Ishmael (Ishmael, #1)

by Daniel Quinn

“So the law promotes what?” “Diversity.” “Of course. And what’s the good of diversity?” “I don’t know. It’s certainly more…interesting.” “What’s wrong with a global community that consists of nothing but grass, gazelles, and lions? Or a global community that consists of nothing but rice and humans?” I gazed into space for a while. “I’d have to think that a community like that would be ecologically fragile. It would be highly vulnerable. Any change at all in existing conditions, and the whole thing would collapse.” Ishmael nodded. “Diversity is a survival factor for the community itself A community of a hundred million species can survive almost anything short of total global catastrophe. Within that hundred million will be thousands that could survive a global temperature drop of twenty degrees—which would be a lot more devastating than it sounds. Within that hundred million will be thousands that could survive a global temperature rise of twenty degrees. But a community of a hundred species or a thousand species has almost no survival value at all.” “True. And diversity is exactly what’s under attack here. Every day dozens of species disappear as a direct result of the way the Takers compete outside the law.”