The Human Race Is A Psychopath

Thought for the day: psychology hints at serial killers starting off with a loss or absence of empathy for others, and then working up to torturing and killing animals, before culminating in the torture or killing of humans. Isn't it interesting that this is also true for humans as a species?

As a unit, we torture and kill millions of animals per year - some for food, some for "sport", and some for no worthwhile reason at all - and it's all hand-waved away, excused and perfectly justified. We also torture and kill millions of our own kind per year - in concentration camps, purges, acts of persecution, by murder, and in wars and genocides, whether through direct action or direct inaction. And it too, is all excused, and justified.

The human race is a psychopath. Cruelty is our currency. Indifference a salve for our guilt. Religion provides both an opiate and motivation to rinse, repeat, do it all again.

So here's my question to you: What makes humanity worthy of continuity? What makes us deserving of life? Existence? The fact that some of us imagine we are "created in the image" of whatever fantasy deity we think made us?

Is it because we build things? Make music? Paint? Create art? Or is it because we also put the gifts nature bestowed upon us in the form of opposable thumbs and swollen brain-cases to other arts, more martial, malicious, and destructive in nature - and for some reason, equally celebrate both extremes - to their extremes?

Is it because some of us, at least, are plagued by guilt for actions and/or inactions that harmed others - but that this guilt itself can easily be assuaged by notions such as "forgiveness" or reducted by constructs like "moral justification", and could just as easily repeat ourselves and our actions or inactions all over again - telling ourselves that guilt is only temporary and can be shed later like a layer of old skin? Is it because we, unlike any other animal crawling, swimming or flying on this Earth, have the ability to project, displace or abdicate things like accountability, blame - and guilt - in order to justify continuing our existence?

If we were a product, we would be so flawed, so intrinsically broken that any manufacturer would recoil immediately, cry "Whoa!" - and then have every example pulled from the showroom floor and sent to the crusher for immediate disposal.

Evolution puts forth the theory of survival of the fittest. Well, sometimes that's not enough - sometimes, not even the most brutal, prolific killers get to continue their unrestrained tyranny of killing.

Sometimes nature itself will nip that shit in the bud, scrape out the petri-dish, sterilize it, and start over. Where would it begin?

Perhaps it would rub its chin thoughtfully and muse "Dolphins. Dolphins are nice. Or perhaps Orcas? Yes, that's it! Let's start with those - they do enjoy sinking yachts, don't they?"

Someone once said - I forget who - that if animals ever developed religion (and some have, according to anthropologists) humans would play the role of the Devil.

If we have ever earned any legacy as a species, then truly, that is it.