A few things have joggled my mind recently. One was a program on Discovery Channel about the Earth in 200 million years hence. Gone is mankind and pretty much every other lifeform we know today, replaced by flying fish and land dwelling squid. Then there was an article in the Yomuiri Shimbun from the US, an elegant column about the passing of time (the journalist having turned 64) and his feelings on what he called, these 'low dishonest times'. Then, of course there are the daily headlines about war, global warming , nuclear proliferation and terrorism.
Together these various media presented a few pieces in an increasingly gloomy picture. In short, if human folly doesnt get you, then the environment, global catastrophe or evolution will. Humans have always dwelt amidst their own folllies. But we have never before faced so many threats seemingly coming at the same time. For those hopeful of a technological-get-out-of-jail card then I can only add this. Technology, whilst often fascinating and beneficial, is, often as not, a part of the problem. It may present some solutions, for example, to global warming, but it is demonstably the cause of it in the first instance. I mean, of course, the human application of technology, as there is no other application that I know of.
The trouble is, I am an optimist, for the most part. But I'm coming around to the view, things being what they are and what they could quite easily become, very little short of Divine Intervention can save our hapless species.
No comments:
Post a Comment