what makes us unfit and unworthy as a species is our nature as humans, an example of which is the communally accepted extraction of value of one group of humans by another group of humans. some examples:
- the British extraction of colonial resources (at the heavy expense of the colonized) of literally every single British colony, ever. (I'm primarily thinking of India and Africa, here.) How many millions died due to British imperialism solely because keeping those people alive was less profitable than letting them starve? The British are joined by the French and the Spanish, here, if I'm being semi-inclusive.
- systemic racism.
- war for oil (war for money).
- class warfare, where the rich create policies and laws to keep themselves rich, and to make it more difficult for others to become rich.
- caste systems.
- the ultra-rich when contrasted against the ultra-poor. if humans were worth anything, extreme wealth inequality as seen today would never happen, ever. it simply would not be tolerated.
- slavery.
it would be one thing if humans simply didn't care about each other, but we take it several steps away from apathy deeply into malevolence: humanity will gladly devour entire races of other humans for land, or money, or power. I don't think animals do that, even on small scales.
leaders of small ape communities sometimes do things like this against an individual or two, but it doesn't become part of the culture of entire swaths of that species as it does with us. you may not live in a country with a caste system, but I bet you know what it is. you may not live in a country ravaged by the British, but I bet you know what they did. these things are familiar to us because we are familiar with ourselves at that level. we accept these things as they are happening instead of challenging these systems and stopping them.
our global culture knows what happens around the world, generally speaking, and our global culture does VERY little, if anything, to make any real changes to any of this.
a species worthy of existence would go well out of its way to right these wrongs. human life has inherent value, and if you are reading this, and you think it does not, you are an example of why we do not deserve to succeed as a species.
yes, MY worth is determined by me. and the worthiness of the collective species is determined by the collective species, and we are simply not worthy of leaving this planet or even surviving on this one.
we care about power. we care about money because it grants power. we somehow deeply NEED to feel superior to others, so we create systems which grant the power we crave. we "eat our own tail" by doing this, and will ultimately destroy ourselves, because no one is willing to care about it once they have attained any position of power over others. no one wants to give up their power to benefit others, so they don't, and we continue to demonstrate ourselves as a species unworthy of note, even on our home planet.