From top: Dublin city centre yesterday; Anthony Sheridan

At first, the humans blamed the rat for bringing the Black Death plague that killed about 100 million over the centuries.

Then the humans decided it wasn’t the rat but the fleas hitching a ride on the rats that were to blame. Then, much later, they learned it wasn’t the fleas but a bacterium hiding out in the fleas that was responsible.

But humans weren’t the only ones observing such things.

The clever bacterium, through the process of evolution, realised that killing too many of its human hosts would mean self-extinction so it evolved into a less deadly virus.

Then, in 1918, the virus lost the run of itself again, killing between 20 and 50 million humans. So, once again in order to survive, it evolved into a milder pathogen that’s still killing humans today but not so many that its survival is threatened.

In 2009, for example, it killed a mere 284,000 humans, just enough to keep it going while keeping its human stock available for future consumption.

The current model, Covid 19, has killed over 400,000 so an easing off should kick in some time soon. So we can see – the virus learns lessons as it progresses, it has learned how to control its greed in order to guarantee its long-term survival.

Sadly, humans are not as clever. About 12,000 years ago they created a deadly virus called Capitalism. For thousands of years this virus was benign, it did little or no harm and humans came to love the benefits it brought.

But then the virus became malignant around the time humans call the Industrial Revolution. It turned in on itself and began to voraciously consume nature, its creator and only means of survival.

But, unlike the clever plague virus, humans have failed miserably to evolve a strategy that would allow them to continue enjoying the benefits of the capitalist virus while at the same time ensuring their long-term survival.

Instead, they have become hopelessly addicted to the all powerful, all consuming virus that’s leading them ever closer to the abyss.

Of course, there are plenty of humans only too aware of the impending disaster but, tragically, not enough to derail the juggernaut virus that is capitalism. The human created virus is out of control, rapidly consuming its own existence.

Here are some really scary quotes from experts who are trying to sound the alarm.

‘Vested interests and corrupt politicians combined with a population happy to deny problems overwhelm those that are trying to promulgate truth and facts.’

‘No amount of economic cost–benefit analysis is going to help us.’

‘We’re currently consuming resources as if there were four Earths.’

‘We are in a state of planetary emergency.’

‘On the current trajectory we’re possibly gone already.’

And these experts are not the only ones worried. The Black Death virus that has so successfully evolved survival strategies over the centuries is now facing extinction when [not if] the capitalist virus extinguishes humanity.

Who’s going to take the blame then?

Anthony Sheridan is a freelance journalist and blogs at  Public Enquiry.

Humans: Not AS Clever As The Virus (BackGardenPhilosophy)

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