Survival

In the end, there really is only one indisputable measure of a human society. Can it survive or not? It doesn’t matter if a society fancies itself morally superior, or thinks it has a better value system, or is more generous in spirit, or is more innovative, or is specially favored by the gods – if it doesn’t survive none of this matters.

We humans continue to delude ourselves that we are somehow above nature, or special in the natural world. But we are not. All nature is about competition and survival. We are in the same competitive race as the cockroaches and viruses and dinosaurs and ragweeds. And in that race only one thing matters – survival!

Dinosaurs survived for about 160 million years. Cockroaches in one form or another have been around for about 350 million years, and are still with us. Recognizable humans appear to have been around for perhaps 1.5-2 million years, and civilized humans only perhaps 10,000-20,000 years, so we have a long way to go yet to prove that we as a species are survivors.

And our American society/empire is barely 200 years old. By comparison, Rome’s empire, in one form or another, lasted from about 500 BC to about 475 AD, or almost 1000 years. So our American empire has a long way to go yet to prove itself a survivor.

So the real test of all of our grand ideas ought to be whether we think they increase our society’s odds of survival or not.

Does structuring our society so that our birth rate falls below replacement levels increase the odds of our survival? Obviously not. We just free up an ecological niche for some other society to replace us.

Does structuring our society so that our massive debt and dependence on oil puts us at the mercy of our competitors increase the odds of our survival? Obviously not.

Does letting our educational system shortchange the next generation increase the odds of our survival? Obviously not.

Does letting our economic system divert many of our best and brightest to high-paying but ultimately non-productive activities like playing the markets or indulging in litigation increase the odds of our survival? Obviously not.

We have become so deluded by our own new-age hype that we seem to have forgotten that life is about the deadly serious business of surviving and helping our offspring to survive. There are other societies on the globe, less coddled, that haven’t yet forgotten that, and if we are not careful, they will replace us.