It's not that just some humans are "useless eaters", it's that all are, and the Goddess Gaia is clearly hard at work trying to rectify this situation with a variety of new bioweapons, i.e., AIDS, ebola, etc. which will soon, I'm sure, reduce the human population as is most necessary, by half, if not three-quarters, or perhaps just eliminate it all together -- to the wild applause of the rest of the Earth.
You do know she's been trying the same scheme for several hundred thousand years, right? As an artist, I think she's in a creative decline. Ebola is picturesque and flashy, but not all that scary unless your funeral rites involve lots of contact with the blood of your dearly departed. AIDS is more subtle, rather like syphlus before good antibiotics, but it's not her best work. Even SARS is Yet Another Coughed Contagion. If I recall correctly, smallpox got 90% of the American Indians who were exposed, and measles killed something like 1/3 of Roman citizens. Bubonic and pneumonic plague swept through European cities and wiped out huge numbers of people, and they're still with us, though mainly places with lousy public health and sanitation. And lets not forget her original innovation for discouraging cities, death-by-crapping-out-all-your-electrolytes.
If diseases get us, they won't be Gaia's work, but rather some of her more modern imitators in the bioweapons labs of various countries. Like every great artist, she's spawned a host of followers, mostly not too imaginative, but some of whom may take her ideas and techniques to undreamt-of levels.
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Harmon Seaver
--John (*cough, cough*) Kelsey, [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP: FA48 3237 9AD5 30AC EEDD BBC8 2A80 6948 4CAA F259
