In a not too distant future, our descendants, or even ourselves if we are lucky, will wake up one morning to have a fascinating day in a fascinating world. The environment will be sterile, free of germs, pests, worms or molds. There will be no annoyances like mosquitos, rain, high humidity, unbearable heat or cold. We will travel to our destinations clean, quiet and fast. We will have satisfying jobs, a huge variety of free time activities, and the two will blend seamlessly. We will be healthy and fit, not fearing heart failure, joint pains, digestive problems or dementia. We will be full of energy, in control of our psyche and personality. We will live curious, challenge seeking, dedicated lives. And we will occasionally remember how dark and barbaric our ancestors’ time was just a hundred years back: the times we now call Today.

But to get to this future, we need to overcome some obstacles. Among these obstacles, there is a thought-virus, a dangerous meme called the Gaia Mythos. In this essay, we are going to demonstrate how harmful this mythos is. Far from being a mere annoying antics, it kills millions and harms billions of people, postpones Mankind’s ascension to a post scarcity status, and endangers our survival. By the end of this essay, we hope you will agree that the Gaia Mythos is a religion, and quite primitive at that. A mythos we can do without, the sooner the better. Let’s dive right in.

Humans also think too much of themselves, hubris clouds their vision. They praise the objects or achievements science and technology creates for them, despite those represent no actual value. Men like consumption, comfort and technological marvels such as the Moon Landings. But since pursuing such goals does not create the satisfaction they hoped for, they push for more and more, entering a vicious cycle that leads to an eventual collapse.

Humans are part of nature, or rather, they were. Men betrayed Nature, lost contact with it, thus harmony is no longer maintained. Man, in his madness, not only commits suicide, but also endangers the planet itself, thus humans are a disease to the planet. Like a cancer, coming from the same body, once a part of it, but now consumes everything in its uncontrolled growth.

It is important to underline that this state of affairs is not presented as something temporary, stemming from our limited understanding. No, artificial products will never be as good as Natural. Natural foods or materials can never be mimicked, let alone surpassed, no matter how advanced our science gets. Natural is not just better suited for man or more efficient in some way, it holds some mysterious and unreproducible quality. In this sense, Nature is supernatural.

The core tenet of the Gaia Mythos is the existence of a mythical, elusive phenomenon called Nature. Everything Nature produces is Natural, engulfed with a certain quality. Nature is in the state of harmony and balance, everything happens in it is in accordance with Nature’s plan, every animal and plant knows its place and fulfils its role. On the flipside, everything man creates is artificial. Artificial foods, objects, lights, materials are not only inferior, but they are harming both their user and also Nature in various ways.

All of the statements listed above are either misleading, meaningless, false or a combination of those. In this section, we are going to go through the claims, and apply scientific knowledge and common sense to see how they fare.

Nature is physics, chemistry and biology, and nothing more. There is nothing in nature that would not adhere to scientific laws. Take food for example. A molecule is the same regardless of its origin, whether it is a plant or a factory. If a manufactured food is not as nutritious, which is often the case today, the reason for it is either missing molecules or the presence of unwanted molecules. If we would mimic the original food molecule by molecule, there would be no difference at all. But we don’t need to mimic every single molecule. As our knowledge extends, the important differences will be discovered and accounted for. It is merely a question of time before we can manufacture food just as good as natural, albeit probably different in composition. And progress does not even stop there. From that point on, we are going to develop better, more nutritious, healthier foods.

When this time comes is hard to pinpoint. It is well understood that the biochemistry of a human being is quite complex. However, it is impossible to miss the rate of progress in the area, despite its complexity. There is no doubt we will have a sophisticated understanding of genetics and biochemical processes at some point. But we don’t have to wait for it. Complex systems can be attacked by brute force, by the sheer number of manhours put into it, systematically examining each molecule and their combinations. With automation, this task is not at all impossible, and has actually been started.

But it is more than just biochemistry and physics, one could argue. Nature has a psychological effect too. Living in a city, sitting in a chair, in an office building with artificial lighting, without the sounds, scents and colors of nature cause great stress. This is all true, although greatly exaggerated. Stress is something we can tolerate, and there is a flipside to this coin, namely we live much better lives without many of the hardships we had to endure before civilization. However, the true counterargument is that it is, like food, just biochemistry and physics! Nature does not have this effect on us through some magical quality. It does so through our senses, sight, touch, smell. It affects us through biochemical processes in the brain. These physical stimuli can be imitated, or the effects can be, eventually, produced by other means. After all, as we discussed, a beam of light or a molecule is a beam of light or a molecule, regardless of their origin. If such stress is indeed a serious issue, we can expect science to provide a solution, perhaps in a form of imitation, medication, meditation, mental exercise or even genetic modification.

Since nature is just a set of complex processes embedded in the physical world, it is very hard to define its boundaries. One would have a hard time arguing that star-devouring black holes, pitch black empty spaces large enough to fit galaxies in, or planetary system wiping supernovae are somehow part of the harmony and balance. Volcanoes or forest fires caused by lightning are borderline. But under what logic or criteria would mankind be outside of nature? We have evolved just as any other animal. We eat and exploit other organisms, just as any other animal. We use tools, but so do some animals. We transform land, like beavers do. We construct complex structures to live in, just like ants or termites.

Granted, humans cause large scale change, which not many other life forms do. Not that they don’t try, mind you. Animals are not obeying some form of law or instructions given by Nature, they just try to get by. The main reason why life can go on for extended periods of time in an apparent equilibrium is the sheer scale of the Earth and its biosphere. There are millions of different biomes and countless species in all of them. Even if one species finds a way to upset the balance, which occasionally happens, the effects are almost always localized. Almost always. In fact the very first form of life, photosynthesizing bacteria, started with causing a mass extinction event called the Great Oxygen Catastrophe. The only reason why nobody fears the planet altering capacity of bears or pigeons is that they don’t possess one. These animals are quite incapable of doing anything large scale, as they are mostly irrelevant. Man is dangerous because man is capable. If we do something, everybody better listen, because we mean business.

And this pretty much invalidates the hubris accusations. Yes, we are prone hubris, but with a very good reason! At some point in the last century, after watching the impossible to happen again and again, we realised that we can probably do everything. No plans are too ambitious! We can walk on the Moon, we can cure all diseases, we can stop earthquakes, we can, finally, build the Tower of Babel. Maybe not today, but soon.

Creation, of course, has side effects. To build the cities and factories, cars and roads, power plants and mines, we do destroy large swaths of wildlife, or make the lives of uncountable animals much harder. Which is all right. All right for two main reasons. Reason number one is that this is how it is in “Nature”, cruelty is the law of the land if you are the wildlife. Mosquitos would not flinch learning they kill us with malaria. Dolphins kill fish for fun. The whole system is based on multiple layers of parasitism, the only non-parasites being photosynthesizing plants and bacteria. There is zero moral rules against poisoning the waters or the ground, it is routine. It is merely a practical issue.

Reason number two is that it is only a practical issue for now. Today we rely on nature, we use the air and rain it provides, we harvest the ocean for fish and other animals, we suffer the weather and eventually the rising sea levels. But not for very long. In many ways, we already have separated ourselves from nature. There are areas where agriculture is problematic or impossible due to climatic reasons, like minimal rainfall, low temperature or low lighting. We make up for what’s missing using irrigation, greenhouses and artificial lighting. We don’t hunt anymore, but keep animals in mostly closed buildings. We use heating and air conditioning. We use dams and forms of coastal management to control water. In a not so distant future, we will be able to control the climate, control the weather, relocate land to create more coasts where we want and how we want. Ocean level or disappearing species will not threaten us in any way.

One might wonder if the exhaustion argument is even intended to make sense. It is hard to know where to even start with that. We do want to exhaust resources. Logically, we pick the cheapest form of any resource, like mineral oil for energy, or a certain ore for lithium. We are not going to spare it just to not exhaust it, are we? We want to use up all of it, and then look for some other source, or recycling existing stocks in some way. The argument that when there is no more of it, prices will sharply rise, is an argument for or against what? If a resource runs out, and the next best alternative is five times as expensive, what is the proposed strategy? Not using it helps how? The only concern is to be prepared for a sudden increase in price when one source runs out. But this is hardly a challenging problem in a modern economy. In fact, we can expect our capabilities grow faster than the cost of accessing alternative sources, thus making resources cheaper and cheaper as we go. Even in a relatively close future, we foresee asteroid or core mining, as well as ocean filtration.

Before you let yourself be consumed by outrage, allow me clarify that we don’t advertise completely ignoring other living beings, and destroying them in the process. My point is that it is our choice, and there is neither necessity nor moral obligation to preserve a species or save any particular animal from suffering. However, there is a moral obligation to save people from suffering. Perhaps not an obligation, but certainly a more compelling goal on both emotional and rational level. We will get to the point when we can easily be the saviour and protector of life on this planet, as opposed to an extinction causing factor. Not sure anyone will care at that point, but the possibility is there. Until that time, however, we need to choose between us and other species, and the choice should be pretty clear.

Civilization, including the technological one, happens for a reason: we are building a better future. It is not greed or derangement that drives us, but the possibility to eliminate suffering and unnecessary death. Today, billions of people live in medieval or even tribal conditions. If we create the proper circumstances, these people can be brought up to western level, but it takes time. People living today will probably not see skyscrapers, air conditioning and computers becoming ubiquitous. But their grandchildren might, and this should be our focus and our goal. Hindering this process is a crime against humanity. It is baffling how can pandas or coral reefs be more important than hundreds of millions of people doomed to lifelong suffering and poverty.