This worked well for survival in a primitive world where survival is the number one priority each day.
In our current complex world humans still use pattern recognition as the primary mechanism to make sense of the world, but it doesn't work all that well. Much irrational behavior results.
Pattern recognition is so much easier and efficient than rational thinking and research.
Those are really hard work for the human mind. Most people won't make the extra effort.
The extinction of the homo sapiens doesn’t interest most people because few of us have any loyalty to our species. I would actually argue that none of us posses this loyalty and those who claim to are merely preening in the hope of achieving social status by impressing their contemporaries. People are not any more interested in human extinction than cats are in the extinction of all felines.
What humans are obsessed with is the extinction of their family, their tribe and their nation. In “The Star of Redemption,” the German philosopher Franz Rosenzweig wrote,
“Just as every individual must reckon with his own death, the peoples of the world foresee their own extinction, be it however distant in time. Indeed the love of the people for their own nationhood is sweet and pregnant with the presentment of death…Thus the people’s of the world foresee a time when the land with its rivers and mountains still lies under heaven as it does today, but other people dwell there; when their language is entombed in books, and their laws and customs have lost their living power.”
We can’t bear our own mortality without the hope of immortality and our sense of immortality is purely social. It has nothing to do with a sense of commitment to the survival of our species and everything to do with the survival of our offspring, our religious traditions, our language and our tribal or national culture.
If the source of that social immortality is threatened people will lash out in often irrational ways. David P. Goldman (Claire’s old colleague from Asia Times) has pointed out that the worst violence in war occurs after one side faces inevitable defeat. He gives the example of the American Civil War where most of the carnage and death occurred after the South had no reasonable chance of emerging victorious.
The other reaction to inevitable national extinction is profound ennui. One of the first obvious symptoms is plunging fertility rates.
Two thirds of Italians and three quarters of the Japanese will be elderly by 2050. Unless there’s a resurgence in German fertility, the number of living Germans will plunge by 95 percent in the next two centuries. There is no social security program anywhere which can survive this inverted population pyramid. The problem in the Islamic world is even worse, especially in Iran. The more Iran confronts demographic death, the more confrontational and desperate it may become.
An 18 year old French or German green activist praying for a declining world population to save the planet from climate change is likely to discover that when she’s in her 80s, she will spend her dotage in miserable fashion because their won’t be enough Europeans alive to pay for her pension or medical care.
Worry less about an extinction level event afflicting humanity because you will simply never get people to care about it. Politically speaking, it’s not relevant now; it will never be. That’s doubly true if we need to rely on globally implemented solutions like treaties or regulatory schemes.
But there’s a lot more misery yet to come that we might be able to do something about. Instead of focusing on death by homicide, accidental or otherwise, we should be focusing on death by suicide and how to prevent it.
David P. Goldman’s treatise on all of this is well worth a read. It’s entitled, “It’s Not the End of the World, It’s Just the End of You.”
The literature of apocalypse—extensive, lively, enduringly popular—suggests that humanity is not really blind to the possibilities of global catastrophe. On the contrary, we’re comfortable with them. They even give us a thrill. This quirk of human nature manifests itself in many ways, from the Human Extinction Movement to “The Walking Dead.” George Romero knew what he was doing when he invented the zombie apocalypse.
Why this is so seems fairly obvious: One person’s apocalypse is another person’s Declaration of Independence. TWD’s villains tended to be tyrants, warlords, gang chiefs, freed by the collapse of civilization to actualize their inner fascist. Sociopaths are all around us and no doubt a fair percentage of them would be delighted if things were to fall apart. So would other, even more sinister types.
I mention this because in thinking over what Claire has written here, it seems to me that the element of the death cult that lurks in the human subconscious has to be taken seriously. Getting people to think about the possibility of real-world catastrophe, apocalypse, extinction, may produce effects the opposite of those intended. Science, indeed, is the font of rationality. But on the whole people are irrational—as I was prompted to reflect today by the sight of a woman out for a walk in our spacious subdivision—wearing a mask. A small thing, you may say. But the Cult of Greta and that of Trump, etc. are not small things. It’s sobering to reflect that most people nowadays are no less superstitious than their ancestors, though their superstition may have a different focus.
I believe that governments and citizens need to focus (within reason) on catastrophic risks. This requires greater scientific literacy of gov, media and citizens. A problem that pulls us away such a focus is that “read in an hour daily printed newspaper” of 20 years ago has been replaced by scattered and never-ending rabbit holes of information on all topics on the internet. National leaders need to display an example of necessary concern that populations can then aspire to.
Humans aren't designed to think rationally.
We are designed to see and recognize patterns.
This worked well for survival in a primitive world where survival is the number one priority each day.
In our current complex world humans still use pattern recognition as the primary mechanism to make sense of the world, but it doesn't work all that well. Much irrational behavior results.
Pattern recognition is so much easier and efficient than rational thinking and research.
Those are really hard work for the human mind. Most people won't make the extra effort.
The extinction of the homo sapiens doesn’t interest most people because few of us have any loyalty to our species. I would actually argue that none of us posses this loyalty and those who claim to are merely preening in the hope of achieving social status by impressing their contemporaries. People are not any more interested in human extinction than cats are in the extinction of all felines.
What humans are obsessed with is the extinction of their family, their tribe and their nation. In “The Star of Redemption,” the German philosopher Franz Rosenzweig wrote,
“Just as every individual must reckon with his own death, the peoples of the world foresee their own extinction, be it however distant in time. Indeed the love of the people for their own nationhood is sweet and pregnant with the presentment of death…Thus the people’s of the world foresee a time when the land with its rivers and mountains still lies under heaven as it does today, but other people dwell there; when their language is entombed in books, and their laws and customs have lost their living power.”
We can’t bear our own mortality without the hope of immortality and our sense of immortality is purely social. It has nothing to do with a sense of commitment to the survival of our species and everything to do with the survival of our offspring, our religious traditions, our language and our tribal or national culture.
If the source of that social immortality is threatened people will lash out in often irrational ways. David P. Goldman (Claire’s old colleague from Asia Times) has pointed out that the worst violence in war occurs after one side faces inevitable defeat. He gives the example of the American Civil War where most of the carnage and death occurred after the South had no reasonable chance of emerging victorious.
The other reaction to inevitable national extinction is profound ennui. One of the first obvious symptoms is plunging fertility rates.
Two thirds of Italians and three quarters of the Japanese will be elderly by 2050. Unless there’s a resurgence in German fertility, the number of living Germans will plunge by 95 percent in the next two centuries. There is no social security program anywhere which can survive this inverted population pyramid. The problem in the Islamic world is even worse, especially in Iran. The more Iran confronts demographic death, the more confrontational and desperate it may become.
An 18 year old French or German green activist praying for a declining world population to save the planet from climate change is likely to discover that when she’s in her 80s, she will spend her dotage in miserable fashion because their won’t be enough Europeans alive to pay for her pension or medical care.
Worry less about an extinction level event afflicting humanity because you will simply never get people to care about it. Politically speaking, it’s not relevant now; it will never be. That’s doubly true if we need to rely on globally implemented solutions like treaties or regulatory schemes.
But there’s a lot more misery yet to come that we might be able to do something about. Instead of focusing on death by homicide, accidental or otherwise, we should be focusing on death by suicide and how to prevent it.
David P. Goldman’s treatise on all of this is well worth a read. It’s entitled, “It’s Not the End of the World, It’s Just the End of You.”
https://www.amazon.com/Its-Not-End-World-Just/dp/1614122024
This all reminds me of a bumper sticker I once saw, it went like this:
Nietzsche: “God is dead.”
God: “Who’s laughing now?”
The literature of apocalypse—extensive, lively, enduringly popular—suggests that humanity is not really blind to the possibilities of global catastrophe. On the contrary, we’re comfortable with them. They even give us a thrill. This quirk of human nature manifests itself in many ways, from the Human Extinction Movement to “The Walking Dead.” George Romero knew what he was doing when he invented the zombie apocalypse.
Why this is so seems fairly obvious: One person’s apocalypse is another person’s Declaration of Independence. TWD’s villains tended to be tyrants, warlords, gang chiefs, freed by the collapse of civilization to actualize their inner fascist. Sociopaths are all around us and no doubt a fair percentage of them would be delighted if things were to fall apart. So would other, even more sinister types.
I mention this because in thinking over what Claire has written here, it seems to me that the element of the death cult that lurks in the human subconscious has to be taken seriously. Getting people to think about the possibility of real-world catastrophe, apocalypse, extinction, may produce effects the opposite of those intended. Science, indeed, is the font of rationality. But on the whole people are irrational—as I was prompted to reflect today by the sight of a woman out for a walk in our spacious subdivision—wearing a mask. A small thing, you may say. But the Cult of Greta and that of Trump, etc. are not small things. It’s sobering to reflect that most people nowadays are no less superstitious than their ancestors, though their superstition may have a different focus.
I believe that governments and citizens need to focus (within reason) on catastrophic risks. This requires greater scientific literacy of gov, media and citizens. A problem that pulls us away such a focus is that “read in an hour daily printed newspaper” of 20 years ago has been replaced by scattered and never-ending rabbit holes of information on all topics on the internet. National leaders need to display an example of necessary concern that populations can then aspire to.