VII. Of ETs and cats
How could a species of conscious, intelligent individuals run its own course toward extinction? What happened to the much-touted human greatness? And that special destiny in space? Isn’t survival the primary purpose of life itself?
You can’t help feeling absurd? Such feelings won’t go away until you stop to see so much meaning in humanity’s existence in the universe. What is going on will make perfect sense if the human society is just taken for what it is: a natural phenomenon. Nature’s species rise and fall all the time around us. Human society is natural because it is not the realization of a premeditated plan - nobody conducted the premeditation if you don’t believe in God. It’s produced and reproduced constantly and spontaneously through the interactions of human animals following their drives. The evolution of life may have made us the most powerful creatures in natural history, the truth remains that we still belong to the kingdom Animalia (class Mammalia, order Primates, family Hominidae), being made of blood, flesh and desire. The call of the wild may be subconscious, it is irresistible. It’s staying alive and enjoying oneself, whether by watching Web porn (monkeys, too, are willing to pay for pictures of female monkey rears, according to scientists), playing astute baboon politicians or, as it all boils down to the same brain chemicals responsible for bliss, writing unreadable philosophical treaties. The highbrow, theoretically the most conscious subgroup of the species, are in the grip of nature too. Our learned brothers and sisters are as active as anyone else in ruining humanity’s future, having traded that extra baby for the ecstasies of understanding. Even when humans become aware of what they are doing to their species, will they choose otherwise, turning against themselves? Their individual urges seem much more genuine than that abstract aggregate called humankind.
If all living things strive to satisfy their innate urges, none ever forgets to go forth and multiply. They can’t: wild creatures are programmed to breed for nothing, certainly not for old-age care. Homo sapiens, exceptional by its brain, broke this rule. Though sex remains one of the most powerful human instincts, intelligence, or the contraceptives it invents, allows people the fun without the function. Evolution has made us the thinking beings who know how to trade blind multiplication for the good life. This unique intelligence could also, however, make us the only species to vanish on its own, smoothly, without any ecological disruption typical of all previous extinctions. This most-evolved animal constitutes, in many ways, evolution’s end of the road. The moment a wave hits its shore, it swiftly disappears.
Is this the inescapable destiny of all human-like species in the universe? Are we facing here the immutable law of nature that, so far, deprives us of (or saves us from) an ET visitor? The path humanity is taking may be common to all intelligent peoples in the cosmos, past, present and future. Look around: as soon as they can crawl to the moon, humans, now fat and happy, quickly become bored with both multiplying and space. Space budgets have gone down everywhere except in China, which is not yet rich and free. Further down the road, civilizations that have reached the advanced stage of, say, intergalactic travel may have lost interest in conquering the infinity beyond their skies. Perhaps they are too busy enjoying their remaining moments. How could anyone conquer the boundless anyway? That’s the stuff of kids. The old boys, for their part, prefer the good old funs of home. Why bothers going out if all you can see is the same cycle everywhere? Going to the stars to ensure the species’ survival sounds great, but what about the aftermath? Resettling in a faraway world to do what? To resume once there what’s happening right here and now: the moment people begin to take survival for granted, they can’t be bothered to breed even the minimum to maintain their species? Guaranteed survival for individuals may simply be the death knell of the group.
Human extinction won’t be the end of life on Earth. Life goes on with or without us. Other animals, the cats perhaps, will evolve to fill our place, develop technology, beat survival, love fun, have fewer offspring… You heard the story. A story of nature.