QUESTION: Right. Can I ask you about your position on the possibility of ecological constraints on the realisation of human needs? Do you think — even if there were the political will to achieve it — that it might be impossible, for ecological reasons, to provide the necessary conditions for continued human flourishing?
CHOMSKY: Humans may well be a nonviable organism.
QUESTION: Do you think they are?
CHOMSKY: It’s very likely. From an evolutionary point of view, higher intelligence seems to be maladaptive rather than adaptive. Biologically successful organisms have a rigid character and are well adapted to a certain environmental niche. If higher intelligence helped adaptation you would expect it to have arisen over and over again. However, it didn’t. It arose in a single, not particularly successful organism, Homo Sapiens. And while the human population exploded, human societies developed in a way that has caused enormous damage to the environment. The human race could destroy itself and much organic life as a result.