The name given to this new view of life, which extends far beyond the operation of HGT, is symbiosis. In opposition to the violent and competitive account of life’s emergence given by Darwinian evolution, symbiosis proposes that we are instead the product of cooperation, interaction and mutual dependence. This vision of life is profoundly ecologica

We need to see ourselves as part of a symbiotic, greater whole and start planning for a “long now” that looks deep into the future. This means changing the storytelling formula […] so that the main character is no longer the human but instead our planet.