Human beings are a Virus to the Earth

Human beings are a virus to the Earth. We humans share many different qualities with the virus and because of this we are slowly killing the Earth. This theory of humans being a virus, a disease, or a cancer to the planet originated mostly from the film The Matrix, which is by no means a factual or scientific source, but even so, makes a very interesting point on human society.

            The quote from The Matrix that makes this point is, “I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern: a virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure.” This is said by Agent Smith, a super-computer in a human shape.   

           

            This quote states three things about humans that are similar to that of a virus, we move around, we consume all of the natural resources of a particular place, and human’s population grows exponentially. This is similar to a virus because a virus moves from host to host, is slowly drains its host of its nutrients, and it grows exponentially.

           

            We pollute the planet, we take its resources, we kill other organisms on this planet more than any other organism, and we do it to every location we chose to inhabit. This never used to be a problem when our population wasn't large, nor when we didn't pollute the environment as much as we did. As our population increases the more pollution we produce and the more resources we consume.

           

            We are a virus to the Earth. We take as much as we want and never give back, we grow exponentially without any thought on how it will affect the environment, and we move from place to place slowly destroying the environment in all of these places. The only things that we can do to stop this is by conserving resources, polluting less, finding new and cleaner ways of producing energy.  Lastly, humans need to know that if we cause the earth to die, we will die with it, and there is no way around that. Our main difference with viruses is that humans have the abilities of choice and reason, which means we can chose to stop spreading and acting like a virus, whereas a viruses only purpose is to expand a consume.