Quotes About Survival

Cuando aparecieron la agricultura y la industria, la gente pudo basarse cada vez más en las habilidades de los demás para sobrevivir, y se abrieron nuevos «nichos para imbéciles».

The Agricultural Revolution was history's biggest fraud. Who was responsible? Neither kings, nor priests, nor merchants. The culprits were a handful or plant species, including wheat, rice and potatoes. These plants domesticated Homo Sapiens, rather than vice versa.

Some people fear that today we are again in mortal danger of massive volcanic eruptions or colliding asteroids. Hollywood producers make billions out of these anxieties. Yes, a big asteroid will probably hit our planet sometime in the next 100 million years, but it is very unlikely to happen next Tuesday. Instead of fearing asteroids, we should fear ourselves.

But looking at the historical facts, Homo sapiens most closely resembles an ecological serial killer

lions; and on the other hand, the imagined reality of gods, nations and corporations. As time went by, the imagined reality became ever more powerful, so that today the very survival of rivers, trees and lions depends on the grace of imagined entities such as the United States and Google.

It is doubtful whether Homo sapiens will still be around a thousand years from now, so 2 million years is really out of our league.

And if you spend hours praying to non-existing guardian spirits, aren't you wasting precious time, time better spent foraging, fighting and fornicating?

Your feelings are the voice of millions of ancestors, each of whom managed to survive and reproduce in an unforgiving environment. Your

Unfortunately, the evolutionary perspective is an incomplete measure of success. It judges everything by the criteria of survival and reproduction, with no regard for individual suffering and happiness.

Domesticated chickens and cattle may well be an evolutionary success story, but they are also among the most miserable creatures that ever lived.

A rare wild rhinoceros on the brink of extinction is probably more satisfied than a calf who spends its short life inside a tiny box, fattened to produce juicy steaks.

When agriculture and industry came along people could increasingly rely on the skills of others for survival, and new 'niches for imbeciles' were opened up.

Perhaps 65 million years from now, intelligent rats will look back gratefully on the decimation wrought by humankind, just as we today can thank that dinosaur-busting asteroid.

If we knew how many species we've already eradicated, we might be more motivated to protect those that still survive.

it is far from clear that billions of people would be able to repeatedly reinvent themselves without losing their mental balance.

Homo sapiens held the record among all organisms for driving the most plant and animal species to their extinctions. We have the dubious distinction of being the deadliest species in the annals of biology.

In the century following the Cook expedition, the most fertile lands of Australia and New Zealand were taken from their previous inhabitants by European settlers. The native population dropped by up to 90 per cent and the survivors were subjected to a harsh regime of racial oppression. For the Aborigines of Australia and the Maoris of New Zealand, the Cook expedition was the beginning of a catastrophe from which they have never recovered.

Today there are many species of foxes, bears and pigs. The earth of a hundred millennia ago was walked by at least six different species of man.

In evolutionary terms, cattle represent one of the most successful animal species ever to exist. At the same time, they are some of the most miserable animals on the planet.

This is the essence of the Agricultural Revolution: the ability to keep more people alive under worse conditions

It was only 400,000 years ago that several species of man began to hunt large game on a regular basis,

La hambruna, la peste y la guerra coparon siempre los primeros puestos de la lista. Generación tras generación, los seres humanos rezaron a todos los dioses, ángeles y santos, e inventaron innumerables utensilios, instituciones y sistemas sociales…, pero siguieron muriendo por millones a causa del hambre, las epidemias y la violencia.

But humans enjoyed all of these advantages for a full 2 million years during which they remained weak and marginal creatures. Thus humans who lived a million years ago, despite their big brains and sharp stone tools, dwelt in constant fear of predators, rarely hunted large game, and subsisted mainly by gathering plants, scooping up insects, stalking small animals, and eating the carrion left behind by other more powerful carnivores.

Under liberalism, went a famous quip, everyone is free to starve.