# Why Did Humans Endanger Other Intelligent Lineages by Ajit Varki > “So why are we not competing with other lineages with humanlike cognition, and have instead endangered them all by taking over the entire biosphere?” > **— Ajit Varki**, *“Did Human Reality Denial Breach the Evolutionary Psychological Barrier of Mortality Salience?”, 2019* ## Sources and Context - **Open-access scholarly chapter and full question:** [Ajit Varki, “Did Human Reality Denial Breach the Evolutionary Psychological Barrier of Mortality Salience?” (2019)](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-25466-7_6) — Varki poses this question about human dominance before advancing a proposed cognitive-barrier theory. The question does not establish that theory; the chapter acknowledges limits on direct experimental falsification and credits Danny Brower with a formative question behind the proposal. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Consciousness Continuity|Consciousness Continuity]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley|The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley]] - **Article:** [[articles/Humans and AIs as Entangled Learning Systems|Humans and AIs as Entangled Learning Systems]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Human Animality|Human Animality]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Ajit Varki|Ajit Varki]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “So why are we not competing with other lineages with humanlike cognition, and have instead endangered them all by taking over the entire biosphere?” — Ajit Varki, “Did Human Reality Denial Breach the Evolutionary Psychological Barrier of Mortality Salience?”, 2019 https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-varki-endangered-intelligent-lineages ```