Will The Human Species Grow Up?

Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the Universe.

I have a message for future generations. And that is "please accept our apologies."
   —Kurt Vonnegut

 

When I consider the big questions, I read and speculate about astrobiology, which might be defined as "the study of the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe." Outside the fundamental laws of physics and cosmology, that just about covers everything as far as I'm concerned. Studying astrobiology gives one the gift of perspective. Life on Earth, and possibly elsewhere, can be viewed from the proper distance and in the proper time frame. Astrobiology straddles the dance of Chance and Necessity.

I ran across a passage from a book about astrobiology which I would like to share with you today. The book is Beyond UFOs by Jeffrey Bennett. I'll comment after the excerpt. I have listed some related posts at the end.

Chapter 10

A couple of chapters back, I offered you words from Christiaan Huygens and Carl Sagan, each explaining how new perspectives on our place in the universe should help us grow up as a civilization. But we have not grown up yet, a sad fact that we are reminded of everyday in the news, as we read about terrorists, hatred, wars, and abject poverty. A grown-up civilization would have learned to do better.

In fact, there's no guarantee that we'll ever grow up. We constantly discover new ideas and develop new technologies that could make the world a better place, but we seem as likely to put them to work for destructive as for constructive ends.

Sometimes, when I'm feeling down, I despair that as a species, we just don't care enough to realize our potential, and that centuries from now, archaeologists will sift through the ruins of our civilization and wonder what went wrong. In even deeper moments of angst, I fear that we'll do so much damage to our planet that we'll go the way of the dinosaurs, and it will be millions of years before the Earth sees another set of intelligent beings.

In these moments, I think of the art, the music, the dance, the literature, the sports, the science, and the other great things that humans have created...and I'm overcome with sadness at the thought that all would be lost forever.

I share these unhappy thoughts because I think they are important for everyone to contemplate. We need some global guilt. We need for everyone to look at the faces of children, and think about how we'll feel if they grow up in a world in which our civilization is collapsing because we, as individuals and as a society, made the wrong choices.

Sometimes, I picture future generations looking back at us, putting us on trial, and judging us for our sins. But then I remember that if we don't change, if we don't learn to grow up, there may be no future generations. There will be no one left to judge us-except perhaps God, who surely would not be pleased-so we must judge ourselves.

I think if we all take a hard look at our society today, we'll judge ourselves failures, not because we haven't done a lot of things right, but because we still do too many things wrong. It's only once we recognize our failures that we'll be able to turn them around, and prove ourselves worthy stewards of the incredible good fortune that we have inherited from generations past on this remarkable planet.

Think hard about those words—it's only once we recognize our failures that we'll be able to turn them around. In this message we find the only true Hope that the human species has. I'm well-known among the relative few who know me in life and on this blog as a pessimist, though I prefer the term realist. I often ridicule those who hold out false hopes in the face of overwhelming, relentless disasters caused by humans themselves, or as the Bennett put it, humans making the "wrong choices."

I am a pessimist because I don't think those "wrong choices" are choices at all. As I've said in the past,  Homo sapiens is a species, albeit misnamed, so what you see is what you get. And that is why in my view the one and only true Hope is very tenuous indeed. For example, will we humans stop our destruction of life in the oceans, and finally, the health of the oceans themselves? I find little convincing evidence that we will. I believe the growth urge is innate, and "harvesting" the oceans for all the animal life contained therein follows from that imperative, as does warming (and acidifying) the oceans by burning fossil fuels. Bennett refers to our "potential," but I believe that we are seeing that "potential" being played out right now in the 21st century.

Bennett says we need a sense of "global guilt." My preferred term is humility. We humans need to get realistic about our true powers and limitations pronto. Humbleness is required because, let's face it, Homo sapiens thinks it's pretty hot stuff. Our comeuppance is fast approaching, and it won't be pretty. We need to grow up, to mature as a species. I have a private visual joke I'll share with you. There's a group of Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis, left) and a group of paleolithic modern humans squared off, it's a lot like high school, as so much of human life is, and the human cheerleaders are out front, chanting—

Our team is red hot
Your team is doodley-squat!

And of course that's precisely the way it turned out. Homo sapiens came to dominate the planet. The Neanderthals are gone. Hot stuff.

Will the human species grow up? I doubt it, but there's always that one true but very slim Hope.

Related Posts

The Idiot Assumptions Of Mankind
Another Uninformed View Of The Human Prospect
Planet Stupid
Homo laeviculus — "Clueless Man"
Learning From The Aquacalypse

Also — You can watch various videos from Jeffrey Bennett at his website.

Bonus Video

 

Comments

[RobM]

"I am a pessimist because I don't think those "wrong choices" are choices at all."

I agree. Genes drive the behavior of life and they have only one objective: maximize reproduction by capturing as much resources as possible. We happened to exist in an unusual time of stable climate with a bunch a stored sunshine buried in the ground.

[Wanooski]

Actually recent evidence suggests that the Neanderthals interbred with nearly every group that migrated out of Africa. So don't be hatin'. Most of us got some Neanderthal in us.

[Dave Cohen]

Wanooksi --

I don't have the faintest idea how you came up with the notion that I was "hatin" on the Neanderthals.

I have nothing but the greatest respect for our now extinct hominin cousins. I've studied them and other topics in human evolution for many years now.

What it makes one think about is how very tiny differences in biology create one result and not another.

And of course, the post WASN'T ABOUT Neanderthals, WAS IT?

-- Dave

[Wanooski]

@Dave, Oh I know, but everyone seems to assume that modern humans exterminated them when it was more like they were absorbed into our population.

[Dave Cohen]

Yeah, right, we didn't EXTERMINATE them.

We killed the men and raped the women instead.

-- Dave

[shadowplay]

Dave, when I this document which was originally distributed to top investors in CitiGroup, I thought of your post on 'Plutonomy' (a word the authors of this report also employ:

http://jdeanicite.typepad.com/files/plutonomy-1.pdf

In light of that video with the unctuous Mr. Rastani, I thought it was appropriate.

As for the Neanderthals, I would have liked to have met some, along with our other homonid relatives. I would like to think it's possible that Neanderthal/Sapien interaction wasn't simply a violent confrontation. But that may just be wishful thinking.

[Tony Weddle]

I'm not sure that the growth urge is innate. For the first few hundred thousand years, this species of humans lived a sustainable existence. I suppose it's possible that the growth urge lay dormant until things like agriculture and cheap abundant energy activated it but I'd like to think that we could live sustainably. I don't think I'll see it in my lifetime, though (say, another 30 years), probably not even in my kids' lifetimes.

[Dave Cohen]

Re: dormant

I should note that my working assumption states that cheap, abundant energy and scientific advances enabled a latent tendency in our species. Growth curves have been exponential ever since.

I believe the dead giveaway in your post, Tony, is this--

"I'd like to think that we could live sustainably"

I'm sure you would. Some years ago I felt the same way. But all the evidence went the other way.

-- Dave

[JC]

"I share these unhappy thoughts because I think they are important for everyone to contemplate. We need some global guilt. We need for everyone to look at the faces of children, and think about how we'll feel if they grow up in a world in which our civilization is collapsing because we, as individuals and as a society, made the wrong choices."

Let's be honest here. Its tough to change, and tough to live with the amount of guilt required for the last 100 years as an individual or small group. Its tough enough to get a single person to change habits that are harming people he/she loves let alone a whole world of people. Real change is unlikely to happen with the real punishment.

I can get all over the map and be irrational. But what grounds me the most in terms of our situation is the amount of KILLING in the name of the US that is going on, has gone on - primarily so that I can live in an AC'd house, drive a nice inefficient car, and have insulation from real struggles.

[Gail]

Tim Murray, a writer I only know from the intertubes, sent me an email and allowed me to publish it. Very sweet, on the subject of collapse and how to deal with what I call pre-traumatic stress syndrome:

http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2011/09/coping-with-our-demise-by-tim-murra.html

[Warren Peace]

Nice find. Very well written. Human destructiveness isn't a bug, it's a feature.

@Tony: you might want to read this:

http://www.postcarbon.org/Reader/PCReader-Whybrow-Addictive.pdf

[Unbound]

The soundtrack for today's post could very well be Joseph Arthur's All of Our Hands. Lyrics below, audio link is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy8S_F3h9FY

All of Our Hands

Until we feed the starving, blood is on all of our hands
Babylon is burning and there is no promised land
Until we clothe the naked all of us are damned
Dreams are just for savages calling themselves men
And in time fire will rain down
On our head the sky will open up and life will be bled.

We are all the same spirit, we are all the same love
And still somehow we've chosen to slaughter the white dove
There is only one energy just different sets of clothes
For human beings to dress up in and protect what no one knows
So in time fire will rain down
On our head the sky will open up and life will be bled.

All of us will fall into the same hole
And all will reunite into the same soul
The death that we allow is the death that is our own
The murders we commit are committed in our home
So in time fire will rain down
On our heads the sky will open up and life will be bled.

Murdered by indifference, murdered by our greed
Murdered by our riches taken from the ones in need
Murdered in our churches and murdered by belief
We who just do nothing shall be murdered in our sleep
In time fire will rain down
On our heads the sky will open up and life will be bled.

Truth is just a word said to the ones who plead
What will we get back when we plant a poison seed?
Consumed by our consumption that can never be enough
The hungry are attacking, they are swallowing our bluff
And in time fire will rain down
On our head the sky will open up and life will be bled.

The victims are now victimizing, the world is inside out
Everyone is terrified the faithful are in doubt
Religion is a gimmick we want back the god they stole
But everyone is fighting to go deeper in the hole
Some believe salvation comes when the world is gone
But we have been forsaken, there is nowhere we belong
So in time fire will rain down
On our heads the sky will open up and life will be bled

[Gail]

Wow, Unbound. Consider it stolen. I can't believe it has had so few views...Perfect lyrics and soundtrack for my next video. I'm trying to arrange a ride on a hot air balloon where I am going to film the trees from above. It won't be pretty.