How vain is it to think we are above nature. Everything we have meddled with has only caused harm to us and to the real world. The real world is in charge, we are not. The real world will decide our fate, if we don't learn to live in the real world. All we have done is produced a fake world that has led us down a path of ultimate doom. It is one thing to love the illusion (as one might love a temporary high from drugs), it is another thing to buy into it! I don't think we are above nature and in the end nature will win, and we will destroy ourselves in this experiment we call "civilization". It is a fact (not a fantasy) that we have already destroyed many species of life and whole ecosystems. The ride to get to where some of us can bask in some "luxury" of our artificial world (on the backs of many slaves of the past and present), is not an indication of any "success". It is merely the false sense of "security" (a spell that we are under). It is so temporary in time. It will be washed away very soon, unless this "intelligence" we supposedly have comes to our aid. The way we have been living on this planet, I fail to see that happening at the present time. Please point to what we have done? We are "victims" of our own "intelligence". By walking away from our place in nature, we are dependent on our own simple species. That is truly scary, cuz the way in which society has evolved over the past several thousand years is not promising! It is very scary! Perhaps, by some miracle, it will turn around. But, it won't be with more of the same. It will be in a RETURN to a respect for nature. Sustainable farming, population control, not more mass consumerism, and "technological" mumbo jumbo (read profit motivated junk!). We need to get our act together, cuz we can't survive without nature, as much as we might dream about doing so! Time to wake up or die. It is a warning that we must heed, or we will be (should be) "taken out". Sorry, but that is the theme I get from this book.