Conscience is a sickness that has made humans into something we are not. Generations upon generations of culture and religion have suppressed the human instinct, the animal instinct, and made us into something quite strange indeed. Our value system is completely inverted, so that suffering, pity, weakness and asceticism are seen as “good” while strength, affluence, success, and self-interest are seen as “bad.”

Is this not diametrically opposed to what we see in any other species besides the humans? When you see a weak or aging fish that is consumed by a stronger and healthier shark, do we not nod at Darwin and say, “well, survival of the fittest"? Do we expect the hyena to look at a sick antelope with pity and say, “let us spare him, he’s obviously ill”?

Of course not.

And yet this is precisely what we expect humans to do. In fact we see this pity, this lack of self interest, as a virtue, the distinguishing factor that makes us so much better, more evolved, refined, god-like, even, than all the other species on the planet.

Ridiculous.

Homo sapiens and their man-ape ancestors have been on this planet for millions of years. It is only in last several thousand that we acquired this thing called conscience, and yet it has changed us so radically, we seemed to have completely forgotten what we once were. Our animal instincts, which predate conscience by thousands of years and are still very much alive in us, are for some reason suppressed by this new ruler of mind and body. This thing called conscience in its present form tells us everything our instincts want is wrong. The natural drives our bodies urge us towards—food, pleasure, the will to power—all these are categorically termed wrong by this inverted system of morality that pervades our society. Conscience, this thing we are all so proud of, could very well mean our extinction if we end up being too smart for our own good.