RANT:

What's wrong with this picture?

Ever get the feeling that we're evolving ourselves to death?

We live in a bizarre world. A population that recently went past 6.5 billion people lives in extreme disparity between haves and have nots. The poor people live in conditions that Westernized nations refer to as squallor without basic needs while Westernized nations are driven by consumption, diverting further wealth from the so-called third world countries. Meanwhile, alarm bells from all directions are signalling that the so-called "American Dream" is non-sustainable, as population growth ensures that there is not enough to go around, oil prices threaten to collapse economies, and global climate change threatens everything else, but we all blindly follow our world leaders that assure us that everything is okay as they proceed to march us off the nearest cliff before they steal our wallets.

Look at the so-called "problems" that we face every day and compare them to the type of problems we faced hundreds of years ago, thousands of years ago, or even millions of years ago. We get bored, we have psychological problems, we fill the void by consuming more, we get fat because we aren't exercising enough or eating too much crap, we get old and wait for death to release us from the mechanical drudgery of our existences. There's nothing good on TV. Nice guys can't get laid. While I'm not necessarily advocating returning to an era where males used to club prospective mates across the head and drag them back to the cave for some neanderthal lovin', it's food for thought. Has progress really gotten us very far? Antibiotic abuse has left us succeptible to diseases while cheap food delivery has encouraged expanding waistlines of the people, while sedentary occupations (most of which are office or computer based) ensure that in order for us to remain physically healthy, we have to go hit the gym.

Within the animal kingdom, we no longer have natural predators, so nothing keeps the herd in check. Natural resources get consumed at a rapid clip while the population continues to expand, although it is slowing down. On the other hand, people aren't dying as fast as they used to, ensuring that the population won't be going down any time soon, unless the long promised Alaska-sized asteroid comes by and decimates a healthy portion of the human race. Best thing about natural disasters is that they don't tend to discriminate among the haves and the have nots.

Would've been nice if we got to reach the stars and discover life on other planets, but chances are that they wouldn't like what they see. Once peak oil hits and civilization crashes, the only ones to survive us will be the primitive bush tribes and any other people that have managed to maintain some level of balance with nature. Looks like it's time to go and rent The Gods Must Be Crazy to see if I can pick up some language tips.

A friend commented that I should've gotten into politics, but I suffer from an excess of personal ethics and idealism which makes it a dangerous occupation. That, and I came to the realization that as an individual, I can't save the world, but I can merely save myself and whoever's next to me.

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