Hello Darth,
All we are is the dominate species on the planet. But are we really so advanced? We can't even control our own populations, even though we all know the Earth will not support an infinite number of humans. We understand how large our planet is, we know we have already populated all the easiest and most hospitable locations for humans, the most desirable locations containing millions of individuals, yet still we keep churning out more and more humans.
If you ask a non-prompted question of 100 humans. No, make that one thousand humans:
"What does the world really need the most?"
I doubt a single one would answer:
'Oh, that's easy. We just need more humans on the planet.'
We can't even get organized or have any type of common authority. We have divided ourselves into nations and religions, and we are constantly fighting wars. And we call ourselves advanced? How absurd.
We are using up resources faster than we ever thought. The easy ones are all gone, so we continue to expend greater amounts of energy trying to get at the ones which are more difficult to extract. But do we ever stop, take a step back, and wonder if we should be doing this?
We could have it so freaking nice here on this amazing planet, but instead we are very greedy and hoarding of the things we value.
We are polluting the planet faster than we could ever hope to clean it up. Beaches everywhere are littered with floating plastic and human debris but we never stop to think all that stuff wasn't there 50 years ago. We know our water aquifers are pristine and irreplaceable, but that doesn't stop us from fracking nearby or injecting waste fluids underground.
The middle of every ocean is now full of floating plastic bits which gradually break down into micro pieces which absorb oils, microbes and bacteria and finally sink to depths where the stuff is eaten by plankton. Those plankton form the basis of the ocean food chain. They are eaten by predators which are eaten by larger predators and finally end up in fish we consume. No studies have been done to even decide if we want to be doing this.
Capitalism drives inhuman corporations which outlive humans to come up with all kinds of new chemicals never studied for safety and exposure to humans, and also to use crony capitalism to make sure those studies are never performed, even prevented by law, then these chemicals are placed into products marketed as safe. but we don't really know if they are safe or not or what long-term effects might occur.
Capitalism has decided we should be a throw-away disposable society. We make tons of products which are used to extract the wealth of common people for these inhuman corporations just so a very few individuals can have an absurdly opulent lifestyle not available to most of the workers who produce those products. These products are often designed to wear out and become useless within a relatively short period of time, and then simply be tossed into giant piles of refuse we call 'landfills.' We do our best to prevent nasty stuff from leaching out of these giant trash piles, but ultimately the Earth will claim it all and drinking water supplies will be affected. We burn up fossil fuels creating the short-life products, delivering them to consumers, and then removing the discarded debris to take it to the landfill. And that's by design. Not by design is all the junk which ends up in the oceans and the marine food chain.
And we have the nerve to call ourselves advanced as other species are doing none of this?
Ya know, it all depends on what metric you want to use if you want to think of humans as 'unique among even the higher animals.'
Yeah. We are unique alright. Whether or not that is a good thing is debatable.
Even if you say: is it at least good for humans?
We have wiped out many species which we later have learned were actually good for us.
Seen any Carolina Parakeets lately? How about the Great Auk?
