My Reflections at the Start of One More Year

It was three years ago that I wrote a post recounting the major events that had occurred during the first twenty years of the twentieth and nineteenth centuries and remarked how lucky we had been the first part of this century to live in relative peace and astonishing progress.  So why not be optimistic about the rest of this century?  But then things happened to show that reflecting about the past and extrapolating into the future may be a pleasing mental occupation but it’s full of risks for disappointment. 

What happened reminded us that we have not yet transcended our basic nature that makes us behave like an ordinary species alternating between great and awful behavior.  What happened was the outbreak of the pandemic and the demonstration of heroism by care givers, from ambulance drivers to nurses and doctors who risked their health and lives to take care of the pandemic victims.  That was us in our best behavior.  And then before we had managed to extricate ourselves from the scourge of covid, the Russian invasion of Ukraine came with all its carnage and barbarity.  That was the worst in us.

Human history is full of moments of greatness and exaltation but also moments of brutality and despair.  And yet in our endless search for a meaning based on hope and purpose we have built a grandiose pedestal for our species.  We have woven a triumphalist narrative that tries hard to separate us from all other creatures and bring us closer to the divine.  Thus, we have endowed ourselves with rational minds and immortal souls, despite the fact that our rationality is being tripped by our emotions and cognitive biases all the time and our immortal souls are humbled and tempted by residing in our mortal bodies.   

This grandiose sense we have about ourselves can be useful as a stepping stone of inspiration for great pursuits but it can also set us up for disappointment.  If we expect so much of ourselves as moral agents or doers and transformers of nature it is because we prefer to ignore our limitations than to heed them.  And yet, in moments of wise self-reflection we have created myths like those of Icarus and the Tower of Babel as a warning against the dangers of hubris.

It is, of course, a fact that thanks to our more sophisticated brains and the development of language we acquired the ability to organize social relationships and networks that accelerated learning, built skills, and fostered innovation.  But if we think deeper, our human evolution is a process of laying one layer of complexity on top of another.  Peel back all the layers, and you find that the end goal is to meet basic needs we share with other creatures.  Take shelter as an example.  Beavers build a damn and make a lodge.  Thousands of ants get together and build elaborate anthills.  A cave or hut would be enough for hunter-gatherers.  We modern humans go to the bank, take a mortgage, use lawyers, hire a contractor and then movers bring our stuff to the house we have built or bought.  Thus, to meet our housing needs we depend on banking systems, legal systems, construction systems, moving systems.  As I said layers of complexity.  But here is the funny thing.  I am not aware that animals or hunter/gatherers have homelessness.  But we do!

What we call progress is actually a process of increasing complexity that opens up a greater distance – in terms of what we have to do – between a need and how to meet it.  With each layer of complexity, the opportunities and likelihood for friction, crime and war multiply.  And, of course, each layer of complexity requires more natural resources and further impacts the climate and the ecosystem.  Most layers of complexity breed new layers just like in an evolutionary process.  We thought, for example, we had solved lots of problems by inventing digital technology.  Now, though, we spend trillions world-wide to defend against cyber-crime which will cost us $10.5 trillion by 2025!  Of course, barring an apocalyptic disaster, there is no way going back by unravelling the complexity of human life.  All we can do is manage it. 

It is in myths our ancestors betrayed their ambivalence and fear about progress and tried to warn us but without success.  Thus, Pandora was admonished not to open the box, presumably given to her by Zeus.  Adam and Eve were also told by God not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge.  Nonetheless, curiosity led Pandora to open the box and desire to learn made Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge.  It is indeed curiosity and learning that breed and sustain progress which adds to the complexity of human life and everything that comes with it.

So here we stand as the species that not only has a consciousness about itself and its surrounding environment but also about the impact of its actions on the planet it occupies with the rest of life.  It is out of this consciousness of our impact that we now feel responsibility and guilt.  Our impact has grown so consequential that scientists have started to call the last century, even the last 10,000 years, as the Anthropocene period of planet Earth.  There is though another demarcation we can draw in our human history; the one that separates natural intelligence from artificial intelligence.  We are the first generations to live in this new era of intelligence.  

If our natural intelligence gave us some pause about the reach of our capabilities, artificial intelligence has kicked the doors of infinite possibilities open and has pushed us closer to full dependence on science and technology to solve our problems.  But this has come at a cost.  It has blunted our willingness to find solutions through the power and wisdom of self-restraint, moderation and thoughtful calculation of how to harness technology and science to serve the human condition and that of our planet.  Indeed, technological progress often runs ahead of our capacity to first adjust ourselves to its consequences.  It’s like indulging in unhealthy life styles because we rely on medicines to keep us healthy. 

Our preference to go down the technology road is reflected in the shift of our educational systems from the study of humanities to the study of STEM disciplines.  Cultivating the human character to reflect and act with temperance and wisdom has given ground to cultivating the mind to heal our problems only with science and technology. 

It is not surprising then that our reliance on technological solutions has reached the point that we consciously envision the prospect to colonize other planets to save our species instead of saving this one, our own, planet.  Let’s think about that.

Disclaimer:  This essay has not been composed by ChatGPT.