Josephus, I courteously asked you to clarify your post for me, and I received a sarcastic putdown in reply. Your reply reflects on you, not me. I won't ask you again to clarify, as you you clearly are not interested in genuinely addressing the point I raised. That's your choice, and your right.

Foxy, when you quoted "Let's go inside and watch TV, I'm beginning to feel insignificant", I thought you showed a depth of insight. Some of us understand the sheer insignificance of our species in the overall totality of all existence. Unfortunately there are others who can't understand this, and see our particular species as occupying a specially chosen position of superiority over every living natural life form in existence in the totality of all existence everywhere. They have this 'opinion' because of the many different ancient superstitions they follow, often without question. It's sad that they are like that, but it is of course their right to believe whatever they choose to believe, no matter how factually incorrect. I'll certainly defend their right to 'believe'.

Talk to the animals that would eat or kill you; see if they reason with you. At least Head hunters in PNG once might have considered you a meal but we have been able to reason with them. Crocodiles will never change their behaviour. Why? They do not posses human intelligence.

Josephus,

"....Crocodiles will never change their behaviour. Why? They do not posses human intelligence."

The following are from the opening lines of Noam Chomsky's "Hegemony or Survival":

"A few years ago, one of the great figures of contemporary biology, Ernst Mayr, published some reflections on the likelihood of success in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.He considered the prospect very low. His reasoning had to do with the adaptive value of what we call "higher intelligence", meaning the particular human form of higher intellectual organisation. Mayr estimated the number of species since the origin of life at about fifty billion, only one of which "achieved the kind of intelligence to establish a civilisation." It did so very recently, perhaps 100,000 years ago.....Mayr speculated that the human form of intellectual organisation may not be favoured by selection. The history of life on earth, he wrote, refutes the claim that "it is better to be smart than to be stupid," at least judging by biological success: beetles and bacteria, for example, are vastly more successful than humans in terms of survival. He also made the rather somber observation that "the average life expectancy of a species is about 100,000 years."
We are entering a period of human history that may provide an answer to the question of whether it is better to be smart than stupid. The most hopeful prospect is that the question will "not" be answered: if it receives a definite answer, that answer can only be that humans were a kind of "biological error," using their allotted 100,000 years to destroy themselves and, in the process, much else.
The species has surely developed the capacity to do just that, and a hypothetical extraterrestrial observer might well conclude that humans have demonstrated that capacity throughout their history, dramatically in the past few hundred years, with an assault on the environment that sustains life, on the diversity of more complex organisms, and with a cold and calculated savagery, on each other as well.

Hi JAYB, indeed I do. Outside the wire you develop a perfect understanding with everyone else in the section, it's as if we're all completely in sync with each other ? Consequently any superfluous chatter is quite redundant really ? Any unnecessary noise can only magnify the risk exponentially to both yourself and the rest of the section. Interestingly, one can almost 'sense' a potential contact before it actually happens ? No matter how low down the totem pole a bloke may be, the most junior rifleman even, very soon he develops his own sensory faculties to almost razor sharp, by the end of his tour ? I reckon you'd agree JAYB !

OSW: I reckon you'd agree JAYB

Yes I do mate, & I still had it even up until I retired with My abo mate & fellow Slingsman in Townsville. We knew when we wanted one another without even see one another. Even the other guys in the Workshop could see it work.

Even now I can tell the direction, how far, coming in or out, when there is a loud bang or sharp crack. Don't genuflect though. ;-) You know what I'm talking about.

Poirot,
About 6,000 years ago it was recorded that humans had a responsibility to the planet by nurturing plants and animals and even then they murdered each other in defiance of the plan for human society. They were told to procreate that was so they could manage the resources of the Planet. Because of human rebellion selfishness and abuse the end of mankind on Earth will end with plagues, disease and natural catastrophe. Man in the end will be held accountable for how he has managed the Earth. This is verifiable from ancient writings which you might not currently accept.