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Has the human race failed? [1]
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Date: 2022-09-06
The reason I ask if the human race has failed is not because a lot of bad stuff is happening. Bad stuff has always been happening. The reason is that after millennia the human race has a lot more capability to do something about it, but we are not doing it.
It is well known that for most of human history the human race lived as hunter gatherers (foragers might be a better term). The groups of people were mostly (but not always) small, and the societies were mostly (but not always) egalitarian. Some have even been described as “the original affluent society”, because in a favorable environment they could satisfy all their needs without a large amount of work.
There were still many things that could go wrong. Disease, accidents, and natural disasters were always there. There was violence by humans directed at other humans. The amount of violence in Paleolithic and Neolithic societies is greatly disputed. It most likely varied from place to place and culture to culture.
People were loyal to their clan or tribe, and supported it if any conflicts with other groups arose. Religions were invented that used the actions of spiritual beings to try to explain or deal with a world that was hard to control or understand.
Eventually new ways of life appeared. Agriculture was invented independently in many places.
Agriculture brought a lot of new features to life, some good, some bad. We got writing, which eventually led to things like philosophy, science, and technology. But we also got things like aristocracy, monarchy, greatly increased inequality, large scale warfare, and large scale forced servitude, whether it was serfdom or outright slavery. The concept of property changed tremendously. The idea of property as the material things an individual uses to support their life is a fairly natural thing. But with agriculture and greater hierarchy comes the idea that a single individual could own and control all the wealth of 10000 acres of land, an area far more than that individual could work themselves. How does one gain access to such ownership? I can only guess that at some point someone was able to organize enough force to control it, then help establish a state that could formalize and enforce that right.
The force of tribalism took on new forms, with states trying to make larger tribes. Now the human race had to deal with rulers as well as with tribal issues as sources of violence or oppression.
A pattern had arisen that most people would be a part of for the last 5000 years. A few people enjoyed wealth and power, and most people were poor and worked to support the oligarchy. There was always a middle class that weren’t as poor as the peasants, but they too mostly worked directly or indirectly to support the oligarchy.
Over time, some of the middle class began to produce scholars, and some of these started trying to create ways to improve the lot of the average person. Religion changed, and secular philosophies were invented.
The idea of a universal religion that was the same for the whole world appeared. Some leaders of these new religions promoted a universal morality, a morality that applied to all people, not just your own tribe or group. These religions could not do much to improve the day to day lives of most people, so they tried to offer people hope of an afterlife in a perfect divine realm.
Experiments in government tried to produce something better than the whims of a ruler. Confucious tried to create a philosophy of an ordered society that would operate by stable rules to keep society stable. Ancient Athens and the early Roman Republic tried to broaden the number of people who could participate in political and cultural affairs. Later secular philosophies created the ideas of human rights, equal rights, and social consent for government.
These ideas could not change a basic problem that most people were poor. In a pretechnological agricultural society, only a small percentage of people could enjoy any surplus wealth.
Human ingenuity eventually did come up with the technological means to vastly increase the wealth of society. It became possible to think of a society where everyone had adequate food, shelter, and health care. Some societies have even reached the first approximations to a society with no poverty.
Now there are no more excuses. We have the ideas of universal morality, equal citizenship, human rights, and consent of the governed. We have the ability to create enough material wealth to support people.
But problems persist. Very bad problems. Tribes still set themselves against other tribes. Tribal loyalty is more important than truth or morality. People create new groups and use opposition to other groups to unify or control their own group. Violence against groups defined as enemies might not considered a crime by the tribe. Large segments of followers of religions that are supposed to teach universal morality instead use religion as a tribal signifier, or as a means of gaining power, or for enforcing conformity, or think of religion as some sort of magic charm against the difficulties of life. Religious wars are among the nastiest of wars, and religious oppression can be harsh. Even secular philosophies take on the trappings of religion, using dogma to enforce conformity or power relationships.
Plutocracies and oligarchies arise that hoard resources and give a small group of people a very large share of material wealth. The idea that private property gives someone the right to possess the all the wealth of large corporate entities has been added to the property right to own and control far more land than they could personally use. Ever more abstract and expansive forms of property are invented. Intellectual property becomes more extensive and seems to be held indefinitely. Someone can own a lifesaving medical miracle and claim the right to set the price for that miracle so high that people die.
The technologies that create wealth have also created major new problems, such as nuclear weapons, climate change, and long term resource exhaustion. These problems are made much worse by overpopulation. We have the knowledge to deal with these problems, but they are not dealt with.
People think in short term or local ways that hurt the human race. Our science can understand the threat of climate change and what we need to do about it. But most people don’t want to make the changes required. Short term profit is as far as they can see. Ideas about climate change have even become a tribal signifier, and people are afraid of being rejected by their tribe if they don’t conform to their tribe’s viewpoint.
Almost everyone thinks that wars are horrible. But the world has failed to unite enough to stop wars. After the massive horror of World War II, the United Nations was supposed to enforce peace. The UN has failed in that role. Wars are going on in many places in the world right now. Because of the failure to govern ourselves, the threat of nuclear war still hangs over us.
If women could have full equality and control over their own reproduction, the world would be a much better place. History has shown that women’s rights would have the positive side effect of greatly decreasing overpopulation, without using repressive measures. But most of the world still denies women their rights.
A very large fraction of the world leads a very hard life, dealing with poverty, oppression, and violence. The desperate mass migrations that are occurring now is a symptom of that. Climate change is going to make the situation much worse.
The human race is still very young. Written history only goes back 5000 years. What will human society look like 10,000 years from now? How about 100,000 years? Maybe the human race will eventually get its act together. But it is not happening yet. Probably those of us alive now will never know how it turns out.
Some part of the human race leads a fairly comfortable life. Probably a larger fraction than earlier in history. How much of this is based on exploitation of others? How much do we depend on sweatshop workers in Asia, or the regimented workforce of Amazon warehouses, or people forced to work in meat packing plants during the covid epidemic? I guess that the majority of people on DKos have adequate material support, and the education and freedom to express themselves and take part in political, social, and cultural life. I have no complaints about my own personal circumstances. But I am a human who lives as a social being in a society. Any of us should be able to understand that other people have just as much right to a decent life as we do. The famous short story by Ursula K. LeGuin, The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Omelas, makes the philosophical point that we cannot base our own happiness on the suffering of others. The comfortable among us have to deal with that dilemma.
We have the ideas about human life and society to make it better. We have the technology to eliminate poverty and stop climate change. We are not succeeding. Now there are no excuses. Has the human race failed?
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