The creature that wins against its environment destroys itself.

Gregory Bateson, "The Roots of Ecological Crisis"

And, course, death has that positive side. However good the man, he becomes a toxic around too long. The blackboard, where all the information accumulates, must be wiped off, and the pretty lettering be reduced to random chalky dust.

Evolution leads to climax: ecological saturation of all the possibilities of differentiation. Learning lads to the overpacked mind. By return to the unlearned and mass produced egg, the ongoing species clears its memory banks to be ready for the new.

Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature

There was once a Garden. It contained many hundreds of species. . . . there were two anthropoids who were more intelligent than the other animals. . . . On one of the trees there was a fruit very high up. . . . so they began to think purposively. . . . The he ape, Adam, went and got an empty box and put it under the tree. Adam and Even became almost drunk with excitement. This was the way to do things. Make a plan, ABC and you get D. They then began to specialize in doing things the planned way. In effect they cast out of the Garden the concept of their own total systemic nature and of its total systemic nature. . . . Pretty soon the topsoil disappeared. After that, several species of plants became "weeds" and some animals became "pests," and Adam found gardening much harder work . . . he said, "It's a vengeful God, I should never have eaten the apple. . . ." [Eve] heard a voice say, "In pain shalt thou bring forth. . . ."

Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind

If you put God outside and set him vis-a-vis his creation and if you have the idea that you are created in his image, you will logically and naturally see yourself as outside and against the things around you. And as you arrogate all mind to yourself, you will see the world around you as mindless and therefore not entitled to moral or ethical consideration. The environment will seem to be yours to exploit. Your survival unit will seem to be yours to exploit. Your survival unit will be you and your folks or conspecifics against the environment of other social units, other races and the fruits and vegetables.

If this is your estimate of your relation to nature and you have an advanced technology, your likelihood of survival will be that of a snowball in hell. You will die either of the toxic by-products of your own hate, or, simply, of overpopulation and overgrazing. The raw materials of the world are finite.

Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind