So, here we are again. Another day, another disaster that everyone saw coming but nobody stopped. This time, it’s Indonesia. The news is out. Floods and landslides ripped through the Batang Toru forest. It was a mess. Mud everywhere. Trees gone. And the death toll? It is ugly. More than 1,100 people are dead. That is a lot of people. But that is not even the part that has the internet crying.

The big story is the apes. The Tapanuli orangutans. They are the rarest great apes on the planet. There weren’t many of them to begin with. And now? Up to 11% of them are gone. Just like that. Wiped out by mud and logs. Poof.

Now, everyone is acting shocked. They are clutching their pearls. The government is suddenly very interested. They are "taking action" against the mining companies. They are sending investigators to look for "evidence." Let me save you some time, Sherlock. The evidence is the giant pile of mud where a village used to be. The evidence is the dead monkeys floating in the river. You don't need a magnifying glass to figure this out.

Here is the simple truth that these smart people in suits pretend not to know: If you dig big holes in the ground and cut down all the trees that hold the dirt in place, the dirt moves. It’s not magic. It’s gravity. When it rains, the water pushes the dirt. If there are no trees, the dirt slides. It slides right over the monkeys and right over the people. A five-year-old playing in a sandbox understands this. But apparently, mining executives and government regulators need a disaster to learn basic physics.

The report says the floods devastated the ecosystem. They are looking at whether the companies damaged the watersheds before the disaster. Do you hear how stupid that sounds? Of course they damaged it. That is what mining is. You don't get gold or shiny rocks by asking the earth nicely. You rip it open. You tear it up. You make a mess. And when you make a mess in a place that is "fragile," things break.

But now, after the fact, they want to play the blame game. They are scrutinizing the companies. Oh, I bet those CEOs are terrified. They are probably shaking in their expensive boots. Or maybe they are just writing a check to make the problem go away. That is usually how it works.

The conservationists are chiming in, too. They are calling these new measures "desperately needed." Talk about an understatement. It is like saying a guy on fire "desperately needs" a glass of water. It is a little late, folks. Where were these desperate measures last year? Or the year before? They were nowhere. Because protecting nature is boring. It doesn't make money. Digging stuff up makes money.

Think about that number: 11%. Imagine if 11% of the people in your town just vanished in a mudslide. You would be furious. You would want heads to roll. But here? It is just the cost of doing business. The world wants stuff. We want phones and cars and gadgets. To get that stuff, we need to dig. If a few rare apes have to die, well, that is just too bad. That is the brutal logic of the world.

And let’s not forget the 1,100 humans who died. They got buried in the same mud as the apes. But the headline focuses on the monkeys. Why? Because humans are cheap. There are billions of us. We are everywhere. We are not endangered; we are the ones doing the endangering. But a rare ape with fluffy orange hair? That makes people sad. It makes for a better story. It is cynical, but it is true. We care more about a cute animal than we do about the villagers who got crushed because a company wanted to make a quick buck.

So, Indonesia is cracking down. They are closing the barn door after the horse has already run away and fallen off a cliff. They will issue some fines. Maybe they will pause operations for a week. The companies will say they are sorry. They will promise to do better. They will plant a few trees for a photo op.

And then? The rain will stop. The mud will dry. The news cameras will leave. And the digging will start again. The machines will roar back to life. The remaining apes—the 89% that survived—will huddle in the few trees left, waiting for the next slide. Because nothing ever really changes. Greed is the only thing stronger than gravity. And stupidity? That is the most abundant resource we have.