All over the world, hundreds of thousands
of scientists and engineers devote their
skills to planning new and more efficient
ways for humans to kill each other: millions
of workers labour to manufacture instruments of
death; and tens of millions of soldiers train
for combat - and many actually go to war.

From a moral and even an economic point of view,
this vast investment of human ingenuity and
energy seems a tragic waste. And looming over
all these military preparations and counter-
preparations is humanity's ultimate threat,
the unleashing of full-scale nuclear war.

The obsessive focus on the threat of weapons as
the way to avoid war also binds us to the central
question: Is anything that the superpowers value
so important that it justifies risking the destruction
of their societies, the murder of hundreds of millions
of people, and the jeopardizing of our very species?

All we can do is hope that their ultimate choice will
be to enhance the life on the bright and lovely planet
on which billions of us share our adventure, rather
than choose to destroy it.

Pericles,

"The truly wise man will know what is right, do what is good, and therefore be happy".

Yours seems to me to be the most reasonable explanation of the way it is with humans on the earth. - I agree. (You seem like quite a wise person - wish I had your power of elucidation).

Arthur Koestler in "The Ghost in the Machine" likened the human condition to one of a rider and a horse without any connection between them.
He wrote : "The rise of the human neocortex is the only example of evolution providing a species with an organ which it does not know how to use. The actualization of its reasoning potentials has been obstructed...by the affect-based activities of the phylogenetically older structures in the nervous system. Inadequate co-ordination between the old and new structures made man's instinct and intellect fall out of step..."

Makes us very different from the other species we share the earth with.

Dear Pericles,

I think you are also a wise man. You generally make good sense.

"I'd rather be a could-be
If I cannot be an are;
Because a could-be is a maybe
Who is reaching for a star.
I'd rather be a has-been
Than a might-have- been, by far;
For a might-have-been has never been,
But a has was once an are!"

(Milton Berle).

Foxy - I love that word play. Funny stuff.

You might be able to help me with something. Years ago I read a book something like: The History of the Short Story. It had a grey cover and it included fables and all sorts of things.

In it, there was one fable in particular that I liked to think about - I can't recall it exactly and I have often searched for it but so far no success in finding the fable again, or the book of short stories (which I wish I could buy again.)

The fable went something like:

Two crows (or maybe vultures) were sitting on the bough of a tree overlooking all the bodies left on a battlefield at Waterloo.

One crow says to the other, "See how perfectly God has ordered everything to provide for our needs?"

Davidf:

http://www.thehistorychannel.com.au/tv-shows/lap-default.aspx

I rather like this though:

http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v8/n4/full/7400951.html

We're so far the only creatures capable of introspection and consideration of the effects of our actions. The rest of nature is brutal and often as cruel as any human could be. I don't imagine an Eden existing just because humanity doesn't. Species have always gone extinct whether or not humans had a hand in it.

I don't posit humanity as outside of nature and I think it's time for a new theme where we are not always considered the destroyers.

Other creatures are also capable of adaptation to us. I think that if we focused on it we would soon realize that symbiotic relationships exist with many other life forms and that not all that we construct or do has a negative impact.

I find it interesting that pessimists usually explain their view as being 'reality'; when my positive view is just as 'real'. Perhaps just less explored and acknowledged. Pessimists seem to me to expect the worst but don't often seem to hope for the best. As an optimist, I tend to expect the best but brace myself for the worst and hope it never happens

Dear Pynchme,

Both pessimists and optimists can call their views reality.

The programs sounded interesting, but we do not have cable so we will not see that channel.

I note the title was population 0. I wish they had written: human population 0. It's as though the other creatures don't count. One thing that bothered me in the reporting of the various wars we have been in is that when casualty figures are mentioned it is usually only our side.

One area which takes a great part of the charitable contributions of my wife and me is Bush Heritage Australia which is dedicated to buying up land for various ecosystems to preserve habitat.

One optimistic thought. Most of the biomass on the earth is in bacteria.