Paraphrased from The Matrix maybe?

> I'd like to share a revelation I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to another area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure.

The earliest I remember in popular culture is from the first Matrix movie. And I’m sure they got it from somewhere else.

Anyone studying mathematical biology has also probably come to the same conclusion.

I've heard the idea expressed by many people in many different ways. Most versions compare our civilizations progress to a cancer or virus instead of just any old bacteria, because of the way we treat our environment. My favorite example is this[1] post about Factorio, which is a game in which you constantly add to a factory and expand to use more resources.

[1]https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/b6gsxp/spreading_...

Yes this has been around for a long time. Sometimes instead of bacteria it's viewed as a cancer because cancer is metabolic and will continue to grow until is destroys it's host.

a lot of people get these types of thoughts when high. I originally thought of humans like mold growing on a loaf of bread in my early 20s.