E.O. Wilson and Ishmael

I find it interesting how E.O. Wilson and Ishmael have such a similar message. Ishmael teaches us that the law of life is that we eat/kill what we need, not for a 'pre-emptive strike' against, say, lions. We kill that which is not what we see as the immediate need for our survival.

So, for example, we kill off the annoying mosquitoes who bite and annoy us, the mosquitoes that do not aid us in our immediate need for survival. However, due to their extinction, the animals such as oh...perhaps fish fry who feed on the mosquito larvae die due to starvation. The fish fry, who grow to become fish that we eat, die out. All the other animals that feed on fish, such as falcons, bears, etc, die out due to the decrease in food supply.

Just by killing off a single species of tiny insects, we cause harm to the entire environment. And that, unfortunately is an incredibly quick, shallow view at what could happen if we wiped out a single species.

Now, Ishmael tells us that we Takers, guided by Mother Culture, are waging war on the planet, on anything that does not obey us (which is pretty much everything.) E.O Wilson aptly describes as a juggernaut. A juggernaut is a great, tremendous force; however, it is comparable to a tank. Though it 'conquers' what we desire to be conquered, its tracks leave deep imprints upon the earth, running over anything not directly related to its goal.

And indeed, that is what we humans do. We crush our 'opposition' through sheer brute force without consideration towards what we defeat. We have a great many species on our planet, but we are fast destroying them, at an acceleration comparable to that of gravity, as Ishmael noted, 9.8m/s.

Unless we realize this and try to stop breaking the law of life, that we kill only that which was set to kill, like a lion and its herd of antelope, we will continue to destroy our existence and our earth at the rate of 9/8m/s no matter how hard we 'flap our wings'.