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of a species emerges which happens to be more fit in dealing with environmental changes that have happened, or are about to take place, and so is the one that survives and procreates, gradually weeding out its competitors. The most 'fit' form survives, and the others perish. It is a simple, efficient, magnificent system.
    "The system, however, is based on the presence of mutations, on the fact that something goes wrong inside of every millionth cell. Usually, this 'thing that goes wrong', either dies out, or slightly improves the species. But let us just imagine for a moment what might happen if something went extremely, exceptionally wrong in one of those mutations. What if, by random chance, every, say, ten-millionth new species, a creature spawned from the system that could find a way to jump out of the system itself? Can you imagine the repercussions?
    "If, inside the system, a plant were to mutate and sprout an abnormally large leaf, it would suddenly convert more energy, grow better than its competitors and pass this trait onto its progeny, improving the overall state and function of the bionetwork that it's in. But if the plant were to find a way to jump outside of the system, to supersede evolution by growing legs and systematically plucking every one of its competitors from the ground, what would be improved then? This, of course, would no longer be 'natural selection'; it would be 'artificial selection', being done by the one species arrogantly choosing itself, making the obviously bias choice
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evolution. A catastrophe. Because once something is outside of that magnificent system, once it has taken arrogant control over it, there simply cannot be the same constant incremental improvement as there was inside of it - in fact, quite the contrary. Let's put it into an example of humans (for ease of understanding). Imagine there is a boat with various kinds of people on it. Let's say, a religious pacifist, a scientist, a doctor, and a murderer. And on this boat, there are only enough food rations for one of them to survive the journey. Let me ask you, who survives? Who lives to create a new society once they reach land, to pass their beliefs onto the next generation? Is it the kindest, most giving person? Is it the most moral, the most humane, the one with the highest sense of life, or of responsibility? Do you think the 'fittest' to survive that boat journey, would be the 'best' person, or the 'worst'?
    "So, to continue with the earth's history, as you've probably guessed from my speech, one of those rare depraved species did emerge, and subsequently, the world saw its first ever weapons, and within a fragment of time, the Neanderthals, of which I mentioned before, became extinct, along with every single other remaining hominid species that existed. They were all hunted down and systematically slaughtered by this new vile strain of being; a species that, for the first time in nature, seemed to realize the possibility of abusing its own power. And it certainly didn't stop at massacring its competitors, it moved on, decimating a staggering amount of other plant and animal life as well, adopting a disastrous conduct of excess, oppression, and destruction, even against its own kind."
    Harek stood and walked to the centre of the room, "So then," he stopped and put both of his hands behind his back, "as you've probably guessed, that species of which I speak, the hominid that hunted down and killed the others of its class, the murderer that made it to shore and created its sickened world there," he turned to look at me, his eyebrows raised slightly, sympathetically, "is, of course, us."
    Looking back, I think my reaction was to be expected. I just chuckled, shook my head. He had to be joking. In fact, I was sure he was joking, and seemed to be waiting for him to smile, to say something that would release the air of expectation. But he didn't. He only stared at me, gently nodding, until my smile began to fade into an