We will use our talents or we will lose them. We will use our talents to save ourselves or we'll do what other animal species do sooner or later. We will continue turning as much of the world to our use as we can. Technology helps us to do this faster, more thoroughly, and more disastrously than any animal species could. At some point, this must end.
Earth is finite.
Consciously or unconsciously, we must decide whether, in all our intelligence and industry, we choose to be no more than, as Olamina says in Parable of the Sower, smooth dinosaurs. Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents were originally intended to be only one book. I knew what I wanted to do, as Olamina knew what she wanted to do. But like Olamina, I didn't know how to do it. I had written the events of Parable of the Sower and perhaps seventy-five pages more when I realized that I had a much longer book than I had planned.