Humans top a list of 30 crea­tures that pos­sess what has been called the “God-giv­en gift” of intel­li­gence, of which there are more than 70 accept­ed def­i­n­i­tions. How­ev­er, thanks to a com­bi­na­tion of skewed val­ues, lack of empa­thy and just plain igno­rance, we’re in dan­ger of slip­ping down in the ratings.

Con­sid­er­ing that the ros­ter includes pigs, rats, lla­mas, hye­nas and a type of spi­der that prac­tices the arach­nid ver­sion of can­ni­bal­ism, that ought to be a bit of a worry.
The intel­li­gence of dogs, which rank well up on the list, varies by breed. One won­ders what cat­e­go­ry of humans pay a for­tune to “canine resorts” that offer, among oth­er things, mud baths and blue­ber­ry facials. And for those who real­ly do have more mon­ey than brains, one “resort’ will col­lect your dog in a Lamborghini.
Since dogs’ sense of smell is 10,000 times bet­ter than a human’s, a real treat for them is rid­ing with their head out the win­dow; it’s how they sur­vey and under­stand the world. They don’t care if it’s from hang­ing out of a $200K+ sports car, or a bat­tered pick­up truck.
If a web­site called Nextdoor.com is to be believed, it’s a good thing canines won the olfac­to­ry prize in the genes lot­tery. A “veg­an cou­ple” used the site to com­plain  about the smell of their neighbor’s bar­be­cue invad­ing their “meat-free radius.”
That (hope­ful­ly) must hold top spot on any of the wel­ter of silliness/fragility/entitlement scales invent­ed by humans so far.
                     BUT THEN AGAIN…
On a more seri­ous note, two years ago I wrote that in a world beset by prob­lems, there was some­thing to cel­e­brate – the 60^th anniver­sary of the Antarc­tic Treaty, which “ensured that one place on earth has nev­er seen war, the envi­ron­ment is ful­ly pro­tect­ed and sci­en­tif­ic research has pri­or­i­ty. It is arguably the most suc­cess­ful agree­ment of its kind.”

The orcas that ply the waters the treaty pro­tects also rank high on the intel­li­gence reg­is­ter. And they’re too smart to mess up the place where they live. It takes humans to wreck what their (alleged­ly) supe­ri­or intel­li­gence vowed to preserve.
Chi­na has built a new research sta­tion on the sev­enth con­ti­nent with­out sub­mit­ting the nec­es­sary envi­ron­men­tal evaluations. 
Russ­ian fish­ing ves­sels “spoof” their loca­tions to hide ille­gal fish­ing in pro­tect­ed south polar waters.
The Iran­ian mil­i­tary claims Tehran has “prop­er­ty rights” at the South Pole, and plans to build a per­ma­nent base in Antarctica.
Mean­while and every­where else, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence is rapid­ly super­sed­ing the genet­ic ver­sion. Cer­tain­ly sci­ence and many aspect of dai­ly life can be enhanced by the pow­er of AI. On the down­side, the rewards that come from hard work turn­ing inspi­ra­tion and ideas into real­i­ty, espe­cial­ly in the cre­ative arts, are lost. 
Does any­one real­ly believe AI can sur­pass the dex­ter­i­ty and men­tal prowess of the great musi­cal com­posers, chore­o­g­ra­phers or writ­ers whose cre­ations make us glow with joy, re-think our con­di­tion, nod with the sat­is­fac­tion of acquired wisdom?
And if AI is so smart, why hasn’t it fig­ured out how to deal with the mon­u­men­tal amount of destruc­tion and pol­lu­tion it cre­ates in order to “cre­ate”?
                 WHAT SEEMS TO MATTER
One would also expect that the species with the high­est lev­el of intel­li­gence to have evolved a high­er, or at least more bal­anced scale of val­ues than we seem to have managed.
Among the most admirable peo­ple I met in years of report­ing on dis­as­ters, both man-made and nat­ur­al, were aid work­ers who, if they were giv­en haz­ard, over­time and work­ing con­di­tions adjust­ments on their salaries, or paid union wages, would be more than any employ­er could afford.
By way of com­par­i­son, in 2023, the world’s top 50 ath­letes “hauled in an esti­mat­ed $3.44 billion…before tax­es and agents’ fees, up 16% from last year’s record of $2.97 bil­lion.” That’s before endorse­ments and oth­er easy money.
Six­teen of 2023’s 50 top-earn­ing ath­letes are under 30, includ­ing five who are 25 or younger.
No one should begrudge ath­letes and oth­er high­ly skilled peo­ple mak­ing a lot of mon­ey doing what they have spent years of their lives to perfect.
The ques­tion is, how much is enough?
It depends on per­spec­tive.
Aid agen­cies report­ed that the fund­ing gap for hunger appeals grew by 23 per­cent in 2023, with 65% of needs unmet at the begin­ning of 2024.
Mean­while, Amer­i­cans alone now spend more than half a bil­lion dol­lars each year on pet Hal­loween costumes.
George Bernard Shaw is cred­it­ed with the phrase “youth is wast­ed on the young”.
If the great Irish drama­tist was around today, he might have added that the gift of intel­li­gence has been squan­dered by humans in general.

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