The latest post from Dan on Taognostic hits a zinger. A little taste:

Suppose that tomorrow, some sharks got fed up having to hunt for prey daily. They decide that nature is no longer sufficient for their needs. Instead of constantly staying on the move, the sharks decide to set up camp in one region where there is abundant prey to feed on. The sharks develop a net from surrounding materials and begin to catch hundreds of fish at once. They can’t eat everything they catch, so it becomes necessary for some shark to guard the fish that aren’t immediately eaten. This immediately disrupts the food web. The other creatures of the sea are puzzled as to why they can’t eat the fish that the shark are guarding. Many unnecessary deaths follow trying to protect the fish stocks and eventually the sharks realise that other predators are getting incredibly frustrated because the shark are catching all the available fish in the area. The shark realise that it would just be easier to wipe out the competition. So a widespread hierarchy is created with the commanding sharks at the top. These sharks draw up the plans and make sure the guard sharks do their job protecting the surplus. The other sharks are either sent off to kill competing species or are waiting at the bottom of the chain. Most sharks cannot catch their own fish anymore because the sharks using a net have taken all the fish. They are forced to submit to the ruling shark rules which means helping protect the fish and re-enforcing shark dominance. This is now the only way they can obtain food.

Eventually, the shark wipe out all of their competition. The sharks are happy as they have control over all the fish at the moment. But due to increased food supply, the shark population explodes and finally the fish population begins to decrease. The sharks give this some thought and finally realise that they should increase the amount of prey for the fish to eat. How can they do this? By exterminating all of the predators who eat the prey of the fish!

Can you see where this is heading? The shark community continues to expand, requiring more guard sharks. As the population grows, it requires more food, and the more food that is caught, the more the population grows. Population always expands to the available food supply. Finally the shark community gets to the point where they have exhausted nearly all fish and alternatives. The materials that were used to make their nets are also becoming rare. The problem is that all the sharks who relied on the net catchings can no longer remember how to hunt on their own. They have forgotten how to be a shark.

This all came about when the sharks decided to catch more fish than they needed, thus eliminating the need to go out and hunt daily. In doing this, they disrupted the careful balance around them, the same balance that is necessary throughout all life. It is clear that as soon as this balance is broken, there is only one way to go; more and more control until it’s all gone. The nature of balance, and thus the nature of life, says that you cannot stay just a little bit out of balance; you are either in natural pendulum balance, or falling towards complete imbalance. When you start taking without giving back, you enter a downward spiral. This story is chilling enough, but I have missed out a number of other large implications that the sharks would have had to face and the effects on their culture, should one arise. Instead, I will present these effects and implications to you in the form of another story. Unfortunately this is a true story: it is the story of man.