"The human predicament was exceptional in that, empowered by a planetary larder of fossil fuels, they developed a global complex society, grew exuberantly at the expense of surrounding life, and collapsed a planetary life-support system. The consumer society selected for a phantom of happiness/purpose that the consumer bots were conditioned to pursue by working to make ‘money’ they use to consume products produced by an economic system NOT REMOTELY CLOSE TO SUSTAINABLE. Our collective unintended Calhoun rat-like experiment on ourselves is having what should be expected outcomes as our empire-building socio-economic pathology makes for a world of pathologies (or what was merely a world of wounds as Aldo Leopold noted) filled by human pathogens."
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Original Language: English
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Sources
Eric Lee's review of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Conqueror Worm" (first published on August 8, 2018; republished on Medium on November 11, 2025)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Environmental_degradation
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Environmental degradation
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