A Preoccupation with Vanity, Comfort and Convenience Will Not Save the Endangered Living World on Planet Earth

The advanced state of science and technology in the human world has certainly ushered in an era in which great progress has been made in the disciplines that encompass many areas of study including human health and disease, physics, biology, astrophysics, communications, ecology, cosmology, engineering and many others.


Currently we are experiencing an explosive advancement in the general and universal dissemination of access to a cornucopia of shared knowledge that would have seemed unimaginable a mere decade earlier. Currently we are witnessing the development of advanced and highly sophisticated “smart” robotic devices that may ultimately supplant many aspects of human labor.


Currently there is an accelerated demand for the implementation and inclusion of so-called “artificial intelligence” into the infrastructure of both corporate and public enterprises. These changes are encouraged to supposedly improve efficiency of operation and productivity. However, the underlying driver that propels this momentum especially within the corporate world and the commercial sector is to amass greater and greater profits.


The ultimate appeal of this transformation to the general population is towards individual personal vanity, overall comfort and convenience. It was the invention of the steam engine in the early eighteenth century that ushered in the age of the machine that had a significant impact upon the subsequent production of labor-saving devices. Significant advances over the past two hundred years has brought us to the current era.


However, the one major impact of these revolutionary changes that was not envisioned has been the gradual and now accelerated deterioration of the natural environment that sustains all of life on this most precious planet.


Science has clearly demonstrated the nature of the complex and intricate interrelationships between living organisms that evolved over billions of years of planetary evolution. Science has also documented the prodigious amount of toxic waste that has accumulated in earth, sky and seas as a direct result of human activity fueled by the apparently insatiable desire to satisfy the need for personal satisfaction as well as comfort and convenience.


It is quite evident that life on planet Earth is, in fact, exceedingly fragile and dependent upon a very thin layer of atmosphere that provides us with life giving oxygen, earth and the vast oceans and rivers and lakes and streams that provide earthly passengers with sufficient nutrition and drinkable water to live. Without these reliable resources complex organisms such as Homo sapiens cannot survive.


This is an essential reality that cannot be ignored no matter how imaginative the distractions that cause us to lose our communal focus. Reality, like gravity, always wins. The moment of birth does not come with any guarantee of perpetual happiness or success or longevity. Either humanity acts to avert a disastrous scenario or be subjected to the inevitable consequences that will come from inaction.


In my estimation, we are facing a challenging and daunting future that can be averted if only we utilize our innate capacity to make intelligent and thoughtful choices.

Getting Out the Vote

 The current state of the human world is unsettled and filled with uncertainty. The general state of apprehension and doubt that persists in many parts of the human world has complex and. multifaceted origins. In spite of the fact that science has clearly shown that all human beings are part of a vast and diverse human family, the idea of race and racial purity persists as it has for thousands of years of human civilization.

In addition, science has clearly established that human activity is currently endangering the delicate ecological balances that sustain life on planet earth. Yet, that behavior continues unabated even though the resulting consequences could be catastrophic.

In my thinking, these aspects of life persist on account of the leadership in many parts of the world that responds primarily to the needs of those that hold the reigns of wealth and power and disregards the issues that negatively impact the human condition.

I have enumerated the qualities of leadership that I believe are required to help enact and implement the kind of change that is required to fashion a better and more sustainable world. Foremost among these is the obvious and necessary intellectual capacity to recognize the nature of complex issues and the concomitant ability to encourage open discourse with representatives of all viewpoints with the overall aim of finding the best possible solutions to these issues.


In addition, I believe that following represent vitally important qualities:

• · The recognition that all humans are members of the same human family (Homo sapiens). With the broad recognition of this fundamental reality, essential and meaningful changes in the human condition would necessarily follow
• · A clear and unmitigated acceptance of the important role of science and scientific investigation in the modern human world. This is especially true regarding the reality of climate change that is a direct product of collective human activity. This challenge requires a clear and unwavering commitment to support whatever changes that are required to abate this process.
• · An acceptance and commitment to the role that immigrants have played and continue to play in the nation.
• · An appreciation of the contributions made by experts from the many vital professions that help make this world a better place – teachers, scientists, medical professionals, financial experts, architects, engineers, artists, journalists, technology experts etc.
• · An understanding that all individuals that represent the very fabric of society have equal status in both law and custom.
• · A strong adherent to the need for the Commons – those aspects of living that contribute to a valued and sustainable existence – descent housing, quality education, childcare, adequate nutrition, a vibrant natural environment etc.
• · An ability to communicate effectively and respectfully with all representatives of the communities that constitute everyday life i.e. business and industry, education, medicine, technology, communications, labor, science, etc.

The necessary qualifications listed above are vitally important if the overall goal is to ensure a more productive and sustainable future for the coming generations. As a people, we possess the one capability that can make such a future possible – the ability to use a powerful voice in the choice of those who will lead us in the right direction by exercising our unequivocal right to vote.

Prisoners of the Internet

The beginnings of the Internet held such promise - the potential for being a vast repository of information, global in scope, freely accessible to everyone. It was seen as a wondrous tool for learning; for expanding the life of the mind; for fueling the imagination, and inspiring creativity. The possibilities were seemingly endless.

These conceptions offered the possibility of an unimagined potential to at last unite humans under the vast and all-encompassing umbrella of the human family through the wondrous unifying web of knowledge and truth - ever growing and ever prospering.

Not unlike the 1960s, this vision of a new world at peace where all of humanity would be connected with a singular resolve to make the human world a better place - this incipient hope quickly devolved into something entirely different.

Not long after its inception, the Internet began to be seen as having great potential in regard to its utilization in the arena of commerce – offering a nearly limitless capacity to generate great wealth. This new reality became an impetus for the fevered expansion of capitalism throughout the world.

This evolution, for me, was strangely comparable to the events that surrounded the evolution of television once it became implanted into so many millions of households throughout the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. In its infancy, television was the medium for innovative programming and creative experimentation within a brand-new media; until it became quite evident that it could be used as a lucrative marketing tool. Once this transition happened, programming became an adjunct to the selling of material products that soon became its primary focus.

The Internet is far more insidious on account of the spider-like threads that it weaves throughout individual lives and families. As a people, we are becoming progressively entangled in this virtual digital web with fewer and fewer escape routes. Online is the mantra; online is the goal. Bank accounts and finances and friendships and families and services and health and even the pursuit of happiness have become entangled within the fabric of this web.

We now swim in a collective sea of passwords and alliances and communications not born of human connection but rooted in the strangest kinds of associations within a virtual reality that exaggerates feelings of loneliness and abandonment.

In addition, many individuals, especially the elderly, have now become victimized by those who have the tools to undermine an individual’s hold on valuable personal information and actively steal huge amounts of money remotely and usurp personal identities with apparent impunity robbing individuals of their most intimate sense of personal safety. This widespread behavior negatively impacts the sense of trust that is an essential ingredient within any viable and sustainable society.

Sadly, this story does not end here. Currently there is growing financial investment in so-called “artificial intelligence” (AI) that if left unmanaged could ultimately replace creative imagination that drives true innovation with a sterile sameness that devalues essential professions and may result in creating an army of the unemployed within a social structure devoid of a safety net.

This would be a recipe for disaster. This mad rush to a totally unmapped future is driven by the powerful who have no apparent interest in the consequences that will necessarily materialize if this kind of “progress” is left unregulated for it is only through thoughtful and reasoned mitigation that the worst scenarios can be avoided.

Perception and Reality in the Modern Era

In the course of human evolution, when the human brain (mind) reached that level of neuronal complexity in which self-consciousness became a reality, that change irrevocably altered humanity’s future.  From that moment on, the reality of the external environment delivered to the brain from the senses was overlayed by how that environment was perceived, for human evolution had given birth to the individual.

Currently, on planet earth, human evolution has been so successful that there are now over eight billion individuals – each one carrying a unique view of their surroundings and their place within it.  Each one of us moves through our existence with our own complex array of conclusions regarding ourselves, our ideas, our beliefs, our thought patterns, our habits.  We are shaped by our upbringing, by our cultural influences, by our language, by our life experiences, by our inheritance.

An individual’s perception of reality may or may not necessarily coincide with reality.  In the modern era, the raid growth of science fueled by technological advances and sustained by the scientific method, has been the gateway to reality.  The scientific method has proven to be a highly effective process in uncovering how things work - human curiosity being the driving force for understanding the nature of existence.

The creation of the Internet (1950’s) represents one of those historic inflection points that has led to revolutionary changes on many levels similar to the discovery of DNA (1954) as the molecular entity responsible the transferal of hereditary information, the deciphering of the universal genetic code uncovered between 1961 and 1966, and the complete sequencing of the human genome (2003).

The accessibility of the Internet has led to nearly instantaneous access to a prodigious amount of information freely available worldwide.  It has also brought into fruition with what is referred to as, “social media,” and, more recently the development of artificial intelligence (AI).  The positive aspects of these capabilities are enormous in both scope and application.

However, the caveat that is of immediate concern is the purposeful global transmission of misinformation, falsehoods, and fraudulent data.  This burgeoning development has led to an alarming increase in social and political divisiveness and unrest.  Intentionally misleading susceptible readers by creating false perceptions that do not coincide with truth has become a well-used strategy that has dangerous implications.

In my thinking this new reality can be effectively countered by instituting sound educational policies that encourage and reinforce reasoned and rational skepticism as a way to discern the truth and expose what is patently false.   

 

The Pathology of Power - 2026

A madman as president, captain of this enormous ship of state, at the helm with the keys to Armageddon-to nuclear conflagration-forever at his side and in his back pocket.

A human being that future historians will explore - eager to uncover every aspect of his persona, all the minutia of his growing up, all the sadness, the cascade of disappointments, his father’s mean-spirited nature sharp as a knife cutting through his son’s sensitivity and demolishing any sense of wholeness. This president’s deeply felt paranoia and agonizing fear will be noted in depth and analyzed with precision. The rage forever boiling to the surface will be subject to extensive study and interpretation.

Volumes of noteworthy and scholarly dissertations will be published as well as appropriate references to other powerful men whose irrational fulminations have shaped humanity’s darker history. The number of times such men have been elevated to positions of extreme power over the course of human history is too voluminous to even contemplate.

In the United States, it is quite surprising that within a representative Democratic Republic, where the government’s primary role is to serve all the people, a majority of voters would choose a presidential candidate who is a self-proclaimed advocate of white supremacy, mistrustful and openly hostile to science, a climate change denier, who knowingly spread falsehoods and vicious accusations about the nation’s immigrant population with the goal of dehumanizing them, and actually was involved in an attempt to overthrow a duly elected government on Jan 6, 2021.

Given the divisiveness, uncertainty and instability created as a result of this administration’s policies and pronouncements, our international allies have lost trust in the United States as a reliable and dependable proponent of democracy. This is a serious issue with wide implications for the future.

It may very well be up to the coming generations to speak out regarding these issues and become actively engaged in implementing a paradigm shift in nationally held values and beliefs – the status quo is not sustainable.

The Question Why

 The Question Why

In this the 21st century, humanity is floundering in spite of the great strides made in the understanding not only of human nature but also in comprehending so many aspects of the natural environment as well as the wider universe. In spite of this knowledge, humans have crafted a way of living that is not only unsustainable but also may threaten the very future of this species-Homo sapiens.

Hence the question why

· Why is it that so many humans and human societies still do not comprehend that all humans are members of the same species-the same human family where everyone should be treated as having equivalent value?

· Why is it that so many humans and human societies fail to recognize that life on planet earth is fragile and depends on a thin atmosphere for its supply of life giving oxygen, and unable to grasp the overwhelming reality that the complex interrelationships of diverse life forms and natural habitats need to be sustained to ensure the continued viability of life on earth?

· Why is it that so many humans and human societies claim that climate change is a questionable reality in spite of the overwhelming evidence for its existence?

· Why do so many humans and human societies remain ignorant of the inescapable reality that the present collective behavior of humanity threatens the viability of their own species?

· Why is it that so many humans and human societies engage in warfare with the aim of annihilating members of their own species who are perceived as a threat in spite of the fact that there are alternative paths to peaceful coexistence?

· Why is it that so many humans and human societies have forged social orders that give primacy to individual wealth and power while understanding that establishing such a hierarchy invariably creates a great deal of unnecessary human suffering and will more than likely lead to an unsustainable future?

· Why is it that so many humans and human societies remain insensitive to the suffering of others and fail to value the power of kindness, compassion and love and recognize that healthy and vibrant communities are richly endowed?


These questions do not represent a complete list. Many of these questions are not new - they have been asked repeatedly throughout the ages, yet they demand answers like never before. Collectively, we cannot continue to ravage the planet with such reckless abandon without ultimately experiencing the necessary consequences of our behavior.

This is why I have chosen to catalog these queries to give them their appropriate weight. In my thinking, we must repeatedly ask questions like these of ourselves if we are to truly see a meaningful change for the better.

The United States – Capitalism at its Worst

As an economic system, capitalism has been responsible for a multiplicity of benefits including encouraging technological and industrial advancement, inspiring innovation, increasing the standard of living for the citizens of the United States and contributing to overall national prosperity. 

However, in the current era these advances have been overshadowed by the current American version of capitalism that seems to be apparently devoid of any sense of responsibility to humanity or the human condition. A system that is exemplified in the words of Elon Musk who stated, "The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy." Although he later went on to attempt to mollify this position, his actions in relation to his role in scuttling US AID in cohort with President Trump and other actions in which he showed a characteristically careless disregard for the human cost for his behavior certainly validates his original statement. He is not alone in this attitude, and, as a matter of fact, it is shared by many of the nation’s richest individuals who possess an alarming share of the nation’s wealth. A system whose primary goal is the making of extraordinary profit and rewards corporate leadership with vast fortunes. A system geared to satisfying the apparently unbounded greed of stockholders to the extent that the manufacture of cigarettes – a known killer of many consumers – is seen as a worthwhile investment as well as the highly technological production of weapons of mass destruction. All done in the name of profit. 

In this variant of capitalism as practiced in the United States, the current statistics in regard to the national quality of life in regard to personal longevity, the status of access to adequate healthcare, childcare, infant mortality, homelessness, poverty and higher education is abysmal – the actual standing of the United States in these areas in regard to other so-called prosperous nations is at the very bottom. 

 As this is happening, it has been reported in 2007 that the top 20% of Americans owned 86% of the country's wealth, while the bottom 80% owned 14%. This data is a real and frightening aspect of modern-day America as defined by capitalism as it is currently being practiced. 

The saddest aspect of all of this is that this system has created an extraordinary degree of unnecessary suffering as experienced by so many individuals and families and will ultimately fail for it is in fact unsustainable in its current form. We can do better than this.