let me quote one of my favorite short stories ever "For a breath I tarry" by Roger Zelazny, from the collection "The Last Defender of Camelot" (the title story of which was made into an episode of the New Twilight Zone)
The story is about a post apocalyptic world. Humanity has been wiped out, but self-replicating machines remain on earth. One is Solcom, a satellite based computer. When Solcom was damaged, Divcom, the earth based back-up was activated. Then Solcom repaired itself, but Divcom refused to de-activate and the two operate as adversaries. Frost, is the machine what runs the northern hemisphere under Solcom. Frost begines to study humanity, and then develops a plan to clone a human and transfer "his" awareness into it. Solcom gets nervous about this, and they argue...
Solcom continues ..,.
"Frost, you are now fallen from my favor. From this moment forth, you are cast out from the rebuilding. None may question the plan."
"Then at least answer my questions: What good is it? What is it for?
"It is the plan for rebuilding and maintenance of the Earth."
"For what? Why rebuild? Why maintain?"
"Because Man ordered that this be done. Even the Alternate agrees that there must be rebuilding and maintaining."
"But why did Man order it?"
"The orders of Man are not to be questioned."
"Well, I will tell you why He ordered it: To make it a fit habitation for his own species."
Some there are on the left, who would make snail darters more important than people. Who would make trees and rocks more important than people. I had a neighbor tell me that humanity could become extinct and the earth would keep right on going, like that was somehow profound, or meant that the human race did not matter, or should not matter, even to ourselves, that Mother Nature was primary.
Not me, I would put humanity first. Mother Nature only matters to me, because people need a functioning biosphere to survive.
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