Intwo

“You may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not

1. hunt down your competitors,
2. destroy their food, or
3. deny them access to food.

In other words, you may compete buy you may not wage war.”

“As you’ve explained, the community of life would be destroyed if all species exempted themselves from the rules of competition laid down by this law. But what would happen if only one species exempted itself?” “You mean other than man?” “Yes. Of course it would have to possess an almost human cunning and determination. Suppose that you’re a hyena. Why should you share the game with those lazy, domineering lions? It happens again and again: You kill a zebra, and a lion comes along, drives you off, and helps himself while you sit around waiting for the leavings. Is that fair?” “I thought it was the other was around – the lions make the kill and the hyenas do the harassing.” “Lions make their own kills, of course, but they’re perfectly content to appropriate someone else’s if they can.” “Okay.” “So you’re fed up. What are you going to do about it?” “Exterminate the lions.” “And what’s the effect of this?” “Well… No more hassles.”

“What were the lions living on?” “The gazelles. The Zebras. The game.” “Now the lions are gone. How does this affect you?” “I see what you’re getting at. There’s more game for us.” “And when there’s more game for you?” I looked at him blankly. “All right. I was assuming you knew the ABC’s of ecology. In the natural community, whenever a population’s food supply increases, their population increases. As that population increases, its food supply decreases, and as its food supply decreases, that population decreases. This interaction between food populations and feeder populations is what keeps everything in balance.” “Okay. So, with the lions gone, there’s more food for hyenas, and our population grows. It grows to the point where game becomes scarce, then it begins to shrink.” “It would in ordinary circumstances, but you’ve changed those circumstances. You’ve decided the law of limited competition doesn’t apply to hyenas.” “Right. So we kill of our other competitors.” “Don’t make me drag it out of you one word at a time. I want you to work it out.”

“Okay. Let’s see. After we kill off our competitors for the game… out population grows until the game begins to get scarce. There are no more competitors to kill off, so we have to increase the game population… I can’t see hyenas going in for animal husbandry.” You’ve killed off your competitors for the game, but your game has competitors as well – competitors for the grasses. These are you competitors once removed. Kill them off and there’ll be more grass for your game.” “Right. More grass for the game means more game, more game means more hyenas, more hyenas means… what’s left to kill off?” Ishmael just raised his eyebrows at me. “There’s nothing left to kill off.” “Think.” I thought. “Okay. We’ve killed off our direct competitors and our competitors once removed. Now we can kill off our competitors twice removed – the plants that compete with the grasses for space and sunlight.” “That’s right. Then there will be more plants for your game and more game for you.”

“Funny… This is considered almost holy work by farmers and ranchers. Kill off everything you can’t eat. Kill off anything that eats what you eat. Kill off anything that doesn’t feed what you eat.” “It is holy work, in your culture. The more competitors you destroy, the more humans you can bring into the world, and that makes it about the holiest work there is. Once you exempt yourself from the law of limited competition, everything in the world except your food and the food for your food becomes an enemy to be exterminated.”

“As you see, one species exempting itself from this law has the same ultimate effect as all species exempting themselves. You end up with a community in which diversity is progressively destroyed in order to support the expansion of a single species.” “Yes. You have to end up where our culture has ended up – constantly eliminating competitors, constantly increasing your food supply, and constantly wondering what you’re going to do about the population explosion. How did you put it the other day? Something about increasing food production to feed an increasing population.” ” ‘Intensification of production to feed an increased population leads to a still greater increase in population.’ Peter Farb said it in humankind.” “You said it was a paradox?” “No, he said it was a paradox.” “Why?” Ishmael shrugged. “i’m sure he knows that any species in the wild will invariably expand to the extent that its food supply expands. But, as you know, Mother Culture teaches that such laws do not apply to man.”

Excerpt from the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn Wikipedia: Carrying capacity

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