“The destruction of large areas of the natural environment as a consequence of human activity.”
We think we are so clever and that technology can give the answers as to how to survive. But it seems that is what gets us into trouble in the first place. It’s always us against the natural world. Our brain – as marvelous and capricious a thing as it is – is fairly good at constantly focusing its attention like a light beam at singular spots, maybe helpful at a handful of problems. It is not good, however, at making out the whole picture, the scope of life, the interconnectedness, understanding the ecology, interdependency, and consequences of it all. We are running around with a tiny flashlight when we need illumination and enlightenment. We are overestimating our smarts and intelligence.
While our technology seems sophisticated to us, it still serves foremost our Neanderthalian goals. Our technical capabilities far outweigh our intelligence, our undeveloped intellect, and our understanding of life in general and us in particular. We are on a suicide mission, with countless collateral casualties of other species. And, measured at the natural pace of life on Earth, we had the briefest of cameo appearances on this planet and still insist on speeding to the exit.
“I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far, but I think it's a very poor scheme for survival.”
Kurt Vonnegut, 1922 - 2007
“What a Chimera is man! What a novelty, a monster, a chaos, a contradiction, a prodigy! Judge of all things, an imbecile worm; depository of truth, and sewer of error and doubt; the glory and refuse of the universe.”
Blaise Pascal, 1623 - 1662