiction here, viz, we use the finite materials of nature in a quest for infinite profit. Put simply, if the table company wants to make more money, they're going to have to chop more trees.
Just as the rise of merchants was an untenable contradiction in the logic of feudalism, the many contradictions within capitalism indicate that it cannot last. It will likely collapse into a technologically advanced socialism or a technologically oppressive fascism.
worse, parasitoids.
After the collision, both are stopped.
Also when people act like climate action “opposes” affordability 🤦♀️
Jesus Christ. This is the most accurate meme of all time.
JFC this hits from in the void that used to be my heart.
a cancer of a cancer cell to be exact.
Perfectly stated.