In my view, it is an indisputable fact that humans are an X that behave as if “opened” to the world without considering the world itself. However, behind this behaviour lies the fact that humans are truly “opened” to the world in an unlimited way, because throughout various domains, both in numbers and strength, humans have managed to conquer nature. They have done so by exploiting an evolutionary loophole, in a sense.

Every animal has a specific trait it evolves toward, driven by its purpose. For instance, in the Amazon rainforest, only a specific species of hummingbird can access the nectar of a certain flower, as only that species can spread its pollen. In essence, animals and plants—nature itself—evolve toward a purpose, trying to find the optimal form to fulfill that purpose. Yet, humans have had the advantage of adaptability. Our ancestors may have been good climbers, but they could also run at decent speeds, swim without drowning, and survive in various climatic conditions. Thus, during human evolution, while some traits may have become vestigial, humans never evolved solely for one particular purpose, unlike most species.

However, this versatility of humans was not always an advantage in nature. For thousands of years, humans were merely scavengers, eating the remains of animals. Although they had the power to fend off an animal attack, they lacked the strength to bring an animal down. They had the ability to move in water, but they weren’t fast enough to catch fish. They could escape from a mammoth, but they couldn’t catch a deer. This continued until humans began evolving away from brute force and started focusing on social and intellectual evolution. Once they adopted a more cooperative and intellectually-based approach, humans began to use their disadvantages to their advantage.

First, humans spread as far as they could and committed the first genocide in history, exterminating the human species that existed before them. This strengthened them both as a social unit and as a force in the world, leaving no competition. Then, humanity moved to every corner of the earth—from Australia to the Americas, from China to Africa. Along the way, they developed the first sense of social consciousness and culture. More durable technologies emerged, such as the knives and spears that replaced the stone tools used by primates, and humans began creating massive traps that could hunt without using physical strength. This marked the true beginning of humanity’s unstoppable progress. The first mammoth killed without a spear became proof of humanity’s boundless spread. Over time, fewer humans were needed to bring down mammoths, and fewer still to hunt lions. In short, nature could no longer stop humanity, and from that point on, humans did not stop either.

But does this only refer to humans opening up to the world physically? No, this situation led humanity into an impartial war. It’s now a matter of fact that the world belongs to humans. No one dares to claim, “This world is not ours,” because, in a sense, it has become ours. We have mixed with nature, our blood flowing through its rivers. We are the only beings that inhabit every type of flora, geography, and climate. However, we don’t just open up to the world for ourselves; we also try to push other animals through this purposeless evolutionary slope. We make animals forget their natural instincts, we domesticate them and get them used to a life of ease, severing their evolutionary paths. We shape nature to suit our whims. Yet, in doing so, we don’t forget to reward nature. We might transform wild oranges into mandarins, but we also go to the effort of spreading mandarins across the world. We may domesticate wolves into dogs, but we also bring dogs into cities, never parting from them. In short, our warped god complex doesn’t mean that if god were removed, everything would suddenly be perfect. If the world is ours, the responsibility for it is ours as well. Nevertheless, the world is far from a mere tool for satisfying our desires for power and conquest.

In conclusion, humans have opened up to the world in a manner that disregards the boundaries set by nature. They have conquered every corner of the earth, from the highest peaks to the deepest valleys, and domesticated every animal, from the fiercest to the gentlest. However, all of this has been achieved under nature’s roof, and despite how distorted and immoral it may be, humanity must stand by the hegemony it has established and face the consequences. These consequences are pushing us to the brink of the death of every god’s homeland. Because right now, we are unleashing a supernatural situation that nature has never shown before. We are stepping out of the box: we are launching space shuttles and expanding our conquest. As moral viruses, we must do so. To keep our developmental enterprise—what we call “progress”—from being exposed, we must continually throw coal into the development train. But whether we are moral or not is up for debate, though what’s undeniable is that we are viral. That’s why we are close to exhausting the coal we have. When the coal runs out, and only humans remain to fuel the train, I hope we’ll have understood our place and reached a resolution on the dominance we’ve built.

Why, you ask? Because the Industrial Revolution was not a revolution of our development. It was a revolution of language; the endless cycle of human development was given a new name: the Industrial Revolution. The moment humans felt the fire’s glow in their eyes, the moment the first drop of blood flowed between their fingers, the Industrial Revolution began. And since then, the speed of this evolution has only increased in the shadow of the sanctification humans give themselves. There is a two-million-year gap between the discovery of fire and electricity, only 100 years between electricity and the first screen, 60 years between the first screen and the internet, and artificial intelligence was even discovered 40 years before the internet. That means humans now feel the need to develop faster every second. Yet, nature does not speed up for humans. This allows humans, like a virus, to find time to inject their immoral morality into the veins of the world. Because while the word ‘morality’ might have come to the world with humans, so too did the words ‘immorality,’ ‘rape,’ ‘slavery,’ ‘discrimination,’ ‘injustice,’ and so on. Humans, in their moral shame, are no different from dogs burying their feces. And there is absolutely no virtue in that. Furthermore, a dog that buries its own feces gives itself the authority to bury anything it dislikes in its vicinity, just as we, after pouring our immorality into nature’s belly, try to cover it with our own morality. This way, we can melt away the boundaries set by nature with the “medicine” we call morality. And that’s why we can claim: “Yes, man is an X that behaves as if ‘opened’ to the world in an unlimited way.”