“Famine isn’t unique to humans. All species are subject to it everywhere in the world. When the population of any species outstrips its food resources, that population declines until it’s once again in balance with its resources. Mother Culture says that humans should be exempt from that process, so when she finds a population that has outstripped

THERE ARE TIMES WHEN HAVING too much to say can be as dumbfounding as having too little.

“Next, the Takers systematically destroy their competitors’ food to make room for their own. Nothing like this occurs in the natural community. The rule there is: Take what you need, and leave the rest alone.”

First, they exterminate their competitors, which is something that never happens in the wild.

The most fundamental difference was that in Africa I was a member of a family—of a sort of family that the people of your culture haven’t known for thousands of years. If gorillas were capable of such an expression, they would tell you that their family is like a hand, of which they are the fingers. They are fully aware of being a family but are

“In order to become fully human, man had to pull himself out of the slime. And all this is the result. As the Takers see it, the gods gave man the same choice they gave Achilles: a brief life of glory or a long, uneventful life in obscurity. And the Takers chose a brief life of glory.” “Yes, that’s certainly how it’s understood. People just shrug

Ishmael thought for a moment. “Among the people of your culture, which want to destroy the world?” “Which want to destroy it? As far as I know, no one specifically wants to destroy the world.” “And yet you do destroy it, each of you. Each of you contributes daily to the destruction of the world.” “Yes, that’s so.” “Why don’t you stop?” I shrugged.

“ ‘Intensification of production to feed an increased population leads to a still greater increase in population.’ Peter Farb said it in Humankind.”

I will wrest the garden from the hands of the gods and order it anew so that it serves only my growth, and that will be good. And because these things are good, they must be done at any cost.