'I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and 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 and 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're a plague and we are the cure.' - Agent Smith to Morpheus, The Matrix, 1999
'I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and 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 and 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're a plague and we are the cure.' - Agent Smith to Morpheus, The Matrix, 1999
Of course, whoever wrote that line has apparently had no experience with invasive species.... Nutria are mammals (rodents) that eat grass down to the dirt and strip the bark off of trees until they have stripped the land bare of greenery and need to move on. Anywhere they go that they don't have natural predators, they absolutely are a plague of locusts... which are also an animal that acts by depleting all the resources and moving on. And that's just two of hundreds of types of animals that behave like that!
Animals don't instinctively search for balance. They search for resources, and they either hit upon some pattern that creates a balance by accident, or they go extinct. The difference with humans is that they're smart enough to understand it's a good idea to check their impulses once in a while.
Also, viruses evolve specifically not to kill their hosts because that helps them spread further when they don't strangle their golden goose. Even if viruses can be deadly, many older diseases were often far deadlier in the past (and not just because of better nutrition and healthcare), before they evolved to be less lethal.
Another problem with the "humans as disease" is that it's not really all of humanity doing this it's like 3 guys
Like it's more than three people but as a portion of the whole population it may as well be 3 guys. It's the richest of the rich 0.1% that's doing like 75% of the damage here.
Of course, whoever wrote that line has apparently had no experience with invasive species.... Nutria are mammals (rodents) that eat grass down to the dirt and strip the bark off of trees until they have stripped the land bare of greenery and need to move on. Anywhere they go that they don't have natural predators, they absolutely are a plague of locusts... which are also an animal that acts by depleting all the resources and moving on. And that's just two of hundreds of types of animals that behave like that!
Animals don't instinctively search for balance. They search for resources, and they either hit upon some pattern that creates a balance by accident, or they go extinct. The difference with humans is that they're smart enough to understand it's a good idea to check their impulses once in a while.
Also, viruses evolve specifically not to kill their hosts because that helps them spread further when they don't strangle their golden goose. Even if viruses can be deadly, many older diseases were often far deadlier in the past (and not just because of better nutrition and healthcare), before they evolved to be less lethal.
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