Our Unique Capacity for Mass Extermination

The Superior Human

Directed by Samuel McAnallen (2012)

Film Review

A short highly amusing documentary tackling the myth that human beings are superior to other species.

The film starts by making a list of so-called uniquely human skills and finding other animals who demonstrate equal or superior capabilities in the same areas.

Examples I found most impressive were termite architectural skills, an elephant who can paint his own self-portrait, crows who routinely invent and use tools, cats and dogs who can sniff out cancer and dolphins and prairie dogs with complex language skills. Experiments with prairie dogs indicate they communicate complex ideas with complicated grammatical constructs. For example: “The short man in the blue shirt is coming and he’s carrying a gun.”

According to filmmakers, the only truly unique skill possessed by human beings is their capacity to mass exterminate other life forms.

12 thoughts on “Our Unique Capacity for Mass Extermination

  1. Holst’s The Planets, an excellent choice, especially the sound quote from Mars, “The Bringer of War.”

    Have only watched a portion as of yet, but it would appear that if we are “the pinnacle of evolution, then natural selection is a lousy god, just like all the rest;-)

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    • I don’t believe that humans are the pinnacle of evolution. I believe the biggest mistake our species has made is to see ourselves as separate from nature. Hell we all contain ten times as many bacterial cells as cells containing human DNA. Fortunately this seems to be changing now.

      Despite all our technological advances, human beings have made absolutely no progress in ethical behavior. I have a strong sense this could change once we accept that we are merely a part of nature, rather than superior to it. I see a strong link between arrogance and immoral behavior. People (men especially) get so full of themselves they decide the rules of basic decency no longer apply to them.

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  2. I would not label all of humanity, however certain segments of the population certainly exemplify the trait for mass extinction capacity, such as institutions and their employed so called scientists:
    BILLIONS of money forever available for bailouts, for wars, and for experiments; but never to shelter and feed the poor…

    WHAT Is CERN LHC?
    The World’s Most Expensive Experiment, Ever!
    Controlled by the Quantum (A.I.) Computer…

    And a brief report that shares what the so called scientists at CERN said:

    Quote:
    “CERN is currently in the process of cranking up the Large Hadron Collider — the largest machine man has ever built — to 13TeV, the highest known energy level humans have ever used in a particle collider experiment in known modern history.

    What are they searching for?
    According to this hipster physicist in skinny jeans over at CERN, “things like dark matter, dark energy, super symmetry, quantum black holes, large extra dimensions”…

    Everything you need to know about what CERN is doing can be summed up in the short statements of this CERN physicist at the LHC, which he finishes in a rather blasé tone with, “We don’t know what we’re going to find at 13 TeV at the LHC.”

    Gee. Sounds great.” – http://truthstreammedia.com/2015/09/16/deep-red-auroras-is-cern-actually-interfering-with-earths-protective-magnetosphere/

    *[However, CERN are hiding secrets, and the truth details serious undisclosed potential worldwide climatic and geophysical hazards… ~Ron]

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  3. It is very usefull documentary,my Earthling friend. At 9th minutes of documentry, the crow was using the tool. Actually, the part title would have been making tool, not using. Because the crows do have the making tool ability. The hook which we saw at 9th minutes actually is made by crow. I saw a documentry about this. A crow in the nature was finding a worm inside a tree log and it was making a hook from straight bush by bowing. After, it used it for catching worm.

    And at the same documentry crows were using the train. In Germany, the crows are using the train for going to forest area. They are waiting the train like every passenger, and when it passes they jump to train and they came to the forest they fly towards the trees. These are not the instinctive abilities. These are learned abilities.

    So many of them very intelligence more than human being. But human being thinks him/herself “I am superior.” It seems kind a joke. I belive especially the dolphins are laughing very much to this human thought:)

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