HELEN CALDICOTT: With all its wisdom, the human race is killing itself

From a historical perspective, Homo sapiens are an evolutionary aberrant.

Unlike other forms of life, armed with an opposing thumb and a highly developed and advanced neocortex, we have, over time, developed the capacity to destroy most organisms on planet Earth. This has been accomplished either with the energy of heat, light and power that exist inside the sun or, conversely, by slowly cooking the planet as we release fossil gases — carbon dioxide and methane.

These are the products of massive photosynthesis that millions of years ago trapped and combined carbon dioxide gas from the atmosphere into plants and organisms such as plankton and phytoplankton using chlorophyll and sunlight as catalysts. These ancient organisms were then subjected to massive geological pressures and, over eons of time, were compressed and converted into coal and oil.

Little did people know when they developed steam engines, motor cars and factories that were powered by these fossil fuels that within several centuries, such wonderful inventions which made life incredibly easy would, in the long run, threaten the biosphere with eventual extinction.

And ever since humans evolved, the male species has seen fit to harness the overwhelming power of testosterone to kill invading species, but more to the point, slaughter his fellow constituents for territorial gains, power plays and control dynamics. Yes, it is true that other male species will fight to the kill over mating imperatives, food or territorial control, but they have no access to reason, scientific knowledge and moral imperatives.

Commander of United States Strategic Command wants more nukes

On April 21, U.S. Admiral Charles Richard was all warning and concern, urging the U.S. Senate to consider a simple proposition.

Congruent with this history, it is obvious that as we became more obsessed with gaining scientific knowledge, such wisdom would be put to better methods of killing.

So where does the human race stand now? Nine countries now own nuclear weapons, with the USA and Russia greatly predominating, owning 94 per cent of all the approximately 14,000 in the world.

Some of the largest companies in the U.S. are obsessed with designing, developing and making the most exotic and lethal weapons in the world and, what’s more, increasingly using artificial intelligence to launch and control them.

It seems inevitable that any wonderful new invention will make its way into the killing sphere.

The U.S. now spends over one trillion dollars a year on potential murder, all dressed up in the name of “national defence” which is pure rubbish. Because let’s face it, America has no enemies, Russia has joined the capitalist sphere, China is, at the moment, a little belligerent but the U.S. more so with 800 military bases in 80 foreign countries.

For the human race to survive, it is imperative that we encourage and foster friendship with all nations on Earth, that we reign in the killing testosterone instinct, that women with their nurturing hormones rapidly take control of national governments and pursuant to the teachings of the great moral prophets – Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, and all others – that we rapidly learn to live in peace with each other. Or let’s face it, we are doomed and will take the wonders of billions of years of creation with us.