A couple of days ago the world record for deepest submarine dive ever was broken by an American explorer.
“It is almost indescribable how excited all of us are about achieving what we just did,” said the explorer. “This submarine and its mother ship, along with its extraordinarily talented expedition team, took marine technology to a ridiculously higher new level by diving – rapidly and repeatedly – into the deepest, harshest, area of the ocean.”
But besides a great ago boast opportunity for the explorer personally, and for humanity as a species, another thing was found by this expedition. During the 4 hours of scouting, the explorer spotted a plastic bag and candy wrappers on the seafloor in the deepest place on earth.

This story is very characteristic of humanity, breaking records which shouldn’t have been set in the first place, investing in the wrong scientific areas, reaching places they shouldn’t, discovering that they already reached them long ago in the shape of one of their most familiar features – pollution.

Deep ocean pollution is not really new. About two years ago, scientists have discovered that the amount of pollutants in the Mariana Trench – the deepest and one of the most remote locations on Earth – is higher than found in a heavily polluted Chinese river (50 times more pollutants were found among crustaceans who live in the trench – about 11 kilometers below sea level – compared to crustaceans who live in paddy fields near the Liaohe River, which is considered as one of the most polluted rivers in China).

How typical is it that humans “extraordinary” achievement of diving into the most remote and inaccessible place on the planet, has found an extraordinary levels of toxic pollution.
This achievement of reaching the deepest place on earth, which humans rather see as how far they can reach as a species, is actually a symbol of how deep their destructive effect on other sentient beings is.
Not even the very deepest depths of Earth’s oceans can escape mankind’s legacy of toxic pollution.
Our last post refereed to humans’ occupation of the sky, this one is an example of their occupation of the ocean, which is even wider in scale than previously thought. Even 11 kilometers deep in the ocean, humans manage to harm others.

Most of humanity sees reaching the Mariana trench as a great scientific achievement, similar to the moon landing, which they have and still are presenting as an iconic image of the human race. The moon landing legacy that humans wish to maintain is of an astonishing scientific, technological and organizational achievement, an inspiring demonstration of mankind’s ability to leave its origin planet, travel to another body in the solar system and return safely. What they consistently tend to omit are the motives behind the expedition, at what cost the achievement was gained, and mostly what could be achieved alternatively. The moon landing should actually be iconic only in the sense of showing how humans’ priorities are so distorted, preferring to waste huge amounts of money, energy and efforts which could have been invested in various important goals rather than on absolutely needless ones. Massive resources and systematic planning were not employed to abolish poverty and forced labor, provide health care, education, clean water and air for all, but to beat the enemy to the moon. So what can be learned about humans from the moon landing project is that they rather invest billions of dollars and their best minds to precede their enemies in a stupid space race than solve major problems on earth.

Similarly, the image of reaching the Mariana trench is iconic but not because humans have physically reached the deepest place on earth, but since their impact did. Despite how humans want to portrait themselves, not the image of a submarine in the most remote and inaccessible place on the planet is a characteristic image of the human race, but an image of a plastic bag in the most remote and inaccessible place on the planet is.

Of course the plastic bag in the Mariana trench is mainly symbolic and obviously the greatest harms humans are causing, and the most characteristic image of them, are factory farms. But it is still a genuine symbol and an evidence of humans’ limitless and borderless occupation of the planet, an occupation which will be far from over even if someday, somehow, each and every human would decide to go vegan. A scenario which us activists must realize would never happen and even if it would, we mustn’t wait for it but act so human tyranny would end as soon as possible, and by all means necessary.