CANCERISM
Why Humanity Is Earth’s Malignancy
Cancerism is the theory that humanity is not merely damaging the biosphere, but structurally replicating the behaviour of a malignant disease on a planetary scale.
Humanity as a Malignant Process
Cancer cells proliferate, consume resources, invade surrounding tissues, evade regulatory constraints and spread throughout the organism.
Cancerism asks whether Homo sapiens behaves in structurally comparable ways within the biosphere.
Uncontrolled growth
Resource appropriation
Ecological invasion
Evasion of natural constraints
Planetary metastasis
Destruction of the host
How Did the Malignancy Begin?
Cancerism traces the origin of this transformation to the abnormal evolutionary development of the human brain. Human intelligence allowed Homo sapiens to escape many ecological limits and dominate the environment, but not to understand and govern the immense complexity of the biosphere it disrupts.
The Evolutionary Paradox
The history of Homo sapiens is usually told as a story of progress. The same brain that produced language, science, agriculture, cities and technology also gave one species the power to override ecological limits on an unprecedented scale.
The evolutionary paradox is that the organ responsible for our extraordinary success may also have created the conditions for our ecological malignancy: exceptional intelligence without an equivalent capacity to understand and govern the complex systems on which life depends.
Start Here: The Planet’s Cancer
The Planet’s Cancer is the entry point to Cancerism: an introduction to the theory that humanity has become a malignant force within the biosphere.
Seven Books. One Theory.
Cancerism is developed across seven books that examine the same central problem from biological, evolutionary, historical, anthropological, sociological, philosophical and political perspectives.
Together, they trace the emergence, development and consequences of humanity’s transformation into a malignant force within the biosphere.
Critical Praise
“Bold, urgent, unforgettable.”
“Provocative and deeply philosophical.”
Jason Munoz, Reedsy Discovery
“An important and timeless work.”
Ashley Roby, Reedsy Discovery
Precursors of Cancerism
Across centuries, philosophers, scientists and writers anticipated fragments of the ideas that Cancerism later brought together into a unified theory.
