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	May 16, 2005

Making Peace With the End of Civilization The Idea: The author waxes philosophical about how he can be so pessimistic and so happy at the same time, and why he works so hard when he sees no perpetuity to what he does. Here's the gist of a recent conversation, of a type that I'm having a lot lately: RS: Dave, you say you don't have the patience to do knowledge consulting work anymore. Why is that? Me: Well, I've recently been doing a lot of research and reading on the state of the world and on human nature, and I've come to the conclusion that we are living in the last century of human civilization. So I've become a little impatient with projects I don't think are that important in the larger scheme of things. RS: (strange look) Wow, that's a depressing thought. It must be tough to do anything with that negative a perspective on life and the future. Me: Actually, it's very liberating, and I'm more at peace than I have been at any time in my life. Because I've come to believe that the end of civilization is something we can't do anything about, nor is it anybody's 'fault', or even necessarily a bad thing. As Canadian archaeologist Ronald Wright says, if we destroy the ecosystem that sustains us "nature will merely shrug and conclude that letting apes run the laboratory was fun for a while but in the end a bad idea". RS: Why don't you think anything can be done about it, and that it's nobody's fault? That seems peculiarly fatalistic for someone as driven as you are. Me: Nothing can be done about it because we are wrong in the uniquely human conceit that we are in charge of our own destiny and that there is some kind of collective politic and collective intelligence and 'free will' that can be harnessed to move us all in a chosen direction. We are nothing more or less than six billion creatures individually doing what we are driven to do moment by moment. We have been driven to overpopulate and despoil the planet and exhaust its resources by our DNA, and in so doing we are merely following Darwin's law: Fierce, adaptable creatures flourish. And man is the fiercest and (next to bacteria, viruses, insects and birds, which palaeontologists believe are the four species likely to inherit the Earth when we are gone), the most adaptable the planet has ever seen. And how can we blame man for just being what he is? RS: But surely you accept that man has evolved, and adapted himself, and introduced technologies that have made his life immeasurably better? Why don't you think human ingenuity will allow us to evolve to solve the problems we are facing today as it has in the past? Me: Technology and ingenuity have never solved problems, other than those created by previous technology and ingenuity. The greatest example of human ingenuity is the eradication of smallpox, a disease that had killed a billion humans. But smallpox was merely nature's response to human overcrowding and poverty, which were in turn consequences of a previous ingenious human technology called agriculture. Technology and ingenuity have merely allowed our species to be more 'successful' in the evolutionary sense: To reproduce more of ourselves. There is growing evidence that we were much happier and much healthier before civilization began, when we lived as gatherer-hunters in harmony with, and integrated with, the rest of life on Earth. In those days the probability of being eaten by a large carnivore at any random point in one's life was accepted with the equanimity with which we now accept a more protracted death at the unhealthiest and most unpleasant end of a longer, more predictable 'civilized' life. We are simply running out of space and time for evermore expensive and evermore convoluted technologies to be applied to fix the problems that the last generation of technologies created. The Earth is finite, species die-off is already occurring at a rate comparable to that of the six previous major extinction events of our planet, and although we have some heavy hitters on 'our' side, nature always bats last. RS: Well if you really believe that I can't see how you can get engaged in projects like AHA! and business innovation and your writing projects. If we're going to be gone in a century, what's the point? Me: That's exactly the point. If we're going to be gone in a century, why not live in the moment, use every minute to do what gives your life purpose and meaning and pleasure right now? For me that means learning something new every day, it means helping others, it means getting back in touch with my animal nature: reconnecting to the Earth and all its life and spending time just being, opening up all my senses, feeling, being happy to be alive and healthy and right here right now, and trusting my instincts. RS: So you believe man is on the verge of exterminating himself and much of the life of the planet, but you're not going to do anything about it? Me: On the contrary, I'm going to do everything I can, short of murder or suicide, to try to help avert it, and to reduce the horrific suffering that civilization is inflicting on all life on our planet. I'm just philosophical about the fact that nothing I do or anyone else does has significant likelihood of changing the endgame, so I'm not going to beat myself up about failure, and I'm not going to feel guilty about just living in the moment and being happy. One thing I will invest considerable time in is talking with my two granddaughters so they have an idea what they are facing, since they are more likely than we are to face the brunt of civilization's collapse in their lifetime. I will try to be a role model for them, so that they too will try to do their best to alleviate suffering and avert the end of man, and in the meantime they will live full, passionate, informed, guilt-free and open lives. I hope they will love themselves and many other people without limit or condition or restraint, and that they will come to love learning as much as I do. And hopefully they will not blame anyone for the fact that, as EO Wilson put it, with man, "Darwin's dice have rolled badly for Earth". RS: (exasperated look) I think if I believed that I'd become a nihilist or a survivalist or a hedonist and lose myself in sex, drugs and rock & roll. Me: Well if you have to choose one of those I'd strongly recommend hedonism, in its original sense of pleasure-seeking rather than the more modern sense of extravagance. There's lots of evidence that really good drugs can help you escape the straitjacket of cultural thinking and liberate you and reconnect you to Earth. Most such drugs are probably illegal for precisely that reason. And a six-hour marathon of sex has much to recommend it for reconnecting with your senses and your animal nature. And music is wonderful for stirring the memory and the soul, and is man's greatest invention, the only one he hasn't subsequently had to invent a cure for. RS: I know you've written that you think traditional problems like nuclear or biological war or disease are greater threats to man than natural disasters that result from global warming. But don't you think if there is a runaway war or disease the people left will just rebuild civilization all over again? Me: From what I've read, populations going through extinction events follow a 'normal' curve -- after an accelerating rise they go through a similar rapid decline, and then just tail off slowly to complete extinction. We have become so dependent on civilization -- almost like perpetual children -- that we don't know how to live without it. The survivors will be so helpless without all the constructs we are now hardwired to base our lives on, that I doubt they will be able to adapt quickly enough to survive. The predator that ultimately causes the collapse -- whether it be a new disease, bioterror agent or a nuclear winter -- will continue to inflict casualties on the survivors, and prevent them from getting a new foothold. So, no, I don't think there will be a rising of man from the ashes, and for that reason I don't think there's any point in writing messages for the 'next civilization' and burying them underground to be found After the Fall. And the birds, insects, viruses and bacteria won't have much use for them. RS: How about space travel? Or communicating with some advanced alien species which could save us from ourselves? Me: We got lucky with the development of nuclear weapons just at the time when they served as a deterrent rather than a destroyer of the planet. We're extremely unlikely to be so lucky in stumbling on a technology that will allow us to escape our mess on Earth in sufficient numbers with sufficient time to find another inhabitable planet. And probability experts say the likelihood of verterbrate life (let alone a life form we could recognize as 'intelligent' and communicate with, or vice versa) emerging anywhere in the universe from the primordial soup is about one in sixty billion, so SETI is even more delusional than betting your life on winning the lottery. We should focus our attention instead on learning from the very intelligent and sensitive non-human life all around us. RS: So why write then? Why try to set up your AHA! Learning & Discovery Centre? Why work so hard to help people become more innovative and more entrepreneurial? Me: Because that's who I am. That's what I was meant to do. Just like the other six billion on the planet and the fifty billion who preceded them, I'm just playing out the role that was written for me in my DNA. I only wish I hadn't been distracted for so many years from realizing what my role is. We don't really do what we can. We do what we must. 1:52:32 PM  trackback []  comment []

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