Humans are the Only Species …

The other day, a friend of mine on Facebook posted a photo of a protester holding a sign that read, “Humans are the only species that pay to live on this planet. WHY?” Following the photo, as per usual, was a rant against “greedy corporations.”

First, long before the idea of a corporation or land ownership or anything else modern, people traded and bartered for goods and services. We use money in our modern society, but humans for most of our very long history, have in one way or another purchased items for life from each other. It may have been that I have a cow and you have an orange tree so I traded milk for oranges.

But beyond this, let’s think about whether we truly want to model human society based on what other species do or do not do:

• No birth control. This is a current hot topic, but really, what other species uses it?
• Along those lines, in order for a man to be allowed to copulate with a woman — and she’ll have to be open to said copulation every time she ovulates — he will have to physically fight other men or develop something like peacock feathers and strut around in front of said ovulating woman.
• No more central heat, air conditioning or indoor plumbing.
• Give up your cars, bicycles and all other forms of transportation other than swimming or walking.
• Build your own house with no power tools.
• Build that house without tools made with any form of power tools.
• Quit your job to do nothing but hunt and garden and fight for resources.
• The weakest among us will have to be shoved to the side and allowed to be eaten by other animals.
• No more flower gardens.
• No one will be allowed to keep pets. In fact, you can’t have that cow I mentioned above because what other species keeps cows? Or dogs? Cats? Horses? You’re on your own. PETA will be happy.
• No music.
• No dancing.
• No alcohol. Or cigarettes.
• No ovens. And for that matter, no cooking food at all. You’re going to have to learn to eat all food (including any meat you are able to catch and kill) raw.
• No more books.
• Chuck the computers, e-readers, cell phones or anything else technological.
• No more school — forget college. You don’t even get preschool if we’re going to follow other species’ leads.
• Moms, if for some reason you can’t breast feed, you better find a surrogate who can or watch your babies starve to death.
• Coffee and chocolate? Nope.

I could go on, but I think I made my point. So, we can stop using any sort of currency or barter system and we’ll all just fend for ourselves the best we can. Hope you’re a good hunter with a green thumb.

Good luck!

Oh, one more thing: Researchers have observed chimpanzees going to war with each other. So, we can still do that!