Ishmael: A Novel (Ishmael Series Book 1)

“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

“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.”

Man was born to turn the world into a paradise, but tragically he was born flawed. And so his paradise has always been spoiled by stupidity, greed, destructiveness, and shortsightedness.”

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.

WITH MAN GONE, WILL THERE BE HOPE FOR GORILLA?

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

“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 a

“It’s a sorry story you have there, a story of hopelessness and futility, a story in which there is literally nothing to be done. Man is flawed, so he keeps on screwing up what should be paradise, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You don’t know how to live so as to stop screwing up paradise, and there’s nothing you can do about that. So the

“Diversity is a survival factor for the community itself A community of a hundred million species can survive almost anything short of total global catastrophe.