Can Humans Avoid Going Extinct?
We evolved on the savannas of Africa where we were hunted by predators. After a hundred thousand years, or so, we turned the tables by becoming the dominant species on Earth.
Much more time went by until we learned to think of anything besides staying alive, and sex. Art came first, at least to a few prehistoric Michelangelos who painted and etched caves and glyphs around the world. Hunting and gathering produced primitive communism, in which men and women were equal and everyone shared the poverty. It gave way to agriculture, which allowed surpluses to accumulate and a hierarchy to take root in nearly every society.
How Smart is Smart Enough?
Is the human species smart enough to survive? IQ test scores were going up since the 1980s, but in 1997, they began a downward trend. The test has lost its relevance as variations in whites and people of color became apparent. This is not because POCs are dumber than whites, but it is due to a variety of reasons, including poorer schools, toxic chemicals, and lack of opportunities.
Standardized tests for college entrance also show biases and were dropped by the University of California. Unlike IQ ratings, the average scores for SAT and ACT tests, over time, were relatively uniform. Likewise, Graduate Record Exam tests that were once the gold standard for getting into graduate school have been dropped by 74 universities. The GRE also seems to discriminate against women and disadvantaged people. In addition, like most tests it has little correlation with actual performance in college or anywhere else.
Save the Humans by Saving the Biome
We can’t survive without saving the plants and animals, also known as the biome. Yet a worldwide extinction is predicted by many scientists. The sixth mass extinction which could wipe out one out of eight species is underway now. What is causing this mass extinction? We are. Habitats are being reduced daily and when we see wild animals, we are likely to kill them. Plants fare no better. They are ending up under concrete, as we proceed to pave the planet.
Crises that can kill us
Today, we are confronted with a variety of crises, which are lethal enough to wipe out our entire species. First, and foremost, is the climate crisis, which without a World War II style response can render the planet unlivable for humankind.
Then there is the growing threat of nuclear war which can plunge us into a nuclear winter in which crops and animals, and then humans will fade away.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists estimates that on their "Doomsday Clock” we are only 100 seconds away from nuclear catastrophe. Instead of providing free health care, ending poverty, and solving homelessness, the US leads the way to new records of military spending.
Mad scientists, who may have inadvertently caused the COVID-19 pandemic, continue to defend their experiments known as “gain of function,” which elevate viruses to the pandemic level, while Congress does nothing to stop them.
It’s been a long road from ancient times to 2021, but we keep making the same mistakes over and over, only now, new technology makes them far more dangerous.
Ancient cities filled with the coming together of tribes. Wars between city-states morphed into empires based on militarism. Science and the arts flourished in Rome and China, and smaller empires in the Americas, Africa and Asia. Living in a city massaged our senses in ways that country life could never do. However, it also reinforced hierarchies, including autocracy, paternalism, sexism, and chauvism, which led to insidious forms of racism under capitalism.
The Renaissance was a premonition of the rise of capitalism in the western world. The Sixties were a premonition of communism, in a world without scarcity. Some brains couldn’t handle the rapid change and resorted to knee jerk violence.
Will we survive or will we die?
Now we live in the age of technology, where old, established ways of doing things fall by the wayside, and new techniques, even new words, take their place. The failure of the human brain to adapt, and its subsequent breakdown is apparent with mass terrorism in defense of outdated religions, and solitary shooters whose only goal seems to be to kill as many people as possible.
While human life is on the verge of abundance for all, it strangely brings forth sweat shops, factories and mindless service jobs where people are reduced to an soporific existence. Meanwhile, a nearly psychotic drive for accumulation of wealth and power by an elite robs billions of a life worth living.
The question is whether we are reduced to this living hell because our peanut brains have reached the end of their ability to cope with novelty, or are we beginning a new transformative period of adjustment where we will finally see the light of unlimited malleability.
The 1960s – A New Dawn of Consciousness
If the Sixties can be seen as a portent of the future, dimly glimpsed, then we should study, not just its revolutionary zeal, but also its development of human psychology.
The Sixties saw new developments termed “The Human Potential Movement,” “self-actualization,” “transcendental meditation,” and other explorations of consciousness. Even 50 years ago, many individuals sought help in learning how to cope with new times and new ideas. Most of all, young people longed to be part of a new world that was on the horizon.
The growth of the study and use of psychedelia has also had a profound impact on our culture and on people, even if they have never taken a psychedelic. Powerful forms of marijuana are now legal on the Left Coast, and in many other states and nations.
In the Sixties, many of us thought that LSD and other psychedelics would immediately transform anyone who took a dose, and ultimately, the entire society. That didn’t happen. The experience wears off unless it is reinforced periodically.
It is, as Karl Marx pointed out, the material conditions that dominate the way we think and feel. In other words, if one lives in poverty, that fact will have a greater impact on the individual than an occasional hit of acid or eating some mushrooms.
The human condition will advance only when everyone lives in a state where their needs are met. Unfortunately, deadly crises loom against us just when we are on the verge of realizing a new world of abundance.
Four-dimensional thinking
Perhaps our nearness to breaking through to a new world without scarcity will encourage new ways of thinking. Too much of our thinking is three dimensional - length, width and height. Most of the time, most of us, don’t incorporate the fourth-dimension, time. Our important decisions are often based on current conditions continuing to exist forever.
Will our current enemies always be our enemies? Will Americans hate China in 50 years? in a hundred years? If not, why don’t we pursue a strategy to work with China for the betterment of humanity? Likewise, will we always have to deal with Donald Trump, Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema? If not, can we develop schemes to lessen their ability to do damage while on the political stage, instead of letting them infect us with hatred?
How can we become better, more effective people? Perhaps if we spend some time thinking about how the world, and our community will change over time, we’ll be able to promote positive aspects that will save us from extinction, and or, unhappiness.
There are many positive developments in the last few decades that make us more capable of surviving extinction. On the other hand, a powerful elite in the US, and much of the rest of the world, seems to care more for maintaining the status quo than in saving humanity. We are fast approaching a showdown that will determine whether the lifespan of our species will be short or long. If we want to survive, it will take the active engagement of millions, no, billions of us to become actively involved in our fast approaching fate.
Is it too late to save ourselves and our fellow beings? Only time will tell.
________________________________________
The Golden Age
The Golden Age
is not yet.
When it comes
our scribblings will be cast
into the rubbish bin.
Poetry has been
an indulgence of the kings
a diversion of the court
Then it was
a plaything of the rich
an irrelevant nonsense of
the literati.
Soon, soon, soon,
the world will swirl
with delight
Poets will race thru moonlight
to catch a whiff of genius
from the people
The People, Yes,
old Carl Sandburg,
but beyond your wildest dreams
No hog butchers here.
No steelworkers, molders,
auto workers.
That’s not the height of
human ingenuity or
dignity.
Our destiny is in the stars
and in each other.
-Jim Smith