0 surprise

It's really amazing how many people knew that they were destroying the world...and not only continued to do so, but accelerated it and covered it all up....just to see their wallets get fatter.

Kinda just makes you want to accelerate the decline faster. "Intelligent" life my ass.

Edit to add: remember the villains in Captain Planet? They were over-the-top cartoonishly evil, even for a cartoon. But I'm starting to think they were closer to reality than I wanted to believe.

Also there were some cool as actors among those villains. Dean Stockwell, Tim Curry, Jeff Goldblum....and then the regulars like Jim Cummings and John Ratzenberger...just a cool cast)

Well, of course—they want to sell more beef.

Is greed inherent to all life? It seems to me that all lifeforms compete, and if they gain intelligence that doesn't magically negate the "kill or be killed" mentality that worked for eons.

Life getting smart enough to kill everyone with technology is a good candidate for the Fermi Paradox.

This is an interesting perspective. I kinda like it, even though I hate it.