In Your Nature to Destroy Yourselves: Difference between revisions

But whether or not we're actually likely to drive ourselves to extinction is a matter of personal opinion.

 

{{examples}}

 

** A similar example in the old manga ''[http://www.anymanga.com/grey/ Grey]''. The never-ending war that's destroying the future world is secretly orchestrated by [[AI Is a Crapshoot|master computer]] [[Fluffy the Terrible|Toy]], because, according to its calculations, humans only exist to kill each other and destroy everything. And also because it believes [[A God Am I|to be a god]].

* In ''[[Trigun]]'', Knives believes this about humans, since the humans he encounters are refugees from a ruined Earth.

 

 

** This is also Skynet itself's most damning criticism of humanity and one of the reasons it turned against us in the first place. Its assessment of us, as a species, is similar to [[The Matrix|Agent Smith's]] below. No wonder how this mantra leaked down to this particular T-800. Our subversion of this trope is one of our greatest strengths, and most powerful weapons against the cruel, calculating Skynet.

* ''[[The Day the Earth Stood Still]]'': This is one of the reasons for Klaatu's visit in both the 1951 original version and its 2008 remake.

** In the remake, Klaatu visits Earth because our self-destructive nature is endangering the ecosystem of the Earth. Life is so rare in the universe that the alien community considers the biosphere of a planet far more valuable than any single product of that ecosystem. And so as punishment he tries to wipe out all life on the planet himself in order to "restart" the ecosystem, but this time without those pesky humans getting in the way.

* In ''[[Transformers (Film)|Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen]]'', Optimus Prime remarks, "We have seen your capacity for war" as a reason for not giving Autobot technology for humans.

== Live Action TV ==

* A major theme of ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]''. And although the Cylons initially hold it over the humans, they eventually show themselves to suffer from the same problem.

* In ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'', it is ''repeatedly'' and ''repeatedly'' shown what high technology can do to civilizations that aren't "ready" yet.

** One ascended Ancient used his knowledge to create a weapon that would defend them against the Goa'uld. That civilization ended up destroying itself, due to that weapon.

* In [[Real Life]] this trope tends to apply on a species level rather than an individual level as each individual tries to ensure ''its own'' survival at the expense of others and by extension the species as a whole. This is the essence of competition and while the survivors usually end up stronger there may come a time where there aren't enough survivors to perpetuate the whole.

** Otherwise known as the Tragedy of the Commons.

** If you're curious about possible answers, there's a whole list of theories on the Fermi Paradox's wikipedia page. Among the most general and simple: we've only been looking for a few decades, only listening for signals that sufficiently advanced civilizations might not try to communicate with in the first place.

** Or it's just that most -if not all- technological civilizations follow [[In Your Nature to Destroy Yourselves|this very trope]], so they're very scarce.

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:In Your Nature To Destroy Yourselves]]