Humanity has the freedom to fail this test and go the way of the dinosaur. We’re allowed to take that path if that’s what we collectively choose to do.
We can allow a few massively outnumbered plutocrats and empire managers to drive our species to extinction via climate disaster, nuclear holocaust, or AI apocalypse if we want to. We are completely free to do that.
I don’t know about you, but I actually find this a comforting thought.
When you take a close look at the existential hurdles that humanity is faced with, it can feel pretty bleak. Global capitalism is destroying the biosphere we all depend on for survival. The western empire is getting increasingly comfortable engaging in reckless brinkmanship with nuclear-armed rivals. The AI arms race is shoving through wildly unpredictable technologies at a rapidly accelerating rate with alarmingly little institutional oversight or caution.
But when you notice that all of these existential threats are entirely man-made, you realize that this means humanity has the ability to un-make them as well. We have the freedom to do either. It’s up to us.
I find this a comforting insight because it puts the ball in our court. We can choose to rise up and use the power of our numbers to save ourselves from doom, or we can choose not to. The universe, apparently, is fine with either choice. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t be holding the ball.
And who am I to argue with the universe? If the universe wants humanity to have the freedom to either go extinct in the near term or survive deep into the distant future, then I can make space within myself to allow that freedom, too.
Whether or not we make it is not up to me as an individual. I can control my own actions, but I cannot control the actions of my fellow homo sapiens as a whole. And if our species as a collective decides that revolutionary change is not desirable enough or too scary or too difficult to seize, then I can submit to the will of the collective. I can hold enough grace and compassion for my species to honor its sovereign decision.
“We’ll either pass the test or we won’t.” That’s what I tell myself when things are looking dark. I give humanity the freedom to make its decision, and in so doing I free myself. I do what I can to move the needle in whatever way my limited means allow me to, and then beyond that I submit to the will of our better angels.
I do my work, and then I let go. I let go and enjoy my time on this beautiful blue planet here. Because I don’t know how much longer it will last.
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Feature image via Adobe Stock.
People are the only force governments can’t suppress. Exercise your power or perish
We're fucked. It's baked into humanity. The dinosaurs survived for millions of years and would still be here now, eating puny humans before they could invent the wheel, precisely because they didn't try to bend the universe to their will.